Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding, 

Several days ago, I came home from a much-needed girls’ night out with some friends to find my 6-year-old son “Finn” in tears. When I asked my husband “Ryan” what happened, he explained that Finn had taken apart one of his (Ryan’s) expensive Lego sets, and he had punished Finn by flushing his goldfish down the toilet. I was aghast and immediately took my son to my sister’s where we have been staying since.

Ryan has apologized and said he went too far and has been begging for another chance.  He says he’ll buy Finn another fish so we can “just put this behind us” and has promised nothing like it will happen again. Does he deserve another chance, or is this sort of thing grounds for divorce?

—The Marriage May Also be Down the Toilet

Dear Marriage Toilet,

While I’ve behaved in ways I regret when my children made me mad, the combination here of offense (a child took apart—but apparently did not even destroy—something that is supposed to be for 6-year-olds in the first place) and retaliation (propelling a child’s pet into a sewage tank so that it dies) is very, very disproportionate. I’m not sure I would be comfortable going forward with this individual, myself. If you’re inclined to be forgiving, maybe you could go back under preconditions involving anger management therapy? But yikes! The man killed a little boy’s fish. Yes, that sounds like grounds for divorce.

Dear Care and Feeding, 

My daughter “Gail” is turning 7 next month, and we are having a party for her and her friends and cousins who live nearby at our local trampoline park.  The problem is her cousin “Chris,” who is the same age.

Chris is the son of my sister “Jill”, and he is a spoiled, undisciplined, rude little shit.  When he was at his cousin’s 6th birthday party back in February, he hit two other children who attended the party, cut in line for rides, insulted the servers, and demanded that he be given the first piece of birthday cake. When that didn’t happen, he tried to dump a bottle of soda all over it (luckily my husband was able to take it away from him), and when he was served a slice of cake, he called his grandmother (my sister’s MIL) a “dumb asshole” because he thought it was too small.  This sort of behavior is routine for him at other family events.

Jill thinks her precious little boy can do no wrong; it’s always those around him who “make him angry by being mean to him.” She is also the family Golden Child who is used to getting her way, and our parents indulge her and always take her side. I don’t want a family war, but I also don’t want Gail’s birthday ruined either. At least my brother and my sister-in-law are on my side, and they and my husband are encouraging me to tell Jill that Chris isn’t invited due to his past behavior.  Is this a hill worth dying on?

—The Birthday Bully Is Not Welcome

Emily Yoffe Read More

Dear Birthday,

I Own an Upscale Restaurant. I Want to Institute a Ban That Could Anger My Customers. Help! I Want to Get Families With Loud, Reckless Kids Kicked Out of Restaurants. This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only My Boyfriend Went on a Boys’ Trip. He Did Exactly What I Was Afraid He Would Do. My Husband and I Were Struggling to Conceive. Then He Slept With My Sister. That’s Not Even Close to the Worst Part.

Trampoline parks! When did they become so ubiquitous? It’s very rare that I’m not at a trampoline park these days.

But yeah, you will definitely start a “family war” by excluding your sister’s son from a party to which all the other cousins are invited. Your options are to limit the party to school classmates—a time-honored tactic—or to invite your sister and her monstrous child. I would probably go with the latter approach, because the median outcome is probably just that he behaves abominably in a way that mostly serves to make your parenting look good and gives you something to talk about with your husband and brother later. It seems like it’d be hard for him to really “ruin” your daughter’s day; a certain amount of chaos and misbehavior is to be expected at a child’s birthday party, after all. And if he does do something really threatening, like hitting or picking on the other kids, then you can ask your sister to remove him from the situation with yourself firmly established on the moral high ground.

—Ben

 Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Never miss new Advice columns The latest sex, parenting, and money advice from our columnists delivered to your inbox three times a week.