Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so today we’re diving into the archives of Care and Feeding to share classic parenting letters with our readers. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding,

Our friends have three boys under age 5, with the youngest being a 1-year-old. With each kid, it’s gotten more difficult to do anything with them because they never get a babysitter. The weird thing is they send the kids to day care, and the husband has family close by who would watch them. They have brought the kids to many adult parties where kids were not invited.

We recently had a mutual friend in town, and we went to their house one whole day but refused the other night because we and our guest wanted to have a nice dinner out. They were invited but wouldn’t come because it would be hard with the kids. We suggested they get a babysitter or one of them stay home and let the other go out. They’re still mad, but I feel like we are more than fair and willing to hang out at their place with the kids.

Is it really too much to ask that a few times a year they leave the kids with someone else? Not to mention they are pretty strict on language (can’t even say “dumb” or “beer”), so it takes a lot of restraint to respect their rules. Also, they can definitely afford to pay a babysitter.

Should we just find new friends?

—Just One Night?

Dear Just One Night?

Sometimes, when our friends become parents, we become incompatible in ways we were not before. It’s no one’s fault—it just happens. I personally think they sound rude and unreasonable (no, you cannot bring your children to a party when the hosts have asked you not to bring your children!), but they also just have a fundamentally different view of what they want to do in their spare time: be with their three sons.

I encourage you to make new friends but also to keep the lines of communication open here. Go to the zoo with them and their kids occasionally, go to the aquarium, etc. They may simply be friends that you can now only see in the context of time with their children. That’s their choice, but it doesn’t mean it has to be yours as well. It’s time to meet some new people who share your interests.

—Nicole Cliffe

From: A Neighbor Complained That My 4-Week-Old’s Crying Is Ruining the Neighborhood. (July 8, 2019).

Dear Care and Feeding,

My wife (we’ll call her Jessica) and I moved our family of four in with her grandmother about two years ago for two reasons: to assist Grandma as her age-related mobility issues make it difficult for her to live alone, and to make it financially feasible for Jessica to be a stay-at-home mom for a couple of years. Grandma gradually became more and more emotionally abusive toward Jessica and me, eventually demanding that our family “get the hell out of her house” this week. Thankfully, she’s never shown any ill will toward our kids, nor has she yelled at us in front of them.

We are bunking with Jessica’s mother for a week or two while we arrange an apartment to live in, and have had some financial good fortune at the right time to make a decent living situation possible now. We have told our 5-year-old son, who absolutely loves his “nana” and has never been mistreated, that she doesn’t feel well and needs some time alone right now; but eventually he is going to want to visit or have a slumber party with his nana.

Should we make a clean break with this woman who has been emotionally abusive toward Jessica and me, or make some occasional exceptions for our son’s sake? And if we decided to be done with Grandma for good, how should we break it to our 5-year-old? FYI, our other child is only 1 year old, and doesn’t have these same attachments.

—Conflicted

Dear Conflicted,

I recommend giving the whole relationship a very generous amount of time to “settle,” since tempers are running high and you are still in a very vulnerable place while you wait to able to make safe and reliable housing work.

After that, I think the level of relationship to shoot for is “minimal,” as in: You go with your son to have a meal with Nana occasionally, and leave if she becomes inappropriate or abusive. There’s been no sign from your letter that Nana was an abusive person prior to the onset of extremely old age (and a difficult living situation), and I would encourage your mother-in-law to try to make sure Nana’s mental and neurological health is being monitored by a doctor.

You don’t have to tolerate any bad or abusive behavior from anyone, but this doesn’t seem to me to be a situation in which you need to completely cut off a relationship that brings pleasure to your son, who has been living with her for all the time he remembers being alive.

—N.C.

From: My Mom Keeps Jetting Off for Months and Leaving Me Responsible for My Dad. (April 1, 2019).

Dear Care and Feeding,

In my state, the cutoff for kindergarten is Sept. 1. That is, any child born on or after the first of September starts school a year behind the other children born in the same year.

My mother was a kindergarten teacher for 25 years and always told me that the children in her classes born September–December tend to have better concentration and pick up more quickly on concepts due to being a little older and, therefore, a little more mature.

I see this theory at work in my own family as well. I am an April baby who tended to always be a little bit behind, and my younger sister is a September baby who was always the star student.

What do you think is an appropriate cutoff for children to be at their best when it comes time for kindergarten? Would it be crazy to hold our child back a year if they’re born, say, after March or April? Are they truly at an advantage starting school a little older, or is it more up to chance and the child as an individual?

—Kindergarten Now, Kindergarten Later

Dear KNKL,

This often winds up being a very class-distinctive question, as many families will obviously enroll their child in free public school as soon as they possibly can, while more affluent families can afford an extra year in day care, an extra year with one parent out of the workforce, etc., and then reap the benefits of a larger and more mature kindergartener. This is not super relevant to your situation, it’s just something to be aware of when the subject comes up: This choice is a nice one to have.

If you can afford it, go ahead and hold your kid back. There are, in fact, advantages to doing so, which your mother (and anyone else involved in early childhood education) have observed over many years. A year is an eternity to a child, and if you have a physically little kid who is still working on emotional maturity, that extra time may be really valuable and set them up for success. If you don’t do so, no harm no foul, you’ll be in the same boat with the majority of the nation’s parents, and all that is meant to be well shall be well.

—N.C.

From: My Mother-in-Law Insists on Seeing Our Daughter Without Us. That’s Weird, Right? (March 22, 2019).

More Parenting Advice From Slate

My fiancé was raised as a Reform Jew; I am a casual Christian. We have mutually decided not to circumcise our forthcoming son. His family is, to put it lightly, up in arms about our not hosting a bris. Through my fiancé’s sister, we were warned of my future mother-in-law’s plan to host a “surprise” bris at our house a week after the birth! I’m ready to fly off the handle.