To feel angry and offended on behalf of my three sons?

[HillyWallaby]

I have a neighbour who gets on my tits because almost every time she opens her mouth she manages to say something that I find either ridiculous, or offensive, or just depressing. Sadly, she insists on giving me the benefit of her wisdom on everything, and I have no means of escape. Anyhow, this was the latest:

(background info, we both have 12/13 year olds, hers is a girl, mine a boy, they spend quite a bit of time hanging out, (often alone) and get along great, no crush on either side - just mates. This week, the girl turned up at my house with two lads from her school, they came in, and all hung out at mine for an hour or so, and it all seemed perfectly harmless, then my neighbour arrived)

Annoying woman 'Oh, I see you've got Ben and Dave from round the corner here. Lucy has been hanging around with them quite a bit lately. I'm not happy about it at all. She asked if she could go back to Ben's house with them both this afternoon, but his parents are still out at work so I said NO WAY! I am not having that. I know what those boys are like! And look at her! She looks so mature and well developed for her age, I can just imagine what those boys will be thinking....'

(actually she really doesn't look that grown up, or that gorgeous - she just looks like any slightly skinny, spotty, average 12/13 yo. The woman is obsessed with the idea that all males are in love with her daughter, and that she looks like a 25 yo movie star. )

Her '.... and anyway, the boys are like bees round a honeypot. All of them. There is no way I'm having her going in there with no adult home - especially not while there are two of them! Oh no! I know what boys of that age are like! Trying to get her on her own! That Ben especially, I hear all sorts about him - who he has taken to the pictures, who he has been kissing....

Me Er...what's the problem? Surely it's safer and more innocent if there are three of them? It means they are just a group of mates, hanging out. I could understand your reluctance if it was two couples - or just her and one boy, but otherwise it all sounds pretty innocent to me.

Annoying woman Oh you are being naive. You don't know what these kids are like. I've worked in secondary schools. Loads of them are shagging all over the place, egging one another on.

Me What, at 12?

Her Yes! you can't trust these boys at all. They are obsessed with it.

Me Well, I am sure that some are sexually active at 12, but it is by no means 'normal' at that age, and surely providing you trust her not to be shagging at 12, then you don't need to worry, do you? So do you trust her?

Her Oh god, yes! Of course I do, it's just that, you know....it's a bit dodgy with two of them, and her on her own....

Me What are you saying exactly? Do you think these boys will sexually attack her? What on earth makes you think that? I am the mother of a 12 year old boy too remember! I take offence at the idea that boys of 12 cannot be trusted to be around a girl without wanting to assault her FFS, just because they are boys!

Anyway, she tried to back-pedal a bit, and of course I realise that things can and do get out of hand sometimes with early teenaged sexual encounters, and I am well aware that girls often get groped without their permission, or pressured into sex. I know that. But I felt furious at the idea that just by dint of being a girl, her child was automatically cast as some innocent precious thing who was bound to be exploited/ compromised/harmed, while the boys were assumed to be dangerous, cynical, untrustworthy sexual predators at TWELVE YEAR OLD just because they were boys!!!

I don't know why I am wasting so much time fretting over it - the woman is a fucking nutjob on so many levels - but I just feel really angry about it, days later.

she s a twat, for sure

i think you need to significant reduce the time conversing with her

oh, if only it were that easy!

I can see why you feel really angry. She sounds ghastly. I think it is lovely when girls and boys of that age can be good friends, and long may it continue, without adults making them self-conscious. Tell her you'd rather she doesn't come to your house unless she can show some respect to your son, and keep her revolting and corrupting ideas to herself. She is being ridiculous and her poor daughter could end up with no friends. I hope she never crosses a road or gets ina car as both those activities will be much higher risk.

Oh dear - she does sound barmy and infuriating in equal parts

She is a twat.

but the best thing about this thread is that you are not here saying 'she said this, what should I have said?'. You knew what to say, you called her on her twattishness! :)

You can't do anything else, you said your bit, she nacktracked and hopefully she has been thinking about this a bit harder, and might be less of a dick.

YANBU.

There was some talk on our playground about a petition so that the DCs dont have to get changed together. The girls must have their privacy protected from boys staring at them. It's ok for the boys, they're not bothered, but it's not fair on the girls being stared at by the boys. They're in Year 2.

Have you fallen into a time warp and are you talking to my mother in 1988?

She is unhinged, and I would have felt as you did - I also have 3 boys and hate the idea that someone may one day think this of them simply because they are boys.

Good grief @ petition for Y2 children. Parents projecting much?

It sounds like you handled it pretty well actually.

Right, I have to go to sleep now (different time zone to you lot) so if this thread gets all shitty like AIBU does sometimes, and someone says 'and where is the OP?' I am in bed - not avoiding you.

My daughter hung about with boys at that age , I didnt find it odd either and i certainly didnt think they were all after her , this woman sounds obsessed with her dds sexuality and sees her different from everybody else , you should be offended for the boys , Oh and good night ,

Bloody hell year 2?! When I worked with year 2s, other than a general boy/girl divide that occurs at that age they hardly noticed anything different about anyone. Poor boys. Bloody ridiculous.

As for your neighbour, hopefully she'll realise now what a div she was being.

She sounds paranoid, maybe she's had bad experiences to make her that way. I wouldn't take her rantings to heart, it can't be much fun being that crazy, her poor daughter.

