RenitaLeandra

Maybe don't promise your daughter money for her future if you are going to spend it on her brother in the end. Why are some parents so unfair to one of their children?

It's crazy how some parents act differently depending on whose child they are talking to. It seems as if the cliché phrase they always say about not having a favorite kid is actually a lie, at least for some of them. I'm an only child, so my experience with siblings or families with multiple children is based on what I see and hear, not what I have experienced. I've heard many times stories from my friends telling me how their siblings — usually their brothers — got favored over them. It could be they got the bigger room, or a better phone, or even, like in this case, money that they didn't receive. 

That kind of behavior from parents make me think that they are not very loving to both or all of their children. They just picked the one they liked best and decided to always be better to them than to the others. Doesn't that sound crazy to you? It definitely sounds crazy to me. That's incredibly mean and awful, especially if they are still young. I understand that as people grow older, they start to make their own decisions, which can cause problems and distance in the family. So maybe now your parents have a preferred child just because they see one of them more or have more things in common with them. I would really suggest that they keep that quiet and try not to favor one kid over the other, but I understand that it can happen. But if that has been happening since the kids were young, then the parents are doing something really wrong. Is horrible to teach a child that they won't get the same things as their siblings just because they aren't liked as much. That is full-on bad people behavior. 

In this case, I do think that even though they are both adults, it does seem like the parents are still in the wrong. You can't just promise your daughter you will give her money to start her life and then simply change your mind and give it to her brother instead. That is mean and awful to do to someone you love. If I were the daughter, I would also not let you live with me after that. They can go ask the son who they gave the money to let them live with him. After all, they paid for most of his house; the least he can do is let his parents live with him for a while. And for the daughter, I'm really sad she went through this, but it's a good thing she is an independent woman who doesn't depend on her family's money, unlike her brother, apparently. Let's hope these entitled parents learn the lesson of not favoring one kid over the other; that never ends well. 

A woman and her husband want to spend Christmas Eve at home with their almost-3-year-old toddler to begin their own family traditions instead of spending it visiting with her mother and sister. Her mother understands, having started the existing tradition herself when the girls were young. But her sister is taking it incredibly hard and is making the woman feel guilty for "ruining" Christmas.

When should you follow an existing tradition? And when is it time to start your own?

Tradition. It's a funny thing. Isn't it? It's something you've done for, oh gosh, who knows how long. In fact, it's probably something that was being done well before you were even around. And the very idea of there being a tradition is that you should stick to it and keep doing it. Year in, year out of the same thing. Stopping it is "breaking" it, like a connection to the glorious past and your ancestral line has been severed.

But someone somewhere at some point had to be the first one to start that tradition. And then it wasn't even a tradition at all; it was just someone doing something one time, probably breaking another tradition to do it. Then the next year they decided it was a good idea and that they should keep doing it. Thus a new tradition was born.

Should an employee have to leave their workplace as soon as they hand in their notice?

Leaving a job can be annoying, even if you choose to quit. You have to summon up the willpower to hand in that notice and tell your boss that you're out of there, and there is no telling what the result of that will be. Some expect their leaving employees to go through laborious and needlessly stressful handovers, or claim they don't want them to go, but then offer up a lousy counteroffer. Others simply try to stop the quitting from happening at all, drawing out what should be a simple process into a whole drama that is not the sendoff that most people are going to want.

The reality is that unless somebody is retiring, there is little guarantee that giving your two weeks will end in a party. Although the workers of today switch jobs more than ever before, a lot of places don't really put a lot of effort into what happens when one of their employees decides to leave. They operate with the attitude that they always have all the power, even though this is one of the few situations where that isn't necessarily true.

If you have already got all your plans in place to leave a job, it probably isn't worth getting upset with however they choose to handle you leaving. So long as there is somewhere for you to move on and grow, that is what should be the main focus.

