Author: The Elderly Aunt
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The Elderly Aunt, Contributor
Elderly Aunt, what do I do about my mom who’s becoming openly racist?
Elderly Aunt, please help. How does one deal with the heartache of their own mother, who lives nearby, and with whom they have a close relationship, switching from being mostly silently racist, to becoming vocally racist? I feel more heartbroken than when I lost a loved one to dementia.
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So … what’s the point of New Year’s resolutions?
Hey Elderly Aunt, what’s the point of New Year’s resolutions? I set them every year. By February (sometimes earlier) most, if not all, are broken. Are we just fooling ourselves with this “tradition”?
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Hey Elderly Aunt, how can I get people to call me by my name?
I have always gone by my full name, Jennifer. It’s what family members call me. It’s what my friends call me. It’s what my coworkers in my department call me. But for some reason coworkers in another department that I frequently work with have begun referring to me as “Jen” in emails and sometimes in person …
Hey Elderly Aunt, Is it time for a gift-giving truce?
Hey Elderly Aunt: What kind of gift do you get for a family member who has everything and doesn’t need any more stuff? Is it appropriate to just call for a gift-giving truce and not exchange things?
Elderly Aunt: How to solve a problem with neighbors? Peanuts.
We’ve lived in our house for about two years, but we only know our neighbors who live next to us on the right. We don’t even know the names of our neighbors on the other side of us, although we wave to each other. It’s friendly but awkward. It seems that it’s long past the time when we should have introduced ourselves. What advice do you have for ways we can break the ice with our nearby neighbors even though we let that ice thicken over the last two years?
Hey Elderly Aunt, I’m tired of politics, so should I send a message by not voting?
Hey Elderly Aunt, I’m so tired of politics on all levels. I read your response to a reader about how to find news we can trust. It was fine advice, but I’m not sure why it matters anymore. Politicians are going to lie, so what’s the point of spending so much energy on them? And I know I’m not alone, based on conversations with my friends. Wouldn’t it send a clearer message about our collective frustration if we all chose not to vote?
Hey Elderly Aunt — if I want to weigh in on politics, how do I find information I can trust?
Hi Elderly Aunt, I hate talking with my friends about politics because they don’t all agree, and it ends up turning into a stressful shouting match. So my approach has been to avoid political news so I can plead ignorance. But now that this impeachment stuff has begun, and I feel like I should know what’s going on. But where do I start? How do I find information I can trust about it so I can make an informed decision and coherent statements about it? Help, please.
Hey Elderly Aunt, how do I root for a certain D.C. football team by name?
My husband and I are fans of a certain professional football team in Washington, D.C. Both of us grew up around the D.C. metro area and have rooted for the Redskins for most of our lives. But several of our friends have criticized us for wearing the team’s jerseys because they say the team’s nickname …
