There are too many excellent advice columns to keep up with, so we're committed to bringing you links to the best advice column questions and answers every week. Here's a roundup of the most interesting, thought-provoking and surprising questions that our favorite columnists addressed in recent days.

How Can I Get My Boyfriend Back After I Surprised Him With A Visit From His Estranged Mother?

I've been with my boyfriend for five years. He has been totally estranged from his mother the whole time I've known him. I've never met her.

Well, his mother started messaging with me on Facebook and she really wants to get back into his life. She wants to apologize for the mistakes she has made.

I invited her over to our house without telling my boyfriend. He blew up when he saw her and now says that he wants to break up with me.

I was just trying to help mend his relationship with his mom! What can I do to get him to come back?

[Tribune Content Agency]

Amy Dickinson points out that the letter writer's actions were very disrespectful to the boyfriend. "You owe him an apology, as well as a promise to respect his boundaries with family members," she writes. "An apology might not get him to come back to you, but you owe it to him, anyway.” Read the rest of her answer.

What Should I Have Said When An In-Law Suggested Getting My Late Husband's DNA Tested To Confirm His Ethnic Background?

As family gathered after the funeral of my beloved husband, an in-law with little connection to him insisted I collect hair from his hairbrush.

"It's not too late to get a DNA analysis and ensure that he was really as much of a [specific ethnic group] as he said he was," she told me. When I demurred, she said she'd do it herself.

My spouse would never have agreed to such a thing, and his near relatives were horrified. Any thoughts on a response?

[UExpress]

"Please don't," Judith Martin, Nicholas Ivor Martin and Jacobina Martin suggest saying. That's the entirety of their answer, but read the rest of their column.

Can Gen X Managers Expect A Responsive And Committed Attitude From Gen Z And Millennial Employees?

I've been practicing law for about 35 years, and my peers and I are having a hard time recruiting and retaining younger attorneys. I've been told that, on the whole, younger employees believe that:

Staying at the same company for more than a few years is too long, because you can get a bigger increase by switching employers; Responding to clients or partners after 5 p.m. or on weekends is optional; Working at home is just as good as working in person; Employers should not expect them to invest their time in learning their job.

If these things are accurate, is it realistic for Gen X managers to expect millennials and Gen Z-ers to adopt a more responsive and committed attitude?

[The Washington Post]

Karla L. Miller urges the letter writer to offer the career mobility, flexibility, and support that younger workers are looking for. "To this Gen X-er, the world seems faster-paced, more chaotic and less forgiving than when I entered the workforce," she writes. "The rules we learned for getting ahead and being an 'ideal worker' may not align with current lived reality and priorities." Read the rest of her answer.

What Did My Ex Really Mean When He Said He And I Could Keep Sleeping Together Even When His Wife Moved To Be With Him?

My former boyfriend has a wife in the Philippines. He used to sometimes say, "Oh, stay with me, and we can keep sleeping together even when she moves to this country." Why would someone say something like that? I have a difficult time figuring out what he really meant.

[Creators]

Annie Lane expresses thankfulness that the letter writer is no longer with this boyfriend. "I have a harder time understanding why you stuck around long enough for him to say that more than once," she writes. "Clearly, he has no respect for you or for his wife." Read the rest of her answer.

Am I Crazy If I Relocate An Old Family Photograph Because I Think It Might Be Haunted?

When my grandfather passed, he had it in his will to pass out some of the heirlooms he had held onto to our family members.

Ever since I was a small child, I was fascinated by a photo of his great-grandmother, who I look just like.

There is a family legend that the photo is haunted by the spirit of my great-great-grandmother, who was very involved in Spiritualism back in her day.

I used to laugh it off, because I not only do not believe in ghosts, but I am the least superstitious person I know.

I am beginning to rethink all that since inheriting the photograph.

I have had to replace the glass on the frame twice now because it has dropped from the wall where it is hanging and cracked the glass.

I have several other family photos hung on the same wall and have never had any trouble with any of them falling. They are all on the same kinds of hangers with the same kinds of hooks.

There was also one time when I found the photo on the table near the wall display, leaning on a picture of my own children.

I was the only one in the house at the time, and I know it was where it belonged when I got up that morning and passed it on the way to the kitchen to make breakfast.

I know it sounds strange, but I feel like I should put the photo somewhere else, where I don't have to see it all the time and wonder about it.

Does that make me slightly cracked? I have asked everyone in my family if they have played around with the photo and everyone said no.

[UExpress]

Susan Writer posits that there's a non-supernatural explanation for the photograph's movements. "However, since I believe you should feel safe and comfortable in your own home, I agree with your idea of placing the photo someplace in the house you and other members of you household are less likely to visit, without letting anyone else in on your secret relocation spot," she writes. Read the rest of her answer.

How Can I Get My 9-Year-Old To Stop Catching Wild Rabbits And Trying To Bring Them Home?

Every day my 9-year-old daughter "Phoebe" walks down the hill to the bus stop, then walks back home from the bus stop after school. Last year, my husband and I started letting her go to and from the bus stop on her own. However, over the past few weeks, she's caught four wild rabbits and tried to bring them home. I'm not even sure how she's doing it. They're everywhere in the area, and Phoebe claims she just walks over to them and picks them up, but that's clearly untrue, as the bunnies run away from anyone way before you get close enough to touch them. More importantly, she's flat-out ignoring our instructions not to approach wild animals, and despite a grounding, she persists in doing so.

My husband thinks we should just get her a pet. We've talked about that for a bit, but it feels like this would be rewarding bad behavior. On the other hand, I'm not sure how to handle this long-term, and you're not going to beat something with nothing. Is there anything I'm overlooking here? Some way of keeping Phoebe happy and not having her abduct local wildlife, while at the same time not rewarding her for doing so?

[Slate]

Dan Kois predicts that a pet would likely serve as a useful diversion for Phoebe. "Your daughter is tender of heart as well as unusually light of foot," he writes. "If you have room in your life and in your home for a pet, you should indeed get her one." Read the rest of his answer.

Read our last week's column here.