A roommate decided to use their shared living room as a yoga studio three nights a week to make some extra money, leaving the other roommate with no space to use it and no chance to talk about it. 

Is it fair to turn a shared living room into a business when your roommate pays half the rent?

Living with a roommate can get complicated when you don't respect the other person's privacy and boundaries. I know how this works because I have one, and we have an awesome relationship. But it wasn't always fun: we had to get to know each other to build a strong bond when it comes to sharing this apartment. Over time, I realized that to have a roommate who's a friend, or at least someone you can get along with, respect is the most important ingredient. Otherwise, it won't work.

If my roommate wanted to make some extra cash by doing some yoga classes at home… I would mind if it got out of control, like it's happening in the story. Three nights a week of paid yoga classes and my living room full of yoga mats like a studio- that's a whole other game because it doesn't let me use the house I'm paying for. It's not fair for the other roommate to deal with that, especially since she's not getting any money out of this. 

I'm not saying that the other roommate has to share the money, but some consideration would be nice. I don't think she realizes how much space she's using for her yoga classes, and how much it forces the other roommate to stay locked in her room because she can't get out… Sometimes having a business doesn't align with living with a roommate.

Nothing is bound to cause a rift between neighbors like vehicles not being parked where they should be.

It is a concept that is so simple, yet apparently so hard to grasp for so many people who live near others: you should only be parking your car on your own property, or another place where you have express permission to do so. It is an unfortunate truth that the average home only has so much space for vehicles, but that is a problem that you have to work out for yourself if you end up with more cars than driveway space.

Millions across the country rely on their cars as their main form of transportation. It is no surprise that any block in their ability to drive and store their vehicles comfortably is going to feel like a major issue. Even if they don't have a car at all, it is very presumptuous for somebody to use their neighbor's property without even getting the proper permission.

Things get really ugly when the person dealing with this transgression tries to find a way to fix it. If somebody thinks that this is OK to do, they are likely to take issue with any attempt to stop it, no matter how mild. This can often be a situation in which subtlety is not your friend, and strong action needs to be taken. Sending the right message is half of the battle when neighbors are not willing to respect the normal boundaries.

Let's go back to basics: have you ever tried a cookbook and still ended up with a mess and no food?

By now, we know that cooking isn't something easy to master. Yes, we can cook to survive; that's not what I mean. I mean finding a hard, complicated recipe and having the skills to actually do it. If you think about it, complicated recipes are like chemistry. There are a lot of ingredients on the table; you need time, patience, and the ability to observe what's going on. It could go well… but if it goes wrong, you might blow up your whole kitchen.

So, maybe starting slow is a good idea. Since I'm no cook and I do struggle with having no cooking skills at all, I decided to go back to basics and grab a cookbook. You might think cooking without videos and no real person showing you what things should look like is far more complicated, but you're mistaken. Yes, the cookbook has no videos, but the explanations are detailed and precise, so they're very helpful for amateur chefs. You can take as much time as you need and reread as many times as you want. With videos, you have to pause, go back, and it becomes a whole other story…

Should you have to tip on something you didn't get service for?

Tipping culture has gotten way out of hand these days. It's a pretty huge part of living life in 2026. We're adding 20 percent to everything we do, and that's just the way it goes. But does this mean we have to stand for it? Tipping on something that you didn't even get service for is a pretty big ask. You have to wonder, who is it even going to? Tipping is important to do for workers who rely on it for their income. This was me for a long time. If the tips weren't coming in, then I was in the hole. And it's frustrating for everyone when that's the case. It passes the buck from the owners to the customers in a way that can feel unfair. If we all just made a living wage, then we wouldn't have to worry about it, but that doesn't seem to be the case these days. It's also frustrating for a customer, though, because you don't want to have to pay extra for something you didn't even receive. Not these days. Everything is expensive enough; we don't need it to be more expensive than it already is. 

