Ask Amy: A parent is haunted by her folks’ creepy friend

Dear Amy: My parents are wonderful people. They have a long-time friend, “Roger,” who is a heavy drinker and doesn’t have a family of his own. He doesn’t seem to reciprocate their friendship, and they seem to accept Roger as something of a family member — he’s just someone who is often around.

I am a 40-year-old woman and have known Roger all of my life. When I was a teenager he repeatedly made leering and gross comments to me; I knew he’d been drinking and didn’t know what to do about it, so I did my best to avoid him. Once I went to college, it was easy to do, but on visits home Roger often seemed to find a way to sexually harass me.

I never told my parents.

Last year, my husband and I decided to move back to my hometown. We have a teenage daughter and a younger son. We moved back home in order to spend more time with my folks, who are getting up in years.

Roger is still around, and doesn’t seem to have changed at all.

I don’t want to control my parents, but I don’t want my daughter to be exposed to the same harassment I experienced.

I’d appreciate your ideas about how to handle this.

— Harassed Mom

Dear Harassed: Talk to your daughter. Tell her about your own experience. Tell her that you never told your folks about being harassed, but that if she ever experiences anything like this, you would like her to tell you.

You’ve been sitting on this for 20 years or so, and I think it’s time to have a chat with “Roger.”

If you see him and discern that he hasn’t changed, you should tell him, “You harassed me when I was younger and I didn’t say anything about it, but I’m letting you know that if this happens again — or if you say anything even slightly inappropriate to my kids — you’ll have to deal with me.”