Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. (It’s anonymous!)

Dear Prudence,

About five years ago, I made the difficult step of cutting off contact with my extremely abusive (both emotionally and physically) maternal grandmother. I told my mom my decision at the time, and she was very understanding and has never pressured me to change my mind. My grandmother has made it clear my whole life that she doesn’t like me and thinks I’m a waste of space, so it did not surprise me that she has never tried to reach out since I stopped visiting or calling her. If she ever said anything about it to my mom or siblings, they never told me. And nobody else in the family has ever given me crap for the decision either. She’s horrible to everyone—think Tony’s mother from the Sopranos—but most would agree she was uniquely awful to me, especially as a kid.

Here’s my dilemma: Four months ago, she got a UTI that caused temporary delirium.



This was only discovered after she suddenly started acting very nice and pleasant to everyone. The UTI cleared up and she mostly returned to her very lucid but otherwise bitter, angry self. Then, several weeks ago, she started texting me out of the blue telling me she loved me and sending photos of her with me as a kid to the family chat. I asked my mom if she had a UTI again, which she did, but apparently the delirium/confusion did not fully go away this time after the infection cleared up. She also mentioned that my grandmother has since been asking about me nonstop and crying because she misses me and doesn’t understand why I won’t speak to her.

Prudie, I’m at a loss. Nobody is pressuring me to visit or talk to her, but I have been agonizing over what to do. I feel so awful at the idea that I might be causing my grandmother pain in her confused, addled state. At the same time, it’s not like she has full-blown dementia. What if this is still temporary and she reverts back to her abusive self? I have no loving or otherwise positive memories of this woman. My earliest memory is her choking me and screaming in my face when I was about 3. She lied about having cancer to get out of going to my wedding, even though my MIL had just died of cancer the year before. She only calls me by my middle name because my first is “too Jewish” (my mom converted). And the last time I saw her, she made sure to tell me how she had taken down all the photos of me in her apartment because she couldn’t stand to look at my face. It was an easy (and right) decision to cut her off when she was objectively a terrible person. But now that she’s just a confused elderly woman who misses her granddaughter, does it make me a terrible person to continue to ignore her, especially since she’s not capable of remembering or understanding why?

—Estranged Granddaughter of Dr. Jekyll/Mrs. UTI

Dear Estranged,

Not at all. Part of the bargain you make when you decide to abuse a child starting at age 3 is that when you are old and confused and struggling with your memory, that child will not be nice to you. She is the person she was when she was mistreating you for all those years. It says a lot about you that you’re even considering reversing your decision to cut off contact, and it’s impressive that you grew into a person with fifteen times the compassion she has. But please, save that for someone who deserves it.

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Dear Prudence,

My dad died while my half-siblings were pretty young, so I “stepped up,” so to speak. I took them camping, taught them how to drive, and was pretty involved in their education. It caused a lot of friction when their mother remarried a divorced guy with a daughter of his own. Her name is “Zoe.” Zoe got jealous of the time and attention I paid to my siblings and constantly complained about being left out. Rather than dealing with Zoe, her parents just coddled her and pushed me to include Zoe in everything. I ended up not seeing my siblings for six months because I was so sick of the constant fights over the issue.

Right now, Zoe and my sister are both engaged with no budget to speak of. I make a pretty good living and can easily afford to help my sister pay for her wedding. The problem is it will be very easy to guess where the money came from. I don’t want to spark yet another fight for my sister. Especially since she is currently living with her parents and Zoe (the cost of living is crazy in their state). How do I handle this?

—Brother of the Bride

Dear Brother of the Bride,

Tell your sister you have a chunk of money that you’d like to give her for her wedding, but you’d be willing to keep the gift a secret between the two of you if it would make things easier for her. If she’s comfortable with a small lie, she can very easily accept it and tell everyone she paid her vendors with a credit card.

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Dear Prudence,

I am pregnant and no longer with my ex. We had a bunch of issues over the three years we were together and it never got better. We agreed to try co-parenting, but hit the first road bump over naming. His parents were very hippie and gave their kids all “theme” names. Think Luna Moon, Stella Sky or Ocean Cay. All the grandkids have similar theme names. I am not naming my baby Star or Sand or Raindance. I have offered to compromise and use either of his parents’ names which are much more mundane. He hates it and thinks it will alienate our kid from his family. I think that is crazy. Can I get some help here?

—Normal Name Please

Dear Normal,

So his position is not “I really like theme names,” but “Not having a theme name will ruin my child’s relationship with my parents and siblings?” That’s concerning, and combined with your bumping heads over this and your agreement to “try” co-parenting (not a lot of commitment there!), it seems clear to me that you are ultimately going to be the one doing 85 percent of raising this child. I’m tempted to tell you to just name her whatever you want.

But, in the spirit of starting off on the right foot with him as you bring this child into the world, I think combining your generous offer to use one of his parents’ names could be combined with a hippie middle name. That’s absolutely as far as I’d go. More importantly, you two do not get along and he’s not reasonable or considerate of your feelings, so please consider putting a formal custody agreement in place—or else get ready for battles over everything from vaccinations to haircuts to whether he needs to show up to collect Margaret Moon on time every Friday.

Catch up on this week’s Prudie.

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