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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DH and I are taking our kids (ages 7 and 5) to visit my BIL in NYC for a weekend this fall. Our kids have never been there and want to do all the touristy things. We've booked a tour of the Statue of Liberty already. We know we won't have time to do everything we want to do in this trip in just 2.5 days, so we need to prioritize.

BIL lives in Brooklyn and wants to show off his neighborhood. We're happy to spend some time there and he originally suggested Prospect Park and the train museum, which we were totally on board with. Then, today, he sent us info for a Brooklyn open streets fair featuring drag storytime. DH pushed back, saying we can go to street festivals at home, and would prefer to do things we can ONLY do in NYC. He's insisting this is more than a festival and will expose our kids to his neighborhood in unique ways. I looked it up and there are lots of other flyers he could have sent us that don't prominently feature drag storytime and explain a little more about the rest of the festival (which, honestly, doesn't look drastically different from the closed-street farmers markets and festivals we go to regularly at home).

DH is moderate Democrat and BIL is a socialist and it's caused tension throughout their lives. BIL regularly buys our kids books about progressive topics (intentionally choosing controversial books) in ways that feels like he's trying to push an agenda. So part of me thinks BIL is pushing this open streets thing as a way to take his nieces to drag storytime or to try to force DH into taking a stand against it, because he loves to push buttons. If he wants to expose kids to progressive socialism, he should have his own kids.[/quote]

Just don't take the bait.

You said the visit is this fall - so not next weekend/probably not for awhile. Drop the topic for now, and when the weekend gets close, buy the tickets for the train museum and then plan a picnic in Prospect Park and send a message saying, hey, we thought about the street festival and decided to stick with the original plan of museum and park. See you soon!

I have a family member like this. They want to have the conversation so badly. You just can't go there.[/quote]
Thanks![/quote]

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