"Your sister and her husband should be apologizing to you. I would be absolutely mortified if my 5-year-old behaved that way over a dinner they had requested that someone else then made for them. Unfortunately, many parents seem to be incapable not only of shame, but of setting the kind of boundary you did."
"You've done nothing wrong, of course, and you don't have to pretend that you did. If I were you, I'd try something like 'Sorry that Oliver was so upset' and see if that shuts them up. This is the rare situation that actually calls for the 'sorry you feel that way' non-apology!"
A babysitter prepared spaghetti for her nephew Oliver after he requested it, but he then demanded McDonald's instead. The babysitter maintained her boundary, and Oliver ate the prepared meal after a brief tantrum. The child's mother later called angry, insisting the babysitter should have taken Oliver to McDonald's because he was a guest. The advice columnist validates the babysitter's approach, noting that parents should teach children to accept reasonable boundaries and that the sister's reaction reflects a broader parenting problem. The columnist suggests a non-apology response rather than capitulating to emotional blackmail.
Read at Slate Magazine
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