A girl moved abroad to Australia to study; she settled there and paid visits to her family several times a year. They never went to visit her, even though they have traveled around the world and she offered several times to pay for them to visit, so now she refuses to keep going as often as she did. 

How does one handle unilateral relationships where the other person (or people) doesn't put as much effort into maintaining contact? 

As sad as it can be, sometimes we need to take a step back and acknowledge that the other person with whom we have a relationship might not be as interested in keeping contact as we are. It happens a lot with friendships, especially when you grow up and have the same group of friends since high school. Life happens in between, and you grow apart. No fights, nothing dramatic, just life playing its tricks on all of us. It's hurtful either way, but we accept it as a part of becoming adults. 

However, what we don't usually expect is our own family leaving us behind and choosing not to make an effort to keep in touch, especially if we've always been close and never had serious problems. 

This girl got a reality check when she finally figured out that her family had no intention of actively keeping in contact with her after she moved abroad. 

An experienced developer who has worked at the same company for about five years finds themself being told to "just delegate" their work to a junior staff member who is unqualified to take on the work. Meanwhile, their coworkers are shipping AI-generated work without checking it first.

When should you delegate tasks and when should you do it yourself?

With AI promising magical productivity that, in a lot of cases, has yet to materialize, we often forget the original advice that every upper manager gave to middle managers and experienced senior staff everywhere when they complained about too high a workload: "Just delegate more." 

To them, it has always been a legitimate strategy. After all, they're doing it daily when they delegate all their work to you!

Go figure.

I think a lot of us have probably had a manager at some point in the past, present, or definitely will at some point in the future who has been guilty of smashing the "delegate" button far too quickly. It's the advice they give for any problem, the miracle solution. 

The problem is, you're keenly aware that your direct reports already have too much to handle.  They're drowning in their workload already and struggling to keep up. They're also not necessarily qualified to handle your work that might be delegated to them. There's a reason why it was a higher-level task to begin with. But, having less expensive junior staff handling tasks out of their pay grade has long been a favored management solution, especially when it can be labeled as "development" or "growth." Which brings us full circle back to that original problem: You don't have enough time to complete your work because of the work your manager is delegating to you.

Where did the cycle start? That's anyone's guess; it's one of life's greatest unanswered questions.

It's pretty common for 24-year-olds to have nothing in savings. In fact, most 24-year-olds have a negative net worth from student loans or credit card debt, so any 24-year-old who has a positive net worth is something to celebrate. There is definitely such a thing as "living in the moment" too much, and if you willingly spend every penny you have on fun things, you're not going to be in a good position when you need your money for necessities. 

There was a time in my life when I spent nearly every penny I made. I did always make sure to save a percentage of my income into my 401K, but that was easy! After all, it came directly out of my paycheck, and I didn't even have to think about it. But from ages 22 to 24, I basically spent all the money I made on whatever I wanted: Broadway tickets, basketball games, Citi Bike day passes, you name it! I just made sure I never let my bank account drop below a certain amount, so I wasn't spending more than I made, and that was good enough for me at the time!

As I've grown older, I've recognized the importance of saving more for my future. It's not enough to just save 10% of your check for retirement! You need an emergency fund of 3-6 months to cover unexpected expenses. You need to invest in the stock market so your money grows instead of sitting in a regular savings account forever. If you want to go on vacation, set up a "sinking fund" so you can save specifically for that, instead of draining your retirement account to go to a resort. 

While some people are serious about saving money in their 20s, many aren't, even into their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Some adults with great jobs and kids still don't have $5,000 to their name, even though they make double that every month. When people have a high income but no savings, it points to a pattern of being undisciplined. If you can't delay pleasure and you buy everything you see, it's not a good sign for your long-term financial health. 

It is pretty darn common for 24-year-olds to spend every dollar they have. The young man in this story is probably around that age, and he's learning that most people aren't as willing to spend their life savings as he is. 

Is it okay to bring kids to a friend group vacation?

