
Carolyn Hax: Why can't sister-in-law just take their mother's advice in stride?
Dear Carolyn: You mentioned the importance of people feeling heard and what a difference it can make. I agree, but I'm a constant witness to my sister-in-law, 'Jane,' not extending that kindness to my mom.
My mom is a super homemaker; no one cooks or cleans like her. She knows that, so she tends to offer advice. It can be a little annoying but also completely harmless and well-meaning.
When she does it to me, I always say her way sounds better and agree to give it a try. To her credit, she never points out that I rarely follow through; she's happy if I just agree with her.
After a recent holiday, she offered suggestions to Jane about the dinner. If you're wondering why not my brother instead, it's because if it had been up to him, we'd have had takeout on paper plates. Later, she did offer him a suggestion about how he was washing dishes, which he handled like I do.
The things my mom said to Jane weren't mean or malicious, and it wouldn't have taken any effort for Jane to agree that the tablecloth would have looked better if it had been ironed, that the salad vegetables were a little underdone, that loose tea is better than bags.
But my sister-in-law answers as if she said something else. Like when my mom said the tablecloth needed to be ironed, Jane said, 'Yes, we got that in France. Isn't it lovely?' It's weird and hurtful.
My brother said he thinks Jane's way is 'clever,' but it's not to my mom. She even talked on the way home about how Jane ignores and 'talks down to' her. Can I try discussing this with Jane, since she is not the sort to be deliberately hurtful?
— Constant Witness
Constant Witness: An hour in this kitchen, and you'd witness me smashing crockery.
Jane is a saint.
Not just because of the oh-no-we-are-NOT-doing-this gaslight job you did with the storytelling.
But let's talk about that: Since Jane prepared a holiday dinner for her husband's family on her own initiative, clearly, can we agree she undertook a lot of labor for love? Then your mom thanks her with three criticisms that couldn't hope to get any pettier.
Oh. My. Floofing. Dog.
You call them 'suggestions' that are, oh kayyy, 'a little annoying'! But 'completely harmless, 'well-meaning'! and 'weren't mean or malicious.'
!!!
To nitpick your daughter-in-law's holiday hosting is dictionary mean in a few senses — not to get all definey on you.
Do you know what is actually 'completely' without harm?
'Thank you for a lovely dinner.'
It's also 100 percent annoyance-free, requiring no multi-paragraph contortionist interpretive dancing by hyper-compliant grown children, because it's kind on its face.
You are a constant witness to your mother not extending that kindness to Jane. Flatly withholding.
What is the point of homemaking, an honorable and important purpose, if not warmth? And support. Yet you see Jane as problematic because she won't join your group lie propping up the queen of this preening dysfunction.
Part of my urge to smash things is that I know, I know, there's a heart here somewhere that's trying to find the right place. Through all the eerie over-justified homemaker-matriarch reverence is a vibe that you're protective of your mother. Like, everyone needs to be in on this performative awe at her expertise, and Jane's refusal to simper along puts a fragile person at risk.
Whatever the motivation, your response to Mom's deathless faultfinding unsolicited corrections is a disingenuous 'Your way sounds better, I'll try it,' then seamlessly ignoring her — and I couldn't ask for a better example in the wild of talking down to someone. So, whew. Thank you for that.
It is not 'hearing' your mother. It's humoring her. It's buying (lying) your way out of the hard work of honest communication.
This means a couple of things. For one, minor, it means you owe it to Jane to be a whole lot less upset with her. I recommend non-upset. While you're talking down to your mother, she's merely talking past your mother's left elbow, a survival tactic she probably whipped up to keep from throwing crockery herself. (Or she got it from me, since I've advised it before.) You and your brother had lifetimes, remember, to learn how to absorb un! re! len! ting! disapproval from a mother who, I'm guessing, finds love-love too vulnerable.
Next, major: It means recognizing this whole humor-Mother act is, in fact, an elaborately workshopped emotional survival tactic. It's not some effortless courtesy gesture.
Following the good-intentions idea, I'll posit that your mom is in her own protective shell. She may have found perfectionism safer than emotional intimacy.
What your family is protecting itself from, that's too far offstage for me to see. (Maybe not for you and a therapist.) I just see performance where honest connection could be.
In a truth-telling family, for example, you'd respond to Mom in the car: 'I wouldn't want to hear what I did wrong after cooking all day. To bond with Jane, try, 'I'm so grateful [Son] found you.''

