We’re about to adopt a little boy. People’s responses to that are honestly flooring me.

Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My spouse and I are on a difficult journey through infertility struggles. We’ve had some pregnancy losses, and we’re currently pursuing treatment. During this time, we also became foster parents, with the goal of helping parents and children to reunify (privately, I felt that channeling my grief into helping other parents would be healing).

Our most recent foster case has transitioned to adoption. We love our soon-to-be son, though we had no idea he’d become legally ours when the case began. Suddenly, I’m very self-conscious about how this looks from the outside. I don’t personally believe that adoption is a solution for infertility, and our little boy is not a consolation prize. I find myself bristling at well-meaning comments from others (“You get to keep him!” being a common one) and I don’t want our toddler growing up thinking he was Plan B. How do I navigate the nuances of two traumatic experiences—our infertility, and our child’s removal from his first family—in social situations without promoting an unhealthy view of family-building?

—Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right

Dear Right,

I want to say, first, how much I appreciate your recognition of the complexity of the situation you find yourself in, and the thoughtfulness with which you’ve approached it. Now the challenge is—as it so often is—dealing with others whose understanding is less nuanced, and who have the luxury of an offhand response.

One “solution” (which will be helpful only in the future; it does no good with all the people with whom you’ve already shared the full details) is to stop telling people about your difficult journey through infertility struggles and to not describe your son’s foster-to-adoption story. Neither is anyone’s business but your own. If there are people in your life—a sibling, a best friend, a parent—to whom you are accustomed to “telling everything,” then go ahead and tell them everything, including your reservations about adoption, your strong feelings about it not being a solution to infertility, and a confession of your anxiety about “how this looks.”

But since the cat is out of the bag with (most of?) the people in your life, I’d say you need to divide these well-wishers into two categories: those closest to you and everybody else. With Group 1, retroactively offer an accounting of everything you just told me. With Group 2, the appropriate response to their delighted congratulations (when offered while your son is still young enough not to understand, or when he isn’t present) is to say thanks, and move on to talking about something else. (And do not offer updates as they occur: Consider the discussion of both your efforts to become pregnant and your son’s adoption closed. When you do eventually become pregnant, and you want to share that news with the whole world, no matter what these people say—whether it’s, “OMG finally!” or even “You must be over the moon to be having ‘your own’”—stick to “Thanks.” There’s no percentage in correcting the assumptions of others, especially when the emotional cost to you is high.)

If there is in fact no Group 1—if there is no one in your life to whom you feel you “owe” the whole story—then my advice about Group 2 applies to both.

When it comes to your son, all you need to do to make sure he doesn’t feel like Plan B is to love and treasure him—I promise, if you do, he’ll know. And of course doing everything you can to support him through the traumatic loss of his first family (including recognizing that it is a trauma—not by pointing this out to him and trying to process it with and for him, but by being available to him as he feels and processes it, and offering him resources to help him do so) will go a long way to ensure that he feels deeply loved and precious to you. In “social situations,” if anyone is thoughtless enough to say to him, “Aren’t you a lucky boy?!” or, in his presence, to you, “Aren’t you lucky you got to keep him!” consider laughing, maybe responding with the ambiguous, “Luck has nothing to with it,” and then changing the subject (one of my most reliable go-to’s). Then, when you get home, ask him how the comment made him feel. And let him, for the zillionth time, know how very much you love him.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband, “Jack,” and I are at odds over something he allows our two boys, ages 4 and 6, to do when he takes them grocery shopping. He lets them eat handfuls of candy and other things out of those self-serve bins. It’s not only unsanitary, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s stealing and setting a terrible example for them. Jack says he considers it “sampling.” I’m the main breadwinner in the family, and it’s my husband who is usually at home with the kids. It’s he who almost exclusively handles the shopping while I’m at work, which means I can’t be there to supervise what goes on. How can I put a stop to this?

—Promoting Pint-Sized Petty Theft

Dear Petty Theft,

I’m with you: Letting the kids grab food out of the bins is a terrible idea. Along with what you’ve mentioned, it’s a lousy thing to do to everyone who buys food from that bin after your little germ-carriers have dipped their hands into it. (Your husband is lucky he hasn’t been kicked out of the store yet.) It is petty theft—you might point out to your husband that “sampling” applies only to what’s offered for free by the store, not what’s taken from them without express permission—and allowing it indeed gives them the message that taking what isn’t theirs to take is OK.

