DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My girlfriend and I have decided to take things to the next level and move in together. She’s all ready to buy a condo or small house, but I want to just rent for a bit. Even though the housing market is really good in our area right now and it is possible we could make some good money on a resale in a couple of years, but I just do not want to get in over our heads right away. Is the potential quick profit worth the risk? --- TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY

DEAR TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY: I’m not a fan of couples who are newly living together investing in real estate right off the bat.

Rent for now, and focus on getting used to life together and socking away some money. If the relationship is solid after a year or two, then, if the market still looks good, it may make sense to start shopping for a place of your own.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: Everyone tells me I should be happy she isn’t covered with tattoos and piercings, but my 17-year-old daughter has recently gotten into this new look. The funky clothes don’t worry me as much as the biker-chick makeup, and what’s with the greasy hair?

I keep telling her heading to college looking like that is going to send out a lot of wrong messages, but she doesn’t want to hear it, and her mom, my ex, says she’s fine with it. I just know what I would have thought about a girl looking like that when I was 19-20, and that’s not how I want my daughter to be taken. Am I wrong here? --- WORRIED DAD

DEAR WORRIED DAD: Sometimes we have to pick our battles, and this may be one of those times.

You’ve made your opinion clear, which is what parents have a right to do. Now, you have to step back and let her do her thing, which is another part of being a parent. If she doesn’t feel like you’re judging her every choice, she’ll be a lot more likely to keep you in her life.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My son and his fiancée just set the date and destination for their wedding. I am fine with the date, but the destination is a Caribbean island I never even heard of before they picked it. I started looking up plane fare and other details and when I say there’s nothing there, there’s nothing there. Everyone and everything will have to be brought to the location from another island.

This is their choice, and we’re lucky that the bride’s family is picking up most of the tab for the wedding itself, but we want to have friends and relatives from our side at the event, and I can’t even begin to imagine how I am going to ask them to put out a ton of money to attend. The flight alone will be several hundred dollars a person from where most of us live.

I don’t know my future daughter-in-law’s family very well, and I feel funny saying something to her. Do I tell my son how nuts I think all of this is from the guests’ perspective? I feel embarrassed just thinking of asking people, and yet don’t want to offend anyone by NOT asking. --- WHY COULDN’T THEY ELOPE?

DEAR WHY COULDN’T THEY ELOPE?: I understand your discomfort. It puts you in a tough situation, but I think when the time comes, you need to extend the invitation and accept this destination wedding will simply not be the destination for everyone.

Before things get too far, you need to share your concerns openly with your son and your future daughter-in-law. If they’re set on this plan, you might offer to hold a celebration honoring the couple after the wedding for your close family and friends who can’t make the trip for the main event.