Dear James: Do I Need to Be Nice to My Aging Stepfather?

Editor’s Notice: Is something ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Each Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Inform him about your lifelong or in-the-moment issues at [email protected].Don’t need to miss a single column? Signal as much as get “Expensive James” in your inbox.Expensive James,My late mom’s second husband was fairly imply and made no bones about disliking me in his heyday. However now he’s in his 90s, he has no different household, and I really feel responsible about how I actively ignore him. (Simply avoiding him isn’t an possibility as a result of he lives subsequent door to my sister.) I’m usually a caring particular person, however he was the supply of a lot agitation throughout his time with my mom that I’ve advised myself I don’t owe him something.Am I proper to disregard him? Or ought to I rise above my petty grievances to verify on him and take him casseroles?Expensive Reader,Petty grievances: That’s the stuff. Juicy animosities, reared mushroomlike within the darkness.This is perhaps a very good second to clarify that, though I’ve evangelized for the values of niceness and positivity on this column, I’m neither an particularly good nor an particularly constructive particular person. Everyday, I’m as grumpy and jaundiced as the subsequent man. Not but as far gone as Evelyn Waugh’s Gilbert Pinfold (“The tiny kindling of charity which got here to him by way of his faith sufficed solely to mood his disgust and alter it to boredom.”) however getting there. Positively getting there.Nonetheless, I occur to know—with the identical bland certainty that I do know my very own identify—that loving your neighbor and searching on the intense facet are the best way to go. They simply are.So I’m going to say: Sure, it is best to inspect this grisly previous boy, this diminished antagonist. Try to be sort to him. The universe has positioned him squarely in your path, proper subsequent to your sister’s home, so the very fact of his persevering with existence have to be reckoned with.Actively ignoring any individual is hectic. Higher to go in generously, sporting the mighty breastplate of whole undefendedness. He’s not precise household, this man, so even when he’s snippy or insulting, or rejects your overtures, he can’t attain in and pluck these deep bass strings of neurosis. He can solely irritate. Plus he’s older, and drained of his former energy, like a washed-up supervillain. You possibly can deal with him!Take a look at it, if it’s useful, as a rebalancing of the scales. Revenge just isn’t a dish greatest served chilly. Revenge is a piping-hot casserole, graciously offered to a lonely ex-tormentor.In contact with my decrease self, and presumably yours,JamesBy submitting a letter, you’re agreeing to let The Atlantic use it partly or in full, and we might edit it for size and/or readability.