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

Dear Care and Feeding,

When we go on vacation, my wife is in the habit of taking things from the hotels we stay in, and I’m not talking about those little shampoo bottles and bars of soap. Over the years, she’s taken towels, pillows, pillowcases, blankets, utensils, salt and pepper shakers; she even somehow made off with a small table lamp once! She goes so far as to bring extra bags to load them up with whatever she can get her hands on. I find it embarrassing as hell, not to mention that it sets a bad example for our 7-year-old, whom she’s recruited into swiping stuff as well (our 12-year-old is as embarrassed as I am by it and fortunately, refuses to take part). My pleas to her to stop have fallen on deaf ears. What can I do to quash this before her sticky fingers end up landing us on the wrong side of hotel security?

—I Married a Klepto

Dear I Married,

Some people steal for sport, while others may be driven by mental illness (including kleptomania, which is a real disorder to be taken seriously.) Either way, your wife has a problem and you need to help her get to the root of it. Tell her that you’re deeply concerned about her swiping, that it’s gone far beyond a habit of grabbing a little souvenir here and there, and that you want her to get some support. Help her find a therapist or counselor who she feels comfortable talking to about her habit and encourage her to be transparent with them, and with you. Refuse to go on any family trips that aren’t absolutely necessary until she starts seeing someone and taking responsibility for what she’s been doing. Ask her to consider how she’d feel if your 7-year-old was inspired by her to start swiping items from the store, or from a friend’s house. Talk to both of your kids about why it’s important not to steal and let them know that their mother is making a mistake when she does. Don’t let up on your wife about this until she addresses the issue; I know it may be tempting to avoid dealing with it if you don’t have a trip coming up soon, but this is a serious problem that is going to require dedicated effort from both of you.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

My sister, “Mary,” has always been an emotional person. As a kid, she was full of rage, explosive anger, and unpredictable violence, but only at home. I haven’t gotten over a lot of the things she said and did, and I’ve never felt close to her.

I went on a few family vacations with Mary when we were young adults. Every time, she’d randomly go ballistic, have a violent mental breakdown, and then come around with these overly emotional apologies. She enjoyed these vacations, but it was exhausting, so I stopped going. I tried to explain that I wanted a relaxing vacation, but she got furious, so I avoided the subject.

When she was in her 40s, Mary tried to turn a new leaf. She realized I’d been avoiding her. She’s still very emotional but different. Her insistent behavior is about urgently identifying and addressing problems between us, taking hours to “work on” better communication, and constant requests for heavy conversations. She’ll bring tissues with her!

The problem is that Mary is still in denial. When I explain why I keep my distance, she either doesn’t remember the incident, denies it, says I misunderstood, or switches our roles to make me the perpetrator. Mary will tell me that the “real reason” I’m upset is because I have anxiety and depression and “anger is sadness, expressed outwardly.” (I’ve never been diagnosed with anxiety or depression. Mary isn’t a therapist.) When she gets mad, she reminds herself she’s doing her best and “we can disagree and still love each other.”

Well, no. She destroyed my semester-long science fair project for fun. She brought my secret diary to school and passed it around. She didn’t stop publicly mocking my breast size until we were in our 30s. She snuck up behind me and cut off my ponytail. I’m not going to “forget” any of that and more.

I appreciate Mary’s desire to be mentally well. But these conversations exhaust me. They don’t go anywhere. I’m tired. I don’t like Mary’s constant crying. I’m not interested in doing fake “therapy sessions” to fix something I’m not sure can be fixed. How can I stop Mary’s incessant requests to connect when she won’t take no for an answer?

—No, We Don’t Need to Talk

Dear Need to Talk,

You have to tell Mary once and for all that you are done with her attempts at repairing your relationship. Consider writing her a letter, where you can spell out all of your issues with her without interruption: the childhood incidents that made the deepest impact; her refusal to take accountability; the attempts at diagnosing you in order to deflect from her own behavior. Let her know that your decision is final, and that you will not engage in further discussions about these matters with her. Outline the relationship you intend to have with her, i.e. “I will remain cordial when I see you at family events, but I’m not interested in speaking with you beyond that.” Explain that you have found peace with where the two of you all are now and that you hope she can do the same. If you’d prefer to try and talk this out with her, you can, but be prepared for her to be as defensive as she has been in the past. No matter what approach you take, be clear that you are not available to discuss this matter any further and that your mind will not change.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I will soon be trying for a baby. I am white and my husband is Brazilian, adopted as an infant. He grew up in a wealthy white family in a white suburb, and tends to associate proximity to whiteness and wealth with security. His parents did not encourage him to stay connected to his heritage and don’t understand when he tries to tell them about his experiences of being profiled or feeling out of place.

