{"id":132321,"date":"2025-09-04T13:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T13:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/132321\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T13:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T13:32:07","slug":"my-brother-in-law-just-did-something-wildly-dangerous-because-its-his-christian-duty-i-want-my-sister-and-nephew-out-of-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/132321\/","title":{"rendered":"My brother-in-law just did something wildly dangerous because it\u2019s \u201chis Christian duty.\u201d I want my sister and nephew out of there."},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Prudence is Slate\u2019s advice column.\u00a0Submit questions here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dear Prudence,<\/p>\n

My sister is married to a fundamentalist Christian idiot. Three weeks ago, he brought a homeless man to live with them because \u201cit\u2019s their Christian duty.\u201d \u201cHomeless Hank\u201d has so far stolen from them, urinated on a neighbor\u2019s lawn, used drugs in their home, and brought in shady people who have commenced turning their place into a drug den. It would be bad enough if it were just the two of them, but they have an 8-month-old baby and I fear for his safety. I\u2019ve told my sister she and my nephew are free to move in with me any time and stay as long as they need to, but she says it\u2019s her \u201cduty\u201d to obey her husband. What are my options for keeping my nephew safe?<\/p>\n

\u2014Your Son is in Danger<\/p>\n

Dear Danger,<\/p>\n

Throughout this summer, I\u2019ve had several recent occasions to tell letter-writers to refrain from calling CPS on neighbors whose kids ride bikes alone or sometimes forget to put their swimsuits on. My message is always that this agency is busy with kids who are actually in danger from things like, well, exactly what you\u2019ve described here\u2014living in a drug den. If the situation is as bad as you say, you need to tell your sister that if she doesn\u2019t get your nephew out of there, you\u2019ll call the authorities for help.<\/p>\n

\n Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don\u2018t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication.\n <\/p>\n

Dear Prudence,<\/p>\n

This may be none of my business, but a new family just moved in a few doors down from me. They have a toddler and a 7-year-old, \u201cJackson.\u201d Jackson has become friends with another child in the neighborhood, \u201cDoug,\u201d who is a year older. The thing is that Doug is the neighborhood terror and has been responsible for things ranging from petty vandalism (sprayed shaving cream all over a neighbor\u2019s porch) to animal cruelty (kicked a Maltese when it got too close to him). Should I alert Jackson\u2019s parents before Doug can get their son in trouble or act as a bad influence?<\/p>\n

\u2014Duty to Warn<\/p>\n

Dear Duty to Warn,<\/p>\n

How do you even know all this? Are you keeping files on the behavior of all the neighborhood kids? You are a true busybody. I completely understand that you want to protect Jackson from falling in with the wrong first grade crowd, and I don\u2019t want to minimize that kicking a dog is bad. But please refrain from making a report. Kids who are troublemakers don\u2019t deserve to be cut off from friendship for the rest of their lives, plus, for all we know, Doug\u2019s neighborhood terror phase could be coming to an end, or Jackson could even be a good influence on him. And if Doug truly is the worst and most destructive kid ever, rest assured that the new family will pick up on that within a couple of hours and make their own decision about future playdates.<\/p>\n

You already knew when you wrote that this wasn\u2019t your business, and you still really wanted to get involved. So I\u2019d like to help you do more than just use all your self-restraint to avoid being a tattletale. The feeling that\u2019s the core of your letter\u2014a desire to help out a local family and help a kid stay out of trouble\u2014is a really great one, and I wonder if you could poke around and try to find an outlet for it. Tutoring, mentoring, or helping out in a classroom or at a local Boys and Girls\u2019 Club might be a fit for you. Or, if my impression that your tolerance for childish behavior\/misbehavior is not the highest is correct, you could stay at arm\u2019s length and sponsor a family who needs some help. This might free up some of their time and resources to focus on their own little Doug or Jackson.<\/p>\n

Want more Prudie? Slate Plus members get an additional column each week.\u00a0Sign up for Slate Plus now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dear Prudence,<\/p>\n