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19 Employees Reveal The Jaw-Dropping Moments A Toxic Coworker Made The Entire Office Go SILENT, And These Are An HR NIGHTMARE
No matter where one works or what kind of job they have, there's always that ONE coworker who makes everything, well, awful. Whether they're nosy, obnoxious, or simply rude, they constantly ruin the mood of the entire office... That's why when Redditor u/MommaOnHeels143 asked, "What's something a toxic coworker did that made the whole office go silent?" thousands of people shared stories about their unhinged coworkers who left the entire office bewildered. Here are 19 of their most jaw-dropping stories: If you've ever dealt with a toxic coworker who left the entire office speechless, you can tell us about it anonymously using this form. Content warning: Death, weight-shaming, animal abuse, firearm usage, and misogyny. 1."I started my career at a federal agency and worked with a guy who was just weird. He did all kinds of unhinged stuff, but the thing that shook the whole office was an email he sent out one morning..." "Evidently, he had been dating another employee in a different division of the agency, but they broke up, so he sent an email to around 200 coworkers with the subject line: 'Please Respect Our Privacy.' He then rattled off three pages of narrative explaining every detail of his relationship with this woman who broke up with him, and concluded with 'So we will no longer be getting married.' I will never forget the morning that email went out. The entire office went silent for five minutes — no typing, no phone calls, no small talk, just a bunch of people trying to wrap their heads around what they had just read. Nobody knew they were dating, and nobody cared they broke up; it was never going to become a topic of office conversation until he brought it to everybody's attention in the weirdest way possible. Then, to make matters worse, the woman he had been dating found out and said, 'Married? We went out five times!' 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"She then sent an office-wide email with the calorie count on everything at the potluck to inform us of how many thousands of calories we'd be consuming that day, and spent the rest of the day sulking in her cubicle. She did lots of other crappy stuff, but this one angered a lot of people and ultimately led to the boss telling her to back off and let everyone enjoy their lunch." —u/spider_speller 4."I once had a coworker whom I didn't speak to often because we had different jobs, but I still thought we were on friendly terms as we had gotten coffee together a few times..." "One day, both of us came into work wearing the exact SAME green shirt with a slight cutout near the neck. One of our male colleagues joked that we were twins and asked if we had gone shopping together. This wasn't in great taste, but I laughed and said 'Great minds think alike.' What my coworker did next caused everyone in the office to go quiet: She. LOST. HER. SH*T. She started accusing me of copying her, and claimed I always tried to be 'exactly like her' by stalking her when she went to get coffee, etc. Everyone went silent, and I just sat in my chair and cried. She apologized a week later with a letter and a necklace, but I never talked to her again. My contract was up two months later, and I was glad to get out of there." —u/Geekygreeneyes 5."This happened about seven years ago on the anniversary of 9/11: I work in one of New York's neighboring states, and my coworkers and I were talking about 9/11 when I mentioned that my dad, who works in Manhattan, was there when it happened." "A problematic coworker casually said she didn't understand why 9/11 was made out to be such a big deal since people die every day anyway. My coworkers and I were so perplexed by her comment that we just walked away. 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"She presented a basic slide, rapidly named everyone leaving, and said, 'Thank you for your service.' Then clicked to the next slide for the sole person retiring. This beloved woman had worked in the district her entire adult life, but the slide was blank with only her name on it. It had other boxes that said 'Achievements,' 'Plans for Retirement,' 'Pictures,' 'Funny Memories,' but they were all blank. The new principal said, 'Oh, whoops…anyway, thanks for your service,' wrapped up the meeting, and immediately walked to her office. The whole celebration, which normally takes 20 minutes, took maybe three. You could have heard a pin drop. The first sound was made by a teacher who started hysterically crying because she felt so bad for the retiring teacher." —u/SinfullySinless 8."One of our coworkers carried his shotgun into our cubicles, racked it, and asked, 'Which one of you is first?'" 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"One night, this guard came down to warn me that there was a bat in the hallway near the pool and gave me a heads up that the hotel guests might be calling down to the front desk to complain about gunfire because he was going to shoot the bat. By the time the front desk finished gaping, we managed to come to our senses and stop him. He was escorted out by management soon after that, and was apparently blacklisted by the hotel chain. Our other security guard was relieved that he was let go. As for the bat, I grabbed a cardboard board out of an old tabletop game we kept in the lobby for guests and an empty garbage can, went upstairs, caught it, and let it loose in the parking garage near the exit so it could fly off once night fell." —u/NoeTellusom 19."I had a colleague with anger issues, I'll call him 'Angerman,' and another colleague, whom I'll call Vicky. Vicky was the only person in her department due to a freakish string of others leaving. This meant that although she was experienced in her area, she wasn't caught up on our team's particular workflows. At that time, we were a start-up with around 15 members total..." "One day, Vicky dared to ask Angerman politely, but publicly, for an update on his project. His desk was in the corner and he turned around to face the rest of the office before screaming: 'For F*CK'S sake Vicky, if you just use your eyes and find the link, you can check on updates yourself! Do you want me to come click it for you? Want me to hold your hand, so we can find the link with our eyes, and then use our hands to click it? Do you want me to read it to you as well? Like a bedtime story? Does Vicky want a widdle bedtime story for lunch?' He turned around again to face his screen and muttered something I don't remember. There was dead silence in the office — no typing, no clicking, nothing. Vicky somehow held it together for a few minutes before saying she was grabbing coffee for anyone who wanted one. I went with her to 'help carry them' and let her know that it wasn't his first outburst. It was his WORST, but she did nothing wrong. I believe Angerman got a slap on the wrist, not even a formal warning. He was talented at what he did, and I think he got away with a lot because of it. Vicky chose to message him in the future, but I still wonder if he had the same kind of outbursts via text." —u/WalkingSilentz Did any of these stories surprise you? Have you ever dealt with a toxic coworker who did something shocking? Tell us in the comments or answer anonymously using the form below! Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity. 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