Try to say this in as non-accusatory a way as you can muster. “I know you don’t want to give them that message,” you might say (lovingly). “They’re too young to understand the subtle difference you understand between taking candy that’s not theirs from a store and taking it from friends, say.”

You might also point out (still keeping your tone level) that if others are doing what the kids are doing, they are picking up whatever others have been putting down. I know you’ve told him that this practice is “unsanitary,” but I’m guessing that spelling it out in gross detail—“If anyone who has a cold has just blown his nose and then stuck his hand in the bulk gummy worms bin, that cold is definitely going to be passed along to the next poor chump who reaches in for a handful of worms and bits of mucus”—will be more effective. (As my creative writing students know, concrete details will always be more effective than a summary.)

I do want to offer one tip for a healthy, long-lasting marriage. Even though you’re right about this business with the bulk bins, in general, it isn’t fair to expect your children’s father to be responsible for their care while you supervise it from a distance. In other words: You’re not the foreman; he’s not the worker. So don’t tell him he can’t do this anymore; don’t issue orders and don’t make the rules and expect him to follow them. Talk things over with him. In situations where his judgment proves to be less than the best objectively (theft is wrong; sticking hands in food that others may have stuck their hands in is begging for health trouble; sticking hands in food that others will take home to eat is selfish and mean), have a thoughtful conversation that helps him see things in a way that inspires him to make a better choice. And if he’s doing something with the kids that you don’t care for but that is not objectively bad, maybe keep your opinion to yourself. Nobody likes to have all the responsibility but none of the authority.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I went out of town for a friend’s wedding. We have two kids, “Sarah,” who is 8, and “Travis,” 11. We left them with my sister, “Olive,” as the wedding was adults-only. During the reception, we got a call from Olive saying that Travis had crashed her car into a neighbor’s parked car while trying to drive off with hers. She said Travis had gotten into her purse and taken her keys while she was in the bathroom. Thankfully, our son wasn’t injured, but he did cause thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to her car and the neighbor’s car he hit.

Olive does not want to submit this to her insurance because it will increase her rates. Instead, she wants my husband and me to pay for it. I say it’s her problem for allowing my son to gain access to her keys in the first place. He could have been killed. (If anything, Olive should be grateful we aren’t suing her!) We don’t owe her anything, right?

—Unlicensed Driver

Dear Unlicensed,

If leaving her car keys in her purse, in her own home—which I gather you believe was irresponsible of your sister—means that what happened was her fault, I have to assume you warned her that your 11-year-old 1) habitually goes through people’s purses, 2) is easily tempted by what he finds there, 3) has never been taught that taking other people’s things is wrong—or has been taught this but the lesson’s never taken hold, and 4) is likely to steal her car if given any opportunity and take it for a joy ride. I would further have to assume that she didn’t take those warnings seriously, or she would either have refused your request that she babysit overnight, or locked her purse in a safe and hid all her valuable belongings. Perhaps she could have left her car in a neighbor’s garage, just to be extra safe.

But I’m afraid that all of my assumptions may be wrong.

If so, shame on you for insisting that what happened is “her problem.” You should absolutely pay for the damages caused by your son. You should also get him help immediately, whether through a family therapist, individual counselor, or both (stealing her car was not a harmless, run-of-the-mill prank; you’re right that he could have been killed—and so might others have been if he’d made it off your sister and her neighbor’s street). You should recognize that what Travis did is a harbinger of even worse to come if there isn’t an intervention now. You should apologize profusely to your sister.

And you should take a hard look at yourself. Something is very wrong when you reduce an incident such as this to “I’m not giving you a red cent!” and a level of hostility to your sister that rises to your self-righteous assertion that she’s lucky you’re not (yet?) planning to sue her. If your disdain for her long predates this harrowing event, why did you leave her in charge of your children while you went out of town for a wedding? (Unless it wasn’t so much that you were entrusting them to her, but rather that it was a punishment for her past misdeeds.)

—Michelle

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