My Family Fights Over Where To Spend The Holidays

Dear Martha:

These days there’s a lot of tension in my family — my parents constantly argue about where we’ll spend the holidays. They live together, but my mom always wants us to visit her family, and my father gets upset if we don’t go with him to see his.

For all of us grown children, some with kids, it gets really complicated given that we also have plans with our own spouses. We don’t know what to do about this situation since my parents treat us like children, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to please them both.

— Feuding Family Member 

Dear Feuding Family Member:

The first thing that the married, grown children with kids need to do is come to an agreement with your spouses over who you will be visiting for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. It’s extremely important that you are in agreement so that you don’t follow your parents’ example in which it sounds like they are trying to separate and divide the family.

I think that with all of the siblings together in a united front, you can try and put a stop to your parent’s fighting, and put pressure on them to spend time all together in one place, whether it be someone’s house or a restaurant. Basically anywhere that lets you all be together. You all need to take measures to ensure that this type of behavior does not repeat itself during these special days that are intended to symbolize family unity.

Many times adult children have the opportunity to teach lessons about love to their parents and this is one of them.