My neighbour allows kids to play at her house

I think it's fine for you to be internally frustrated at the situation - you're at odds with your children which is tricky to manage. Your views on what constitutes a nice weekday evening are different from your kids', which causes tension, and it's a headache for you to manage that every evening.

Where I think you've strayed into being unreasonable is in calling your neighbour weird, suggesting she has "lured" children to her, tacit criticism of what you perceive as a lack of structure and routine, suggestions that she has been selfish. None of those things are true. She's providing a nice resource which lots of kids are benefitting from. It's fine if you don't want your children to participate, but that doesn't suddenly make the fact of her doing these things selfish.

Work on managing your own children's expectations and behaviour. Perhaps pick a night of the week where you do allow them to play at her house so that they know when it is allowed. Teach them not to whinge and re-litigate decisions you've already made. But also, I think you should try and work on your own aversion to playdates and messy play like arts and crafts. Children love these things, and they're amazing for development. You don't have to do them all the time, but you also shouldn't prioritise having a clean and quiet house over messy, fun play 100% of the time. (In fact, given that you hate these things you should perhaps be grateful that you can outsource them for free to your neighbour!).

I agree it sounds annoying... to you.

That is fine, you are allowed to be annoyed by it and that does not make you a bad person, everyone has different views and everyone is allowed to have those views.

You do not sound a bad parent, you children sound like they get a lot of love and fun time. You just choose to parent differently to the majority of parents (judging by the responses here and my real world exp). Different does not always mean bad nothing you have said suggests you are anything other than a loving parent.

I am sure I would agree with you some nights, there would be evenings I got home just wanting to get bath and bed done and there would be a meltdown I said no. However I grew up as that household (admittedly back garden not front). I had a trampoline before they were popular and my house became the place to be, anywhere from 5-15 kids most of the summer and multiple evenings a week would be over and it was the best time ever. I fully intend to give my children that same experience and would take the odd annoying evening in return for all the amazing ones.

I do not think you are a bad person, mentally ill, bad parent etc as some people have said but I will say that you haven't helped your case with the tone of some of your replies, they really have come across as attacking this woman and being very negative.

Clearly from some of your posts about not liking play dates or small talk you are not a social person, that's fine, you are allowed to be like that. However a lot of people are and they enjoy being around others, interacting and spending as much time as possible with others.

I take real exception to this. I would say as a parent it should be your job to manufacture friendships for your kids.

I was an only child growing up and always wanted to have friends on the road to play with, however I was shy. I relied on my mum taking me out on bike rides round the block until we bumped into other kids and forcing me to make friends. One of those is now my best mate of 25 years. Some of my best memories are the summers spent playing with the friends my mum manufactured.

I think any parent who is willing to go to that extent to ensure their child is having an amazing time is a fantastic parent.

We had a house with a very big flat garden next door. As our neighbours’ sons grew older, this was the place local boys came to play football. Sometimes as many as 12-15 shouting and playing. Sounds lovely. It was atrocious as we had twins who were several years younger. It did make bed time very difficult and, as adults, our garden was far from peaceful. We moved house.

I agree with you. I liked to keep my 2 in a routine. Confusing to let them stay up one night and not an other. Much easier to keep to a routine and keep my sanity. If they stayed out playing late they still waken up at 5am as it's light and be a nightmare the rest of the day due to lack of sleep!

This is all very much a you problem. That woman is doing nothing wrong and it's your own responsibility to deal with your kids meltdowns

Ask her if she'll move round by ours. Mine would love her! Tbh sounds like a great idea, mine don't go on the streets and this sounds fun for the kids, gives them a chance to play together.
Yeh you are allowed to moan 🤣 but yes YABU soz

I live in rural Spain, in our village in Summer, the kids all go out around 10pm until about 12/1 am, you would have a conniption at the racket on the streets!

Just seen your latest post.

Why should the entire street have to order their lives around your work routine?

And parents are always 'the bad guy' to their own kids, and 'really cool' to other people's kids.

You sound like youre desperate for approval from your own children. That's not gonna happen (until they grow up and appreciate you a bit more) .

7.30 good grief someone call the fun police! 🙄

When i were a lass we played out until it got dark during the holidays.

