Dear Prudence,
My big sister often makes jokes and comments that are really kind of mean. As we have gotten older, I’ve started to find this behavior entirely petty. Recently, our brother and his wife had a baby girl after trying to conceive for more than two years. Instead of congratulating them, my sister launched into a series of “jokes” about all the trouble my brother’s daughter (then a one-day-old baby) would cause as a teenager drinking and having sex. I found these comments completely obnoxious and said so. My sister told me that our brother “deserved” her jokes as payback for his treatment of women. How can I get my sister to understand that her behavior is mean and destructive to long-term relationships?
— Little Sister Fed Up