I am not a sleepover kind of mom. It’s too much trouble, and I always play worse-case-scenario in my head and get myself terrified over someone elses kid getting a dog bite, hurting themselves on the trampoline, or freaking out in the middle of the night. I tried being a friends-can-come-visit kind of mom for a while, but I quickly learned how much I don’t like other people’s bratty children. Let me roll up my story telling sleeves!
When my son was in kindergarten, he had a friend from class that lived two houses down. At first I thought it was really cute to have this little girl come visit us and play with my son. However, as she got more comfortable, the little girl got to be more rude.
For starters, the little girl would get very hateful towards my daughter, who was two years younger than her. She’d look at my daughter, who really wanted to play with the big kids, and say things like “eww, why’s that thing staring at me!” Or “I don’t want that baby touching me!” Not cool…
Then she started to do other things that bothered me. For instance, she would refuse to take off her dirt covered boots when she entered my house. Then she’d run into my son’s room as soon as I opened the door (no “hello,” no “may I come in?”) and grind her nasty boots into his bedding. I would chase her down and tell her to remove the shoes at the door, like everyone else had to do, and she would look me in the eye and tell me “I’m not doing that, these shoes are hard to get back on!” I tried to counter that by telling my son not to bring his friend into his room any more, and that they had to sit in the living room and watch movies or play video games when she came over. The girl would just roll around on the floor screaming that she was so bored. I thought it would deter her from coming over so much, but it did not.
This other girl was also an only child, so her mom was constantly wiping her ass. I don’t mean that metaphorically either! At five years old, I would watch this mom follow her daughter into the school bathroom, watch her child create a bowl movement, and then I would hear her asking the girl to bend over so “mommy can wipe you.” It was disgusting and embarrassing just for me to hear. And guess what this little girl expected me to do when mommy wasn’t around? NOPE!
My final straw was that the girl started coming over constantly. She never wanted to play outside and she never invited my son to her house, and more than once I sent her home and no one was there! I felt like the mother was using me as free and constant childcare without my permission, and since the girl came uninvited, I didn’t know how to combat the situation.
While many people would probably suggest that I speak with the mother directly, she was no better than the daughter. I only saw the mother while standing in the pick-up line at school, but she was always very rude and nosy. The mom was like having Gladys Gravitz from Bewitched as a neighbor, she knew every time I left the house, if I checked for the mail more than once in a day, if I took my dog somewhere in the car, went for a walk, or had an empty water bowl in my backyard, this woman would know about it and want to know all of the details while we waited at the school for our kids. She’d also get nasty and try to tell me what I could and couldn’t do, or why her way was the best way, or how I was so stupid for not knowing Spanish, and I really could not stand this woman – but she would seek me out everyday at pick-up and run her mouth nonstop.
I finally got to the point where I had an epiphany: why am I putting up with this? I didn’t like the mother, she was no friend of mine, and the little girl gave me more grief than I wanted to tolerate – plus no one is taking my kid for hours, unannounced, each week!
In a passive aggressive declaration of freedom, I decided to stop answering the door for the girl and told my kids not to even acknowledge it if they hear a knock. When the mother would get in my face about the subject at school, attempting to guilt me on the topic by saying how upset her daughter was that no one had been home lately, I would tell her that I was working on the computer in the back of the house, or I was in the shower, or I was cleaning, and I didn’t hear anyone knocking. It may not have been the best way to handle the matter, but that route avoided an all-out explosion from the mother while giving her the hint all the same, and our military house had finally become ready, so we were moving to the other side of town in a few months anyways.
Now, when we moved into military housing, I did not realize how many military spouses refuse to watch their children. Truly, if you’ve never been on post you won’t know this, but children under two years old are running around outside in nothing but diapers, and with no one watching them! And our neighbors there had four children, and proclaimed to us our first day moving in that they would be sending their kids to our house all the time, and they would break stuff and be brats, but we would learn to love them. I watched those kids ram their bikes into their moms car, break glasses, and throw toys at each other in this first encounter and told myself no way! I always kept my door dead bolted and never opened it if I couldn’t see who was there through the peep hole.
Now we are post-military life and live without neighbors, which is awesome! Now, I know kids playing together is a good thing, but until I have older kids with older friends who are not destructive or rude little nightmares, there are no more friends coming to visit my house. Period! I have lived, I have learned, and I have decided that it’s alright to have standards and say no (even if you don’t say it out loud!).
Trying to Mom 