Dear Prudence,
My husband had three grown children before I married him. His two sons are successful adults, while his daughter would rather do anything than work. She has three children and isn’t in touch with their fathers. We have paid for technical training, child care, and a car. My stepdaughter dropped out because the training was “too hard.” We arranged for jobs, and she didn’t bother to show up. We stopped giving her money after it became apparent all the “emergencies” were made up (give her rent money, and it would never be spent on rent). She and the kids live with her maternal grandmother. We visited last week and had an early Christmas. We made sure all the grandchildren had new shoes and winter coats, and we bought bikes for the older two boys. Only our oldest grandson let it slip when we called that as soon as we left, his mother stripped her children of all the gifts we gave them and tried to return them to the store for cash. She sold the bikes for a pittance online. My husband is furious, and I feel sick. We don’t know what to do, and every option is awful. If we confront my stepdaughter, she will throw a fit. Or she will take it out on the kids. Or cut us off from them entirely (she has done that to her brother and mother already). We love our grandchildren.
—Would-Be Givers