I want to offer our future kid a different relationship with being brown, hopefully one that is more rooted in pride and community, than my husband grew up with, without invalidating his experiences or values. I know I am responsible for taking an active role in this process and not just leaving it to my husband.

We have talked extensively about race before but this will require a new layer of vulnerability for us both. Can you recommend some books my husband and I could read together pre-baby, and/or some suggested questions we should explore?

—Mixed in Trump’s America

Dear Mixed,

Let your husband know that you want your child to be proud of both sides of their heritage and for them to know about both backgrounds. Tell him that you want to invest some time into preparing for that. Be honest about the fact that you want your kid to avoid some of the discomfort he experienced growing up and that you also want them to know more about where they come from. Explain that you want to prepare your little one for life as a mixed-race child.

A book I love is Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sittiing Together in the Cafeteria, which tackles how children develop their racial identity and offers ways to help your child do so in a healthy way. Farzana Nayani’s Raising Multiracial Children may also provide some helpful guidance with preparing for some of the situations and questions that will arise. When your child is actually born, you’ll find that there are many children’s books designed to help mixed-race kids understand their diverse backgrounds.

You and your husband should make this period of preparation into something celebratory. Encourage him to embrace his background and be patient with him if he struggles to do so; he grew up without the affirmation and education that you’ll be providing your child. Both you and your husband should research Brazilian history and culture so that you can talk to your child about this part of their identity. If your husband is Afro-Brazilian, you’ll also want to be prepared to educate your child about what it means to have Black heritage.

Your child’s experiences will be largely informed by how they look. If they are white presenting, you’ll need to talk to them about the privileges that their appearance grants them and the importance of holding tight to their mixed ancestry in spite of it; you’ll also have to prepare them for how white people can sometimes speak about people of color when they don’t believe there are any in the room. If your little one resembles your husband more, you’ll need to prepare them for the fact that strangers won’t always recognize the two of you as mother and child. If they have an ethnically ambiguous appearance, you’ll have to brace them for people being curious about their background. Regardless of what they’ll look like, you’ll need to be ready for serious conversations with them about how America often treats Black and brown people.

Gender will also, of course, be a factor. If you have a brown son, he’ll be able to see himself in his father. If you have a brown daughter, she may need some help processing the fact that she’s different from her Mommy in a significant way. It will be particularly important to affirm her looks, because she quite easily could compare herself to you and to the dominant images she’ll see in the media (yes, magazines and screens are more diverse than ever before, but they are still largely white).

I know “check your privilege” sounds worn out and trite, but as the white parent to a (possibly) brown child, you do have to be cognizant of how your own race impacts your perspectives so that you can be sensitive to the experiences of someone who may not have the same advantage. You have to make sure that you and your child are consuming content (books, film, TV, etc.) that centers people of color on a regular basis. You need to be able to tell your kid about heroes of other races, and not just Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. You should also consider your child’s identity when looking at places to live and schools. Children of color often have difficult, isolating experiences when they’re few and far between.

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Give some serious consideration to your experiences with people of other races, particularly brown folks. Yes, you’re married to one, but who else do you interact with? Do you have any non-white friends? Spend time in communities of color? If your world is basically all white, you should address that before raising a mixed-race child. Find activities where you may be able to interact with diverse groups of people. I also believe it’s particularly important for white women raising brown children to have brown female friends, especially if you have a daughter; there’s insight that women of color can provide you that men simply don’t have. If the only non-white people in your life are men, you may want to interrogate that.

Race is an uncomfortable subject and there are many parents who have chosen to avoid the topic with their children altogether, often leaving their kids ill-prepared for how the world sees them. It’s great that you’re being proactive about this and that you want to affirm your child’s heritage. If your husband isn’t receptive to these efforts, it may be tempting to abandon them; please don’t. Like you said, you have a responsibility to your kid. They’ll be much better off if you invest time into grounding them with information about where they come from.

—Jamilah

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