Have Your Cake but Share It Too

In this series, our Resident Sage responds to challenges readers are grappling with in their lives. All stories are anonymized for privacy.

I (48M) am a single father to three daughters (ages 10, 8, and 6). After my divorce from their mother, we moved in with my parents in the house I grew up in. A few weeks ago, someone gave my eldest a 9” cake after she’d broken her leg, plenty to share with the whole family. My daughter shared some with her friends and left the remainder in the refrigerator. Days later when she went looking for the rest of her cake, it was gone.

My daughter was distraught; she thinks her grandparents ate her cake and she said they had no right to do so without asking. Now someone has given her yet another cake, and her grandparents asked if they could have some. She ignored their request, but later told me that she didn’t want to give her grandparents any cake to “teach them a lesson” for eating her cake without asking last time.

I’m fairly upset because my parents have always been so generous with me and my girls. Now my eldest won’t even share her cake with them! I told my daughter that her grandparents put a roof over her head, sharing her cake would be such a small gesture of gratitude. But she still adamantly refuses. How can I teach my daughter to share what’s hers with the family, since our family shares so much with us?

Your situation makes me think immediately of Care Cycles: a friend has given your daughter a cake to show their care for her after an injury. But there’s more than just a broken leg in this scenario; given her aversion to sharing her cake, I suspect there are also broken Care Cycles in your daughter’s family life.

If your daughter is unwilling to share her cake, and to her the cake is a symbol of care, it’s possible she feels like she has to hoard it because care is hard to come by for her; hoarding cake is like hoarding care, because she doesn’t know when she’ll get it again. Does she feel like she’s had to fend for herself or that she isn’t getting enough of what she needs? Keep in mind, these needs can be emotional as well as tangible — needs are needs and they don’t always stay in their lanes (emotional eating, for example).

You mentioned that you and your daughters’ mother divorced, which is a clear indication that there was a breakdown in the Care Cycle you shared as a couple. Unfortunately, this also takes a toll on the kids because they’ve seen the Care Cycle fail. To minimize their insecurity about whether they can depend on their own Care Cycles working, both parents have to make sure their children’s needs are met during this time. This is an incredibly tall order given the upheaval that the whole family is going through.

Thankfully your parents are there for you and your girls. It’s encouraging to hear that your parents have been able to support you and to participate in healthy Care Cycles with you and your daughters. You have the physical and emotional security of returning to your childhood home, and your daughters have been welcomed into the family’s warm embrace. It’s possible, though, that your eldest hasn’t yet settled into the basic expectation that family members will always be there for each other.

In a family, food and money are the two most important tangible assets involved in Care Cycles; cutting out family members (her grandparents) from an asset that has been given to her (cake) is a break in the natural, healthy way families function. I also wonder where your daughter picked up the concept of withholding something good (care, love, cake!) as a way to “teach someone a lesson.” Lessons are best taught by modeling right behaviors, not by being punitive. This is another sign of a broken Care Cycle.

So, Dad, what you need to do is to make sure all of your daughters see that you are there to care for them, to meet their needs. The big question is, how do you determine what each daughter needs? This starts with giving them each more attention to see what they’re missing: do they need more encouragement? more family fun time? someone to talk with about how they’re feeling? After you figure this out, then you can start working on getting their needs met. Remember, there are five conditions that need to be met to complete the care cycle: 

1. Give or do exactly the RIGHT thing.

2. Give exactly the right amount, not more, not less.

3. Give/act at the right time.

4. Repay the giver with gratitude.

5. Do not apply any form of violence!

Luckily, this doesn’t all have to fall on you; your parents are also there to care for your daughters, or you can even hire help. As they feel more secure and are able to look beyond their own needs and relationships, they’ll notice that healthy Care Cycles exist between you and your parents, which is how healthy families function. And of course it helps to reinforce this all with conversations and explanations about what it means to be a caring member of a family.

The moment the girls feel like respected members of the family, they will easily settle into  respectful behavior themselves. Otherwise, preaching about “being good” but not modeling it will only solidify their impression that they have to “take care of themselves” because nobody else will take care of them.

-E