My sister and her husband divorced last year and share custody of their three young girls. My wife and I have maintained a good relationship with my sister and her ex. Recently my wife has raised concerns she thinks, based on social media posts, my sister is partying a lot. Her ex is not on social media so he wouldn’t know but my sister has a new boyfriend and they are very into the micro-brew scene. They are always on their beer app and she seems to be drinking a lot.  

I am growing concerned for the kids. But, I am also worried if I reach out to my former brother-in-law, I am going to alienate my sister and cause a lot of trouble there.  

You are in a tough position because if you alert your sister’s ex to your concerns, he might go right to court and ask for a modification of the existing parenting plan and raise allegations that your sister has a drinking problem. Raising this issue in court would likely trigger a Guardian Ad Litem investigation to determine (a) whether a problem exists, (b) whether the children are in any danger from her conduct and (c) whether he should have more of the parenting time. The children would be interviewed and, depending on their ages, likely asked difficult questions about their mom’s behavior. Maybe that is necessary, but maybe not.

Before you run to him, take a look at the social media posts for yourself. A beer app alone is not reflective of reality. If you play with the app, you will see by just clicking the “like” button, a social media post is created indicating that the person using the app is at that moment drinking that particular kind of beer. If your sister is into micro-brews and doing a beer tasting for example, it will look like she has actually consumed each of the samples on a larger scale, thus skewing the data. She could walk out of a tasting looking like she just consumed 18 beers when in reality she may have taken a sip or two of 18 types of beer.

Don’t just look at the beer app, look at her other social media posts. Does her Facebook or Instagram show pictures of her and her boyfriend at parties with beer in their hands? Do any of the posting dates fall on her parenting days? If yes, the combination of all the posts will be viewed in a negative light.

If the totality of the evidence looks bad to you, talk with her. See if she admits to partying on her parenting time. If after talking with her you are concerned for the kids, go talk with her ex. The safety of your nieces is far more important than hurting your sister’s feelings.