Dear Queenie,

My husband and I live quite some distance from both of our families. Our problem is that they complain that we don’t come home to visit them often enough.

We visit them for Christmas and Easter and one or two more times every year, but that uses up most of our vacation time, not to mention the expense. On the other hand, they almost never come here to visit us, it’s always us that have to go to see them.

Queenie, should we be doing more?—Feeling guilty

Dear Feeling guilty,

Lose the guilt. You are doing more than your fair share of the visiting. Any time your families complain, tell them it is their turn to come to visit you and you will be happy to see them when (if) they do so.

Dear Queenie,

My best friend is married to a man who treats her like a queen when he is in a good mood, but when he’s in a bad mood he says nasty things in a mean tone of voice and gets on about little things and goes on and on and on.

I asked him not to talk to her that way, at least not when I am around, because it makes me feel bad and now he is mad at me and won’t even speak to me.

Queenie, what more can I do?—Worried friend

Dear Friend,

Let your friend know – gently, please – what you think of her husband’s behaviour and that you are there for her when/if she ever needs you. Then arrange to spend time with her when her husband is not around.

Dear Queenie,

I would like to get your opinion on a disturbing subject.

My mother has been attending a certain church. I must say that the services are not that bad. I was battling over the fact, for years, on whether I should go along with her or not, because I always heard that it was a family church, meaning you had to be either blood-related or married to one of them, or a constant pastor-pleaser to even get up on stage. You should hear the conversations that go on in the back or after church.

But I finally decided to go, to make my mother happy. Big mistake. To start, the people are mostly fake. They pretend to like each other, then bad-talk each other. The “singers” are the ugliest set of people that I have ever seen and, oh boy, do they overact when they are “singing.”

But after all that, my real reason for writing this is that the pastor keeps preaching and challenging the flock to be an example, where to go and what to do. But shouldn’t he look closer to home? I was shocked to see one of his main male singers performing in a concert under the tent at Port de Plaisance. In that same show were people that are, let’s say, not so Christian. This was not the first time that I saw him on stage out of the church. And to make things worse, from what I could see, most of the choreographic dance group were there shouting and jumping up and down during and after his so-called performance. It was a real shame.

It was a Saturday night and I think that there is prayer meeting every Saturday night.

I mean, please, people, didn’t the pastor say that that was wrong?

I also heard that this male singer and his sister were the backup singers on some steel band night.

Then they showed up the next morning on stage, front and center, to sing in church. But they are family, so I guess it’s not so bad.

That’s why I decided to write in, so the church members and myself would no longer be confused. Pastor, what is going on here?

Queenie, what is your opinion?—Disturbed

Dear Disturbed,

Since you are talking about a religious subject, let me quote some Scriptures:

“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness, come before His presence with singing.” (Psalm 100) Nowhere does the Psalm say this singing should take place only in a house of worship; in fact, quite the opposite.

And, “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.” (Matthew 7) You are quick to judge these church-goers. How do you think they may be judging you?

Dear Queenie,
My sister’s children are quite fat, even though their parents serve healthy foods and are quite fit.
The problem seems to be that they let the kids eat whatever they want and as much as they want between meals – all sorts of junk food and candy and such. The parents make a lot of snarky comments about how much the kids weigh and how fat they are, but they don’t even try to control what the kids eat.
Queenie, I feel sorry for those children, but what can I do?—Worried uncle

Dear Uncle,
It is possible that what the children have is “baby fat” and will drop off when they reach puberty and go through a growth spurt, not to mention getting more interested in their appearance.
However, it would be better for them to learn good eating habits from young, so you could try talking to their parents about your concerns.