I have plenty of bad advice in stock, and people keep taking it. This week’s advice includes a lot about mothers and mothers-in-law, because it’s the holidays:

• She’s not going to change.
• Don’t have a heart-to-heart conversation with her about how she has to change.
• She picks creepers for husbands, and then insists on forcing them on you. That’s also not going to change. Yes, some people put their spouses before their children. This is not news.
• No, don’t let her current husband babysit your kid, no matter how much she insists.
• She is going to feed your dog scraps from her plate. It’s gonna happen. You can keep the dog in another room at meal times, if it matters that much to you.
• Yes, she is obsessed with food and will talk about it all week. You can’t change that either.
• She will pursue you around the house trying to interact with you and have a heart-to-heart conversation with you about how you have to change. Your main options are a) gray rock b) leave the room c) change. We know how c) is going to go.
• Leave her the fuck alone (this is my all purpose relationship advice).
• If you want to maintain a relationship of any kind with her, you’re going to have to enforce your boundaries vigilantly. Sorry. That’s the way it is.
• Denial is incredibly powerful. She’s gonna deny. You’re gonna deny that you can’t change her. I can’t help it. Nice talking with you.

I note here that all the mothers and mothers-in-law above are many different people.

But there is also some advice I’m refusing to give to various people, and that process is not going well:

• Please don’t send me your carefully drawn-up criteria for the election of group officers, for my review. I am not the group chair. I know that I am always there and have lots of experience and knowledge, but it’s not my job.
• Please don’t send them to me again, once you redrafted them. I am still not the group chair.
• Please don’t ask me to fill in for you at the meeting because you’re late. I deliberately stayed home from the business meeting so that kind of thing wouldn’t happen. I’m sorry I didn’t get your phone call asking me to do it. No, I’m not sorry. I had my phone on Do Not Disturb for a reason.
• Please don’t table an agenda item for when I’m there next. I haven’t been the group treasurer for two years now. The outgoing group treasurer already answered your question about the agenda item. I happen to know because someone insisted on calling me.
• Please don’t call to tell me the results of the business meeting and the election, either of you. I am not the group chair. Never have been.

I don’t expect these people to change, but I am going to continue to enforce my boundaries. I have a lot of experience leaving responsible positions, so I know there will come a time when they finally don’t want my advice, and it will piss me off.

I also know that contrary to what people really, really want to believe, the best kind of group chair is one who is there for a short time and then hands it over to someone else. Spread the responsibility around.