My family all vacations together. I don’t get invited.

Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here.
Dear Prudence,
I recently had a verbal confrontation with my parents, and I am looking for some outside perspective. A few years ago, my wife, two kids, and I went on a family ski trip with my parents, my brother, “Leo,” and his family, and my brother, “Ken.” My parents paid for the house and offered to babysit and cook so the adults could all go skiing. However, they later backtracked when we said we wanted to go skiing for one day of the three-day trip. They claimed that Leo and his wife already bought three-day lift tickets and that they couldn’t watch all of the kids together (four of them). We were disappointed but went on the vacation anyway and found other activities to do.
There have been some other instances lately where the rest of my family has gone on vacations and didn’t include us. I tried discussing these exclusions with my parents recently and was told that Leo planned the trips, so my parents were not in a position to invite us. I told them it seemed like they were taking family trips without us now, and that my kids would feel left out, especially since one trip was to Disney. This is when I brought up the prior ski trip. I tried to explain that they have not been treating me equally since then and have shown favoritism to my brother’s family. In short, they raised their voices and said I was being inconsiderate because they spent a lot of money on the house rental and that I was rude for implying they “didn’t offer acceptable child care accommodations for my kids.”
I haven’t spoken to them since. I don’t feel as if they really heard what I was trying to say—that I am not being treated as an equal to my other siblings, and they have a bias toward my brother Leo and his family. I don’t think it helps that we live across the country, and Leo lives a few minutes from my folks, and they see each other almost daily. Am I really being inconsiderate, or do you think it’s appropriate to stick up for myself and my kids?
—Rude or Fair?
Dear Rude or Fair,
I don’t think you’re inconsiderate or inappropriate, but I think you might be misdiagnosing the problem. You only offered two examples, but the facts, in my view, don’t support your claim of being excluded and treated unfairly. The ski trip babysitting fiasco sounds like a sincere miscommunication, or maybe a case of grandparents being too ambitious and realizing they were in over their heads. When it comes to Leo and his family inviting your parents on vacations, your mom and dad are right that it wouldn’t be their place to decide whether your family can come as well.
I don’t doubt that your feeling that Leo is the preferred child has a basis in reality, possibly going all the way back to your childhood, or possibly explained by geography. But even if your parents do really feel closer to him, or get along with him slightly better, that’s not the end of the world. You can’t change whatever emotions they might have. Instead of monitoring what everyone is doing, making assumptions, and feeling hurt, why don’t you ask for what you want? To Leo: “Hey, next time you plan a vacation, we’d love to come too!” To your parents: “How would you like to come visit for a couple of weeks? Also, sometimes I wish we lived closer and saw each other more. Can we set up a time to FaceTime so we can feel a little more connected?”
If they refuse to visit or talk to you, and if Leo refuses to include you in travel plans, you’ll have a valid complaint and a reason to redirect your time and energy to chosen family members who really value you. But don’t give up on repairing or deepening these relationships before you’ve even tried.
Dear Prudence,
My father-in-law, who is in his 60s, has been engaging in what seems to be disordered eating. He sometimes won’t eat for seven days at a time, continually updating us and focusing on his fast, to the point of lightheadedness. He says it’s for weight loss, but cites benefits to his overall health. His rules around what he will and won’t eat have really changed over time.
I’ve also known him to binge and eat two tubs of ice cream at a time, or overexercise by hiking for hours every day, even while dizzy. I’m particularly sensitive to body/diet comments since I needed various restrictive elimination diets for medical reasons as a young woman, but also, no one in my husband’s family seems alarmed by this behavior. I really don’t like the focus on diet/dieting around my children, and my attempts to redirect him haven’t really worked. It seems like he can’t stop talking about it. My instinct is that it’s dangerous. My mother-in-law is the sort of “always on a diet” lady who’s very beautiful and glamorous in her 60s, but also can’t eat a spoonful of ice cream without berating herself. Am I being too sensitive?
—Weighing the Options
Dear Weighing the Options,
Your sensitivity is totally appropriate. And you’re correct to want to make sure your kids aren’t influenced to start starving themselves. No one would want that for their children! That’s where you should focus your efforts.
Your father-in-law is not a spring chicken, but he’s not at the point where he can’t make decisions about his own health either. In other words, his approach to food and exercise is definitely sad and is very likely disordered, but it’s outside of your jurisdiction as his daughter-in-law.
The messages your kids receive are a separate topic, and this is where you should go beyond attempting to redirect your father-in-law. Make a clear request: “Could I ask you to refrain from commenting on your fasts in front of the kids? I know you have your own approach to eating, but don’t want to give them a complex about food or inspire them to restrict their intake while they’re still growing.”
If he can’t comply, you have to have a talk with them directly along the lines of, “You have probably heard Grandpa talking about not eating for days and days or mentioning that he’s dizzy because he hasn’t eaten. That is his choice, but it’s not a smart or healthy one. Sometimes grown-ups do things that aren’t great for them. I don’t like that you guys are hearing about it, but since you are, I want to remind you that you should eat when you’re hungry so your body has energy. You can always let me know if you have any questions.”
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