I am an addict, and full abstinence is the thing that worked for me, as much as I\u2019d like to be the type of person who could do \u201cCalifornia sober.\u201d I have just passed eight years of sobriety and if there\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve learned, it\u2019s that I can\u2019t trust my instincts, so I am here to get an outside perspective.<\/p>\n

I still drank when I met my wife and for a few years after, but was coming to the realization that I could not have a healthy relationship with alcohol. She was \u2026 strangely unsupportive, often complaining about having to drink alone. I think this came from a place of ignorance. If you are able to have a drink or two and not have that turn into 10 or 20 and a trail of destruction, then maybe it\u2019s hard to see how that is.<\/p>\n

Recently, her alcohol use is increasing, seemingly as a reaction to stress at work. She will usually just have one glass of wine or a cocktail, occasionally two, and very rarely three. But it has got to the point where it is nearly every night. Compared to how I used to drink, part of me says I can\u2019t really comment, but another part feels this is insidious and using it as a coping mechanism is not good. I\u2019d appreciate your insight.<\/p>\n

\u2014Can\u2019t Trust My Brain<\/p>\n

Dear Can\u2019t Trust,<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good to self-reflect before you start nitpicking a spouse\u2019s behavior, so I appreciate what you\u2019re doing when you say you can\u2019t comment on your wife\u2019s intake because of how you used to drink. But it\u2019s actually okay to acknowledge that her relationship with alcohol is nothing like yours was and also be transparent about how you\u2019re feeling. You\u2019re not a prosecutor trying to form an airtight case against her and anticipate any weaknesses in your argument\u2014you\u2019re her life partner and you two are on the same team. So hopefully she wants to hear about what\u2019s on your mind. Plus, it\u2019s not an attack to say \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m overreacting but there\u2019s something I\u2019ve been thinking about \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Help! My Neighbors Are Clearly Uncomfortable With My Dog. But What They\u2019re Doing About It Needs to Stop.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My Wife and I Agreed to Parent Our Own Kids. But She\u2019s Setting Hers Up for Disaster.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n


\n This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only<\/p>\n

A Lot of the Women I\u2019m Sleeping With Seem to Have the Same Problem \u2026 Down There. They Have No Idea.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n


\n This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only<\/p>\n

This Isn\u2019t the Typical Way Women Like to Have Sex. But It\u2019s Better Than Anything I\u2019ve Ever Done.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

That said, before you sit down and talk with her, you should make sure you\u2019re clear in your own mind about what your issue is. Is it that you\u2019re noting that her drinking is increasing little by little, and wondering if that\u2019s going to continue? Are you concerned that she\u2019s drinking not socially or because she has a passion for wine, but to cope with stress from work, and that could lead to dependency or ultimately increase her anxiety? Or is your gripe with how her behavior changes or how her alcohol assumption affects your time together? Be specific, and be honest. And when it comes to this conversation, and your life overall, be a little nicer to yourself! You recognized that you were an addict and stopped drinking. That\u2019s something to be proud of. Not being \u201cCalifornia\u201d sober isn\u2019t a failure, and despite what you say, there\u2019s no evidence that your views aren\u2019t worthy of trust. If your instincts were as terrible as you say, you\u2019d still be telling yourself that drinking worked for you.<\/p>\n

Classic Prudie<\/p>\n

I love my girlfriend. She is amazing\u2014funny, smart, kind\u2014but I am tired of her \u201cfriends.\u201d She has a tiny group of friends from college who are the most dysfunctional group of women I have ever met. They basically brag about their mental illnesses and wear their \u201cdisabilities\u201d like badges. I am sure a few have real issues, but from the stories I have heard, only two have actually seen a medical professional. The rest either self-diagnosed or have some holistic quack they found online.<\/a><\/p>\n

Get advice on manners and morals in your inbox three times a week.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Prudence is Slate\u2019s advice column.\u00a0Submit questions here. Dear Prudence, My sister is married to a fundamentalist Christian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[3005,11463,83542,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-132321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-dear-prudence","10":"tag-featured-rubric","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}