DEAR ABBY: My husband and I and our sons (aged 13 and 8) spent a week camping with a sister, her husband and 3-year-old daughter. During that week, my kids and I bought her daughter several little gifts, and our youngest son frequently took her along with him to camp activities.
When the week was over, my sister and her husband took our sons with them to drop them off at our father's house, where the boys were to spend the next two weeks. We gave our sister all the food we had left, but on the way when it was time for lunch, she asked our boys if they had money for lunch. When they didn't, she made them go hungry until they got to our father's. How do I know this? When I talked to my sons on the phone after they arrived, they told me what my sister had done.
I got upset with my sister because she made my children feel they were a burden. My sister thinks I'm being petty. We have exchanged some very unfriendly e-mail letters about this. Am I wrong to be upset about the way she treated my sons? -- UPSET IN OHIO
DEAR UPSET: No, you are not wrong; your sister's behavior was inexcusable. If it was a matter of money, she should have asked you beforehand to give your sons enough money to cover their lunch. Or, she should have prepared something for them to eat from the leftover groceries.