Martha and Sally Join Hands over Ms. Meniscus

Dear Ms. Meniscus,

I was divorced 13 years ago and have custody of my 14 year old daughter.I remarried 4 years ago and my wife and daughter have a stronger bond than my daughter ever did with her real mom(she has refused to have anything to do with her real mom for 3 years and for good reasons.)The problem that I'm having is that my wife seems to want our daughter to be perfect-- she won't give the child a moment's peace.A god example is our daughter waited until 7:00pm to call and find out if her ride to school was picking her up in the morning and the people were not home my wife said that since she did not find out early she would have to take the bus. No big deal but this is an agreement that my wife and another childs mom had made togather and our child has been checking this way all school year and if there has been a problem either my wife or I have taken the kids to school. Neither one of the kids have taken the bus all school year and our daughter missed the buss this moring my wife called me very

upset because she had to take our daughter to school. I work 24 hour shifts and had not gotten home from work. My wife also informed me that our daughter had fed the dog some leftover food that had been in the refrigerator for a week because we had ran out of can dog food the day before and our daughter told her what she had done and that we need more dog food today. My wife wanted to ground her for not telling sooner.Our daughter is a very good child but she is still a kid and sometimes forgets things or doesn't do things exactly right. But I don't see where an occasional infraction is something to get bent out of shape about or to punish her about. I feel my wife is a little overbearing at times and she always compares our daughter to her at the same age.

-Bewildered in Beverly

Dear Bewildered in Beverly,

Ms. Meniscus would first like to note that if this were Sally Jesse Sarah Jennifer Raphael, you could, no doubt, haul your wife and child onto the stage for general yelling and screaming and accusations of various malaises: "How DARE you leave that )(*&&^(&^ dog food in the fridge and miss the &*)(*&^&*(& bus!!! Who do you think you ARE?????!!" However, this is Ms. Meniscus by way of New York, courtesy of CreakyJoints, and the author would like to indulge in a tasteful response. Therefore, she advises you to speak with your wife privately about your concern. Perhaps she is overbearing; perhaps you are overprotective of your daughter. Perhaps your daughter actually commits enormous sins and you are wholly unaware (this is rather sarcastic). Whatever the truth (and as Chang-Rae Lee writes in Native Speaker, "The truth, finally, is who writes it."), communication is a most imperative next step. With any luck, you and your wife will reach a better understanding or compromise on how to confront your daughter's assorted infractions.

Dear Ms. Meniscus,

I am in a wedding that the bride and groom want to choose what the entire bridal party gets them for their wedding gift - namely, their limo. They are expecting each person to contribute approx $75 per person. What is your opinion on this. Should they be making the decision on what their gift should be and then advising how much "we" owe for it

-Frustrated in Framingham

Dear Frustrated in Framingham,

Ms. Meniscus is sympathetic to your fantastic frustration. Weddings can be joyous unions for some and aggravating inanity to others. Ms. Meniscus does not profess to be Miss Manners or Ann Landers; surely these fine fabled women would have the "correct" answer to your question, etiquette-wise that is...and they'd find the correct answer in a Wedding Propriety tome dating back to 1953, when jello salad incorporating spam and fruit cocktail was quite the hot item. And women wore tin foil bikinis to advertise pie tins. But Ms. Meniscus digresses. Quite frankly, dear, Ms. Meniscus sides with your exasperation. Perhaps it would be a different issue for the bride and groom to choose their wedding present if it was merely love, or lifelong friendship. But once money enters the picture, well, as George Harrison sings, it often takes "plenty of money...to do it right." And time. A whole lot of precious time. What Ms. Meniscus is articulating is that the gift and the amount spent on it should not be prescribed. Not only is it distasteful, but it also implies a certain lack of trust in the wedding party to choose appropriate gifts on their own.

Dear Ms. Meniscus,

Hypothetically: The bride's father is paying $40,000 and the groom's father is paying $20,000 for the wedding. I feel regardless of who's paying it should be the couple to wed, who first goes to look at reception sites. I also feel with a budget given the bride and groom should be the ones to negotiate with the vendors. After this is done, share this with the parents and invite them to look at locations that meet the budget. Then all can give their input, but in the end it should be the choice of the bride and groom. Am I correct?

-Determined in Dedham

Dear Determined in Dedham,

Ms. Meniscus recognizes, of course, that your query is *completely* hypothetical. She is sure that it in no way whatsoever resembles your situation, and that you are in no way whatsoever the bride or the groom. But, Ms. Meniscus will humor you and answer the fantastically fictitious question regardless. The answer depends on which age--antiquity or modernity--you and your sponsors inhabit. Tradition holds that the wedding's sponsors often have input as to the location of the event, the featured niceties, etc. In more recent years, in our post-post modern era, the more independent bride and groom have said, "Fiddle sticks! We are the individuals tying the knot, and we should choose the type of rope." Err...rather elaborate metaphor, but Ms. Meniscus is sure you get her drift. Ultimately, if you seek independence from the wedding sponsors who might tend to be nosey or over-involved in your view, then the only true solution is to fund the great day yourself. That way you have complete control over the venue, the size of olives in the martinis, the version of David Hasselhoff's "Hooked on a Feeling" that you wish to hear.

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