Seriously, I get that it's tough staying in routine when it's summer because you are working and it works for your kids, but let your kids live a little, it will do them so much good.

I imagine with this run of beautiful weather, and this lovely sounding neighbour having water play in the garden, the Op must be positively seething with fury

Which explains precisely why the OP is clearly so unhappy, bitter and angry in life. Sadly though, it seems that it seeps in to family life and her kids sound quite keen to spend as much time away from the family home as possible.

Another day another AIBU post, where if you say the OP is unreasonable, she will argue with you, claim victimhood, and slag off the group

YOUR children need. Not ‘children’.

Routine is great, flexibility is better for me.

Bloody hell. We used to play out in the evenings in the summer, we used to do crafts like papier maché (round a blown up balloon), making perfume from petals, going out on our bikes haring around the streets. Although to be fair our mothers did go back into the house and do stuff and we didn't do after school clubs or sports.

I'm so glad I was lucky enough to have that and didn't grow up in a family that refused to have play dates.

But why should the "undoubtedly kind lady" make any changes to her routine? If I were in her shoes and the OP invited me for a cup of tea and explained her POV as she has on this thread, I'd say that her children would always be welcome to join the fun but I understand if the OP prefers an early night for them. And then I would very politely say that I have no intention of changing a thing that I'm doing for my own children and the neighbours who choose to participate. It's up to the OP to work out how to cope with the situation, how to say no to her children if it's something she doesn't want them to do. IMO it would absolutely not be appropriate for the OP to suggest that the other woman limit her own perfectly ordinary (not to mention warm and welcoming) activities.

And if she’s normal she can have a good laugh at your expense . What a ridiculous idea .

At this time of year, you have to find that extra hour in the evening time, early bedtimes don't work on bright nights.
Can you slow cook something or have DH cook while you watch them play for an hour? It would be beneficial for all of you, children love parents to watch them play, as parents we have to bend with the seasons.
2/3 evenings a week. Set expectations for whatever days suit.

That's fair. Two things can be true.

There have been a few comments here OP where people have agreed it is annoying to have to hold a boundary against a temptation, especially when it happens multiple times. Of course you're allowed to moan about that, and also allowed to recognise it's just part of parenting and there's no escaping it.

We've had success with the ice cream van (as an example from the thread I can relate to) by setting expectations out. So in our house, the first time the van comes to the street each month, if it's a sunny day and we've not already had ice cream that day then we get one. My two are 6 and just turned 4 and they get SO excited when they hear the chimes, but then we chat through the criteria and either we skip outside or we don't.

Couldn't something like that work here? Set some rules for a yes which work for you and for them. We also have it over stuff like screen time which I'll be honest if it was up to me I wouldn't even have a tele. But that doesn't work for the whole household so we set some ground rules which means they're not always pestering me as they know when they're allowed it. It's good to grant the little ones some autonomy, and has made us more of a team rather than 'mum sets the rules and you follow them'. I didn't want to always be the bad guy saying no, so this works better for me.

Yes to all of this!! I'm in the process of moving from a busy road with few children and zero playing out to a village where there are lots of children the same age as mine. I'm used to being the host in my current set up, playdates, BBQs, games nights etc, and fully intending to make our garden accessible should anyone care to come and hang out there. I love the energy ♥️

I think your routine is perfectly normal. I don’t think that you’re an arsehole at all.

It may be that this undoubtedly kind lady doesn’t understand that her friendliness is potentially causing bath and bedtime ructions on school nights for some of the families on your road.
I would invite her in for a cup of tea and explain, in the nicest way that you can.

The problem is @Eolhc1990 that you think that kids need routine and you want evenings with your husband and are not really prepared to accept that other people do things completely differently . We had literally no routine in our house when my kids were little , no nap times , no set bed times as long as they ate regularly and went to bed eventually all was well . We’ve managed to raise bright , polite people and are still happily married after 36 yrs so living proof that no routine can also work perfectly well .

OP sounds like such a ray of sunshine...poor kids. no playdates, no fun, no mess, bed at 6pm. And no one else's kids are allowed anything different

Great you do you. I imagine your neighbour is a stay home mum caring for her baby so is recreating the crèche experience at home for her children, why should they miss out? Let her do her.