Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. (It’s anonymous!)

Dear Prudence,

I own my own home in a high cost-of-living area. I have a 13-year-old son, and my 22-year-old niece moved in with me after a bad break up. Even studios run around a grand in our area, and my brother can’t afford to help his daughter with expenses beyond her car insurance. My niece has a full-time job and works mornings. I asked her to contribute roughly $400 for rent and to take over cooking dinner most nights. Construction means I am often very late getting home from work and my son has sports practice. My son has chores like walking the dog and cleaning the bathrooms.

Since moving in, my niece will start dinner when I get home or barely before. She acts irritated when I text her reminders or huffy if I complain about how take-out is wasteful. We have a fridge full of groceries and I even meal prep on Sundays. I know my niece can actually cook! Her attitude is wearing on me. She acts like she is Cinderella and I am her evil stepmother.

I hit my limit when my niece picked a fight with my son.

He got dropped off early and found her napping so he woke her up and reminded her she needed to start dinner on time. She told him to buzz off and went back to bed. So my son got a glass of water and dumped it on her. I came home to my son locked in his room while my niece was ranting and raving about what a sexist little shit my son was. At that point, I told her I was fed up and it was probably time for her to move out. She told me that I was basically making her homeless because she couldn’t afford a place on her own. I told her that was what roommates are for or moving back home.

I gave her until December to figure out if she wanted to shape up or ship out. She has been doing better, but it is like pulling teeth. My brother is no help and thinks I am being too hard on her. I don’t get this much grief from my son and he is still in middle school. And for the record, he knows how to cook but would rather do other chores. Should I even try for a month?

—Dinner Fight

Dear Dinner Fight,

It’s harder than ever to find a safe and affordable place to live, especially when you don’t have support from family, so it makes sense to me to give your niece the month at the very least. But it’s going to be tough in the meantime. You, your niece, and your son are incompatible roommates, and it’s easy to see why. We can start with the fact that your niece is renting from you through a combination of money and services, which can be reasonable, but is often messy. Unless the terms of the agreement are extremely clear from the beginning, there is too much room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

For example, I’m sure your niece understood that she would be responsible for dinner most evenings, but did she understand what time you expected dinner to be prepared and served? Is she supposed to cook for your son and herself earlier in the day, saving a portion for your return home? Or is she supposed to have the meal hot and ready by the time you arrive? When you have takeout instead, does she pay for it, or do you? Those are just a few questions I’d like you to think about, in addition to this one: Have you asked her if she’s okay?

Your home is your own, and the expectations you set for the people who live with you are what they are, but every person who lives with you is still a person, and their emotional state should be considered by those with whom they share space, and, in this case, blood. Personally, if a 13-year-old, who I cook for, poured a glass of water on me because I wasn’t getting to my “duties” as quickly as he’d like, I’d be looking for any other option for another place to live. Your home may be safe and affordable, but it is not hospitable. Your 22-year-old niece may need to work on time management, but your household needs a lesson in compassion and respect.

Dear Prudence,

I am very good at my job, as long as I am included in meetings and have access to the information needed to do my job well. I also tend to be a thoughtful and considerate team member. It has pained me for the last 15 months on my team that I’ve had to beg to be included in meetings or have access to critical information. My project lead, who is a man and has a leadership team of all men (except me), kept saying that I do a great job, but he “just doesn’t know what to do with me,” even though I continuously volunteered for work and pointed out things I could assist with. Another team (with a more mixed leadership group) was clamoring for my type of work so I switched teams.

Now, whenever I see my previous lead in the office, he does this mopey thing where he comments on the fact that I “abandoned the team” or “moved to greener pastures.” It’s frustrating because I preferred the work on the other team, but felt underutilized. Still, I consider the team important to me and do not want to burn any bridges. What can I say when he makes these mopey comments to remind him that he was the one who refused to let me succeed on his team?

—Not One of the Guys

Dear Not One,

Feeling underappreciated or under-utilized as an employee is common, but being able to find a solution to that problem isn’t as common as one might think, so the fact that you found a better fit on a different team WITHIN your company is already a win. What’s bothering you is that your former boss either doesn’t understand or won’t admit to how he lost the opportunity to benefit from your skills, which is understandably aggravating.

The next time he mopes about losing you, maybe respond by asking, “If I were on your team right now, how would we work together in a way that’s different from before?” The question isn’t meant to make him uncomfortable, but to indicate to him that maybe his little joke isn’t as funny as he intends. My guess is, he’ll stop making those comments. And best-case scenario, he starts to consider your question in a real way.

Dear Prudence,

Me and my mom get along pretty well, but we always get into some sort of argument over the littlest things. For example, she gets mad at me for not cleaning my room and calls me “lazy,” even though I usually clean my room at a certain time and she also gets mad at me for staying home instead of going out and hanging out with her (this always confuses me because e always hang out and do activities together at home). I’m a high schooler so I have other stuff to do like homework and projects for certain classes; I sometimes don’t even know if it’s my fault and I instantly blame myself for it. These arguments are not even serious to begin with but they do escalate pretty quickly to the point I don’t want to talk to her anymore. I don’t know what to do and need advice.

—This is Rough

Dear This Is Rough,

I’ve seen it happen over and over again that certain parents struggle to make the transition into their child needing more independence or alone time. I think, after managing school schedules, sport schedules, playdate schedules, and the many years when they legally can’t leave you alone, the idea that you might have needs to address in your own time feels foreign. In some cases, worrisome. I’ve seen parents panic when they feel a small or growing distance between themselves and their children, totally unaware that the distance doesn’t indicate a loss of connection as much as (and this is maybe scarier) a loss of control.

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Your whole life you’ve been your mother’s Little Buddy, tagging along with her, frustrating her, delighting her, but primarily, keeping her company. You were always in the backseat, and then the passenger seat, and one day she asked if you’d come with her somewhere, and was startled to find that you, your own little person, had other plans. She may have reacted in a way you’d consider childish, and maybe her behavior was emotionally immature, but most likely, it was and is fueled by the realization that the way the two of you spend time together is changing. As it should.

If this is something you want to try to improve in your relationship, , why not ask if the two of you can plan for some kind of regular time to hang out. A weekly breakfast chat? A coffee run one day after school? Are there any activities you both enjoy that you could get into? The last minute asks for your time will only become more guilt-inducing for you and frustrating for her if you don’t find a way to set a reasonable expectation.

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