Dear Prudie,
My husband and I moved to a city a few hours away from my family after we got married. Shortly before our first child was born, I bought an Internet-enabled video camera to use as a baby monitor. Out of guilt that my parents don’t live nearby, I allowed them to access the camera through their phones so that they could see their grandchild regularly. This turned out to be a huge mistake. Any time they see something on the camera that they don’t approve of, they let me know. I was endlessly harassed for not putting socks on my son’s feet while he was sleeping, for example. The camera has a feature allowing viewers to talk to us through the camera, so my parents randomly start talking to me or my son when we’re in his room. If my son is throwing a tantrum, they will come on and say, “Stop that crying!” I’ve told them that I don’t appreciate their interjections and criticism, but it has not stopped. My son is now 2 years old, and we have another baby, with another camera in the baby’s room, and I want to end their monitoring us. The problem is that if I change the password and prevent my parents from being able to access the cameras, they will be offended and it will cause World War III. What’s the best way to do it while ruffling as few feathers as possible?

—Living in Big Brother Hell

Dear Hell,
You say your parents will start World War III if you cut off their surveillance privileges. But although you have given them Dear Leader–type access, unlike Kim Jong-un they can’t back up their threats with nuclear weapons. Your parents need to be reminded that when they raised you, there was no technology to monitor your every breath, fart, and twitch, and this lack of constant scrutiny was probably better for everyone. It would be satisfying, the next time they start shouting admonitions at you, to look straight in the camera, wave goodbye, and toss it in the potty. But you can be polite enough to let them know this experiment has run too long, it’s coming to an end, and the password is about to be changed. Then change it immediately. If this results in your parents having a tantrum, because you are no longer connected through an electronic umbilical cord, you won’t be able to hear them pounding the floor. If they threaten to boycott your family because their unlimited access has ended, then that’s their choice to disappear completely from their grandchildren’s lives. Often when people have a child, they hear the voices of their own parents in their heads—but this is supposed to be metaphorical. No one wants the actual voices of their parents issuing from a speaker in the room.

—Prudie