Dear Prudence, December 13, 2023: “Help! My Stepdaughter Is Playing a Power Game With Me Around Food, and I’m Sick of It.”
Wow. Wow wow wow.
Link to the original letter here.
My take: To recap, the LW complains that her 11-year-old stepdaughter, “Annie,” is constantly wanting to taste or share the LW’s vegan food, and sometimes eats it without permission. As the only vegan in the family, the LW prepares this food for herself alone, with no intention of sharing it, and she’s mad, and she wants advice.
Prudie suggests that Annie’s behavior is about more than food. She alludes to a possible “divorce and blended family-related thing.” This seems like a no-brainer, though clearly not to the LW, and though Prudie mentioned it, she isn’t really interested in it either. Having raised this possibility, she skates right past it. Instead, she zeroes-in on why the husband isn’t helping, and suggests counseling.
But Prudie, Prudie, Prudie. You don’t so much as mention the language this stepmom uses for her stepdaughter—correction, her eleven-year-old stepdaughter. Annie “whines,” is “irritating,” “gets her mitts” on the stepmom’s food, and is running a “power play,” in which she “[goes] deliberately after my food and [makes] sure to ruin it all.” After one episode the stepmother writes: “As punishment, [I] changed the wi-fi password and told Annie she wouldn’t be getting it back the entire weekend. She threw a crying fit and my husband immediately changed it back.”
This hostility to a child is way, way beyond any kind of norm. And when the child is experiencing divorce and remarriage! Why didn’t Prudie call the LW out?
A better stepmother would embrace Annie’s interest in vegan food, and make enough to share. A better stepmother would invite Annie to cook with her. A better answer would have touched on these obvious next steps. Counseling’s always nice, Prudie, but it can’t fix everyone, and this LW is beyond repair. This was a serious miss.
Chance this letter is fake: People this entitled are out there; what can I say.