Dear Prudence,
I love my nephews (7 and 5), but they are undisciplined and destructive. My brother-in-law phones it in as a father, and my sister acts like mothering is some mystic art she can’t possibly know. Her answer to everything is “They’re only little boys.” I want to scream at her, “Well, you’re their mother, so act like it!” If I try to intervene with the boys in any way, she tells me she will handle it. She doesn’t. We can’t go out to a restaurant without the boys running around, getting in the way of the waitstaff, or bothering other patrons. At the library, they shriek and destroy books. The last time they visited me, my older nephew brought in a rock from outside and threw it at his brother. It ended up shattering my glass coffee table while my dog was under it.
My sister immediately started comforting her crying son and told him it was all OK, that it was an accident. She never apologized to me or offered to pay for the table. I cut the visit short. We live just far enough to visit each other regularly but not within an afternoon. I don’t want my nephews back in my house again. I don’t know to start this conversation with my sister. I love her, and I hoped the boys would just grow out of it, but they are getting worse. Both of them regularly get in trouble at school and have been expelled from day care twice. I love my sister, but I can’t handle this anymore. What should I do?
—No More Nephews