Dear Prudence,
My daughter is in her 40s and just had a baby by herself. She’s finding it difficult to adjust to single motherhood and keeps pushing more of the responsibility on me. I am 70, and caring for an infant more than a few hours at a time is difficult for me. My daughter has a nanny in the mornings and early afternoons, but if she has to work late, she calls me to come over without advance notice, sometimes four days in a week. On weekends, she drops her daughter off with no warning and gets angry if I am out of the house.
A decade ago I used to watch my son’s stepchildren after school. My daughter recently complained at a family dinner that I spent more time with her brother’s children and that they “weren’t really his,” which really upset him. She refuses to apologize, and her tone with me has become increasingly bitter, but she keeps calling me over. I understand she is under stress, but this can’t go on. How do I get through to her?
—Unpaid Child Care Worker