I know she sounds ridiculous, but be careful. Protect your sons where possible, because she sounds like the sort of person who would misinterpret all situations involving her daughter and boys. To the extent of accusation and police involvement.
Just be wary and keep your boys safe from slander by her.

I think "angry and offended" is a bit of an overreaction on your part.

She was talking about her fears for her own kid, not her opinion of yours. She was wrong to generalise that adolescent boys are all sex-obsessed (though conversely, it would be naiive to not give a passing thought to the power of hormones at that age), and I understand why you thought that was unfair, but she was not actually referring to your sons. In fact you say that her daughter and your son hang out together a lot, sometimes alone, so it's not as if she's keeping her daughter from having normal healthy friendships with boys.

If she really was saying "all of them" and "obsessed with it" and "shagging all over the place" (I'm not doubting your honesty, just saying that unless you had a dictaphone on you the wording of the OP might not be exactly what she said) then it does sound like she has a somewhat irrational fear of the harm that may befall her daughter at the hands of horny teenaged boys. As bobbledunk said, you don't know what's in her past that might contribute to that fear.

For what it's worth, I probably wouldn't allow my 12 year old daughter to go to some kid's house where the parents weren't home, unless I knew the parents and knew they were okay with it, and I knew and liked the kid in question. None of this seems to have been the case for your neighbour where "Ben" is concerned.

Others may make different judgement calls, and that's fine, but this was about her daughter, so surely it was her call to make, and not yours? You were very, very unreasonable to respond with "Er... what's the problem?" as if she's wrong to make her own decisions about her daughter's social boundaries.

Dust Haha - yes, she's the sort of person who misinterprets all sorts of situations on almost any subject! She's exhausting - one of those people who saps all the happiness out of you after twenty minutes in hr company. I wish she's move house - I spend so much time trying to avoid getting into social settings with her.

I told my husband and he said we should tell her that from now on we don't think her DD should be spending time with our son, as she is about 9 months older than him, and what with her being so well developed and mature for her age and everything and wanting to hang around with boys who are clearly only after one thing, we don't it's safe for him to be around her, as she will be ready for a sexual relationship before him, and she may try to lead him astray.

She is actually a very nice sweet girl, in spire of the loon mother. but she is already starting to develop some weird ideas and opinions on certain things, which is a shame but to be expected really.

OneHand yes I know what you are saying, and in theory I do not disagree with you. It's sensible to know where your children are and that they are safe etc, but this is more than that - it's a need to constantly have a bee in her bonnet over something, where she or her family are victims and everyone else is trying to do them down - but you have to know her in person to really get it!

I think she is being totally hypocritical as she is happy for her DD to spend time with my son and be alone with him - she doesn't see him as a threat. (not today at least, but who knows how that might change if she takes umbrage to something.)

But it is the tone with which she says these things - all shrill and bristling with slightly hysterical indignation. (she gets like that over everything which is why I find her so exhausting and demoralising to be around.) She does that thing where her arms fold, her bosom is hoiked, and her head starts darting back and forth agressively as she warms to her theme and gets more and more worked up over whatever her imagined problem of the day is. She'd be great on Jeremy Kyle.

But she has one child (the DD) and she is the sort of person who often makes unpleasant comments about boys generally, and other people's kids generally. She is the type whose own child is always totally perfect and blameless, and everybody else's is a nightmare. She's the kind of parent teachers need a full bottle of gin before they can face.

I said 'offended for my sons' but actually I just feel offended on behalf of all boys.

It's not the first time I've had to say 'Whoah! Quit with the anti-boy stuff! I have boys, remember?'

A good analogy would be, if you were black, and you had a colleague who was always saying negative and unpleasant things about black people with complete disregard to the fact that you are black, and then counters it dismissively with 'oh, I don't mean you, you are lovely, so different to most of them - you are like us' as though you are somehow supposed to be flattered and encouraged by that, and not take offence on behalf of all other black people.

In fact I wouldn't put it past her to have said that to someone at some point.

Tell her nothing will happen because her daughter is in to girls, not boys.

YANBU - good on you for calling her on it. I have two boys (as well as a girl) and hate the way some parents so easily do the girls = innocent and good, boys = bad with evil intent thing.

She's worried because she knows that teenagers get carried away; that they experiment; that they sometimes make bad choices.

You might not like how she puts it; but yes children this age do experiment sexually and they're not likely to tell you beforehand.

I think you are wrong to assume that she thinks boys are potential attackers - it seems to me that she is equally untrusting of her DD, if circumstances give opportunities.

well, when I was 12 I stopped hanging out with boys for a bit, somehow something had changed.

Boys I had played rounders with for years suddenly looked at me in a different way, they would make jokes about another boy who fancied me. Some of THEIR mates started shouting weird things at me (I remember one boy telling me I was a "sexbomb" and feeling upset at that).

To me it was the age where it all changed, and I do remember it quite distinctly.

Not saying it has to be like this. But it often is, and for years I only used to hang out with groups of girls. Then around age 17/18 I started being mates with boys again...

'Her Yes! you can't trust these boys at all. They are obsessed with it.

Me Well, I am sure that some are sexually active at 12, but it is by no means 'normal' at that age, and surely providing you trust her not to be shagging at 12, then you don't need to worry, do you? So do you trust her?

Her Oh god, yes! Of course I do, it's just that, you know....it's a bit dodgy with two of them, and her on her own....'

She is entitled to protect her child however she wishes to, including supervising who she's with and where