| Adapted from an online discussion. Dear Carolyn: My wife and I have a great marriage and a wonderful daughter and both like our in-laws. My father-in-law admits he was not an involved father. He was part of some exciting breakthroughs in the biotech industry but also worked 55-plus hours a week. My wife was mainly raised by her mom and, after she died when my wife was 12, by her maternal grandparents. When our daughter turned 1, my father-in-law said he wasn’t going to miss her childhood, too, so he retired and moved near us. He takes our daughter to day care, picks her up afterward and stays with her until we get home. He is almost always available to sit with her when we ask him. This is great and all, but he doesn’t seem to realize that he was very privileged to be able to do this (he teaches part time) and that my parents aren’t as fortunate. They’re all in their early 60s, and very few people that age can afford to retire. Because our daughter sees them much less, she’s not as close to my parents, and it hurts their feelings. At her 3rd birthday party last week, my parents showed up with this expensive train set she’d been wanting. She thanked my parents but immediately ran off to show it to her other grandfather. Am I right in feeling he should have encouraged her to go back to my parents and spend some time with them? Instead, he opened the toy they bought her and started showing her how to use it. I complained to my wife, but she said this is the price we pay for all that free child care. Easy for her to say; it’s not her parents getting frozen out. Should I talk to my father-in-law about this, or will I be killing that golden goose? — Anonymous | 