Going on vacation is something we all look forward to. Vacations are fun, as you just get to kick back, relax, and recover from stress. Well, some vacations are exactly like that, and others are more stressful than the stress you were supposedly leaving behind. For example, vacations with kids are on a whole different level. If you're a new parent and you're expecting your next family vacation to be blissful, you've got something coming. 

Family vacations are complicated and require extra effort from the adults involved, even though kids tend to love them. Parents, on the other hand, tend to have to run around getting everything organized beforehand and making sure kids are having fun while being safe. It's a full-time job on its own. That's why family vacation and a getaway with friends don't typically mix. When they do, things can quickly get out of hand, especially if this mixture of events happens unexpectedly. 

That's what this story is about. A group of friends decided to go on a trip, but things drastically changed when two of the adults involved decided to bring their kids along. Expenses went up in both housing and food, as could be expected. However, when it was time to split the costs, the parents in the group suggested an even split, which didn't sit well with the person sharing the story. They thought that the parents should pay a bigger portion, as they had a bigger family unit and thus, more expenses. The group disagreed, and the whole situation created tension among the friends.

Why would your in-laws think their daughter- in-law is eating the candy they are gifting their grandchild? Do they not trust her to keep the food for her? Can't the kid share her treats with her family?

Some in-laws are very weird towards their daughters-in-law. As if they couldn't accept the person that their child married just because they are not biologically family. This always makes me think if the problem is whether they don't trust their child's ability to choose a decent and loving partner, or if it's just because it's an outsider to the family and they need to act defensively. Whatever the case is, it's not only malicious to be acting this way, especially if they are the mother of your grandchild. They are part of the family whether the in-laws like it or not, so it's better to get used to it instead of acting all weird and crazy. They married into your family; they didn't steal your child or push it away from you. They just fell in love and decided to form a family on their own. Isn't it easier to accept them into your family than to mistreat them all the time?

The grandparents in this story are not doing things right. They are being incredibly disrespectful by assuming that a mother would take a gift that was supposed to be for her daughter. Yes, it's just candy, but it's also so much more than that. If a mother takes candy from her daughter so she can eat it, what other wicked things does she do? The saying "taking candy from a baby" is the most well-known phrase to describe a witch, so do they think the mother is a witch? I think that these in-laws are either overthinking some little situation and creating a huge mess over it when it's nothing in reality, or they just saw the kid offer one of her candies to her mother and they took it the wrong way — which is insane to do. 

I don't like this people's attitude, and I do think that if they do this big of a mess over something this dumb, then it's better to keep your distance from them. If this whole family drama started over some candy, what can happen with a bigger misunderstanding? I don't think that they like the mother of their grandchild in the first place; the way they acted all defensive over nothing proves it. I do think that the mother is right to be upset over this. After all, they are spreading lies about her, and even if they are dumb, no one wants people to be lying about them, especially to their family. I do hope that the husband stands up for her family and either makes his parents understand why they are wrong or at least forces them to change their attitude. No one deserves to be treated like this, and taking your distance seems like the best solution to avoid a bigger fight over nothing. 

This story has the feel of a questionable car sale: sign here, everyone is busy, and somehow the missing paperwork is now your problem.

This employee already swallowed a substantial pay cut and kept working through conditions management kept promising to fix. Then the company misplaced the contract and decided another signature was needed to release an overdue bonus

Should a guest also have to double up as a maid?

If there is one thing that you learn from cleaning up after strangers in any capacity, it is that people can be nasty. Everybody has wildly different tolerances for dirt, which are often a lot higher if they know that they can leave a mess that they don't have to deal with themselves. Anyone who has worked that side of the hospitality industry probably has a horror story or two.

This is just one reason that it is a courtesy for anyone who is a guest somewhere to tidy up a little before they leave. It is not like they need to leave the place as they found it, but leaving used towels all in one place and making sure any trash is in the garbage can are small gestures that can go a long way.

