Would you do/say anything?

[bratley]

DS has just been playing in the garden, I was sat on the step watching him when the little girl from next door came out into her garden aswell.
She's 4yr old and never speaks to me or DH, neither does her mum and I've only ever seen her dad once in passing.
Mum is pregnant. They're always arguing with each other and shouting at little girl.
DS was sat on his slide talking to her over the fence, she couldnt see round to our steps and wouldn't have known I was there.
I love watching DS talking to other kids so I stayed and watched him.
She said to DS 'my Daddy's being naughty, he just pushed mummy cos he doesn't want to go for a walk.'
A couple of minutes later DS said 'where's your daddy?' She replied 'upstairs hiding from Mummy cos she's cross now'
Then Mum comes out and shouts 'X get in now!' she said 'I'm looking for xxx mummy!' (didnt recognise the name)
Mum shouted more, told her not to talk to 'the boy' (DS) and dragged her inside.
DS came over to me and said 'little girl sad' and came inside.
He's just gone for a nap and I've come back downstairs and the little girls wandering round her garden again.

Haven't a clue why she's not allowed to talk to 'the boy', we've not lived here very long and never had a run-in with them, tried saying 'hi' to her and she's either half-smiled or ignored me so I've just left it since then.

Feel really sorry for the little girl, she's always wandering round the garden on her own.
Would you try talk to her/ her mum, or just leave it?
Feel sorry for DS too, if she's going to be shouted at and whipped inside everytime she speaks to him, he's only little and doesn't understand.

And the 'daddy pushed mummy' comment...?

How about popping round sometime to say hello, and invite the little girl round to play? And include mum in the invitation if she'd like to have a coffee?

She may just be very "protective" of the girl around people she doesn't really know, and be useless at making friends.

The pushing doesn't sound great, but if he is now hiding because she is cross it sounds like there are issues on both sides rather than it being one-sided.

Not sure.

My neighbour has 2 boys and she doesn't allow them to speak to my DS over the fence. I am not sure if we are inferior beings or whether she thinks it is rude to conduct a conversation over the fence.

Just my gut feeling, but I would worry less if the woman is doing her fair share of arguing with the man and answering back. With a really nasty abusive man, you don't answer back! They may just both have hot tempers, you could just keep your ears open for now.

Hmmm... never thought about the having-a-conversation-over-the-fence thing, maybe she does see it as rude, but they're only 2 and 4 and the fence between us is only 3ft! IMO it would be ruder to ignore each other!

I'm scared to knock on her door incase she shuts the door on me! lol

Will definitely keep my ears and eyes open (in a none-nosey-neighbour way!), would hate to think anything was going on and I just ignored it.
But, like you both say, it does sound like she's giving aswell as taking.
And to be fair, she was pregnant when we moved in and it could very well be that its the pregnancy putting a strain on them, we don't know what they were like before the baby.

Thanks for your perspective!