Dear Amy: My husband and I have made a lot of sacrifices over the years in preparation for retirement. We live comfortably because we live within our means.
Every time we dine out with our adult children (who frequently travel and spare nothing when it comes to their dining experiences), these adults expect us to cover the entire tab, even when it is their idea to go out.
My husband and I often share our meal to save cash.
Our children, however, who live in houses worth more than ours and have successful careers untouched by the recession, order expensive items off the menu that they don’t even eat and several glasses of wine. Then they expect us to cover the tab and don’t even offer to pay the tip.
Experience has taught me to let the waiter know that we will be splitting the tab, and when I do, the “children” act as if they can’t believe that we would do that to them.
People have told us, “The parents should always pay.” What is your opinion? — Anonymous in Louisiana
Dear Anonymous: One of the few real privileges of doing well in life is picking up the tab for the folks.
There comes a tipping point when adult children should want to honor and acknowledge the work and sacrifices of their parents.
Your kids should celebrate their own good fortune by being generous, and yet they don’t attempt to treat you, pay their own way or even engage in a table-tussle over the check.
The next time your kids suggest a meal out, you and your husband should be honest and say, “We’d love to see you, but we really can’t afford to treat you to dinner, unfortunately. We wish we could, but we just can’t.”
Dear Amy: My husband, who is 45, had open-heart surgery two years ago.
Recently at a family gathering his older brother put him in a headlock and tripped him up by bending his knee out from under him.
(Ever since the surgery he has a bad knee that swells up and has to be drained. Now he has two bad knees.) When my husband got up from rolling around on the ground in pain, his brother called him a “pansy” and punched him hard in the chest.
Now we don’t want to have anything to do with this guy.
We have tried to explain that he could cause serious harm to my husband and that they are not kids anymore.
I’m sorry, but you don’t punch someone in the chest when wires hold his chest together.
His brother does not understand what the big deal is and feels he did nothing wrong. Are we wrong to not want to have any more contact? — Fed Up
Dear Fed up: Your husband probably guards his fragile health by staying away from cigarettes, swordplay and other dangerous activities.
It’s also a good idea for him to steer clear of a toxic sibling who is either too slow-witted to understand or too mean-spirited to care that a blow to the chest could prove fatal.
Don’t bother drawing a diagram for this bully — just give him a wide and wary berth.
Send questions via e-mail to askamy@tribune.com or by mail to Ask Amy, Chicago Tribune, TT500, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611.