Unfortunately, the state of the vacation rental industry today has taken this etiquette and turned it into something that basically gives guests another job when they are meant to be on holiday. Airbnb hosts have become notorious for giving their guests an obscenely long list of domestic tasks to complete before they check out, purely because they want to make their job easier. On top of that, many of them have the audacity to charge a cleaning fee to everyone who stays at their property. It is no wonder that many travelers are turning back to hotels as a more convenient way of staying away from home.

A kid from the neighborhood was looking inside a neighbor's window while he was watching American Horror Story, so the mother went and demanded that the neighbor watch kid-friendly shows or close his curtains instead of teaching her kid not to invade people's privacy. 

What is it lately with parents and blaming other people for their own kids misbehaving? 

Seems like parents are tired of parenting lately, and instead of actually raising their children to be respectful human beings ready to live among society, they let them run wild and then confront and antagonize other adults who try to set a boundary on the child. Because children need boundaries. They can't just be left to do whatever they want or cave to their every whim. That's when you get disrespectful kids who throw temper tantrums over nothing, and the parent just stands there, looking into the void while the kid makes a mess around them. 

I know a handful of people who are good neighbors and friends, but when it comes to parenting, they are not the best. Their kids do nothing other than nearly crawl up the walls and run around enclosed spaces while screaming and nearly making everyone around them trip and fall to the floor. They have almost made me fall a couple of times. And let's just say that they don't take it very well when you tell those kids to stop and behave correctly. 

Truth is, it's their job to raise them, not everybody else's. They can choose to ignore their parenting tasks if they want to, but they certainly have no moral authority to come to anyone else and tell them how to live their lives, especially because they're incapable of controlling their own kids. 

If you've ever arranged an Airbnb for your friends, you know how much of a commitment it can be. 

There are pluses and minuses to being the friend who is good at planning. I'm that person, so I know allll about it. I'm naturally the person who wants to take control of plans and make sure that everything is in place. I'm booking the stuff and making the plans. I try not to overexert myself and truly commandeer the trip or activity or whatever it is, but somebody needs to book the Airbnb. And that somebody is going to be me. There are some good things about being this kind of person. You're ultimately in control of what kind of experience you're going to have. You're helping set the parameters of how much you're going to spend and what kind of place you're going to book. Plus, I happen to love researching Airbnbs. It's one of my pastimes. But there are a bunch of drawbacks to being this kind of person. The main one is exactly what happened in this story. If you're the one booking, then you're the one putting your card down. You're happy to get the credit card points, but you have to chase people down to pay you back. If you have friends who are weird about money, they might get weird about paying you back. This is never a fun position to be in with the people you love. You don't want to feel like they owe you money, and they don't want to feel like they owe you money. And if something goes wrong in the friendship or during the trip, you might be on the line for hundreds of dollars you weren't expecting to be. It's never a good idea to mix money and friendship, but sometimes you have to if you're going on a trip or having an experience somewhere. That's what happened here, and what unfolded set a weird chill over the friendship. 

When does helping your family become a financial burden? 

I can still remember the day that I got my first paycheck. I was so excited to work, and getting that money felt like a huge accomplishment; I was very proud of myself. When I told my mother, she told me I was supposed to spend it all, every single penny. She said money is energy, and I need to make it move and flow so I can receive more. I didn't really know how that worked, but I followed her instructions anyway and bought new clothes and other things I'd wanted for a long time. It felt great to have that independence, and it also taught me a lot about money and life.

I also understand that my mother's attitude might not be the most common, and I know for a fact that some parents demand their kids help with household expenses as soon as they start working. I don't consider that a bad thing; maybe the opposite. It teaches kids that things don't come for free and everything needs to be paid for. So, I see the point of the parents in this story, who may want to teach their daughter a lesson about money and how it works by having her cover almost every household expense.

The problem is that they take almost all of her salary, leaving her no room to save for moving out or planning her own future. Where do you draw the line between wanting to help your family and still having your own money?

If you are in a financial place where you have to choose between buying yourself a Halloween costume and buying your two young daughters a Halloween costume, you'd be a fool to choose the former. It is parents' job to facilitate Halloween for their kids, and if you put your own Halloween experience above theirs, you shouldn't be a parent. 

Once you're an adult, it's easy to stop prioritizing holidays that you used to care about so much as a kid. As a child, I planned my Halloween costume by July or August, giving my mom and grandma plenty of time to help sew it. These days, I either wear costumes I bought the year before or put together something mildly creative from my own clothes. Last weekend, I went to a Halloween party dressed as Elizabeth Holmes. I have already seen so many people dressed as Elizabeth Holmes, and Halloween hasn't even started yet! It's perfect for lazy blonde people who own a black turtleneck and don't want to buy yet another Halloween costume. 

There's been a lot of discourse online recently about whether it's immature for adults to still celebrate Halloween into their 30s. I've seen a ton of tweets that say some version of this:

"34-year-old guys be like, "What is the move on Halloweekend?" Dude, it's time to start a family!"

Different 34-year-olds are in very different places in life. Some have been parents for 14 years, some are about to have their first baby, and others still live like they're 21. I don't think it's a crime for anyone, no matter their age, to want to celebrate holidays with friends and family. If a mom with 2 kids wants to go trick-or-treating with her kids on the 31st after going to a Halloween party with her friends the night before, I don't see anything wrong with that! I would question a parent who always chooses hanging out with their friends over spending time with their children, especially when the years of trick-or-treating go by so quickly. Also, and I say this as someone who goes to around 5 Halloween parties every single year, Halloween is for kids. Adults can celebrate and have fun, but if you prioritize that over your kids having fun, your priorities are out of whack. 

Friendship news: Not every misunderstanding deserves a trial, and not every incompatibility is fixable

I had a very old friend who once got offended because I didn't respond to a meme she sent, and she made that incident about how I didn't care about her or her needs, and that I needed to pay special attention to those things; otherwise, she would feel abandoned.

I thought the whole issue was ridiculous, but her argument sounded logical: it was what she needed to feel loved, and I couldn't provide that to her. She said that if I were empathetic enough, I would've made an effort to do what she needed. I thought about it a lot, and I finally concluded that some people are simply not compatible, and although we can make an effort here and there, we can never fix things that naturally don't work.

Of course, I also thought what she was asking was entitled and that it didn't leave any room for me or my feelings, and didn't give me the benefit of the doubt. I sincerely thought that she should take responsibility for her issues around abandonment and that I wasn't responsible for that, even though I was her friend, especially because we had been friends for a long time, and I really wished that she could trust that over any random paranoia she could have about an unrequited meme.

At one point, I decided I didn't want to turn a minor incident into an exhausting conversation, so I left it at that. I could have defended my point, reassured her about my feelings, and explained things for an hour, but to me, the cost of maintaining that friendship had become higher than what it gave me. I decided to let her go and let her think whatever she wanted, even if that meant that in her story I was the bad guy.

This doesn't mean her feelings were wrong; it just means that the preservation of a friendship is not mine at any cost. I can't be subjected to my friend's every whim, because that's not what I subscribed to, and because that's not what I ask of my friends either.

To me, it comes to a point in life when you realize that no matter how much you talk about certain things, there are relationships that cannot work simply because the two personalities naturally don't communicate well, and there is no point in trying or changing yourself to fit someone else's standards. We should all gravitate to where we're naturally accepted, and where what we have to compromise doesn't feel as big.

How much emotional labor do we have to put into a friendship for it to exist? Don't we have some friendships that basically flow and do not need as much work? Can our friendships survive a simple, human oversight?

Not every disagreement needs a solution, and we can let some friendships go without turning the other person into an enemy. I suggest we all try a deep friendship cleaning once in a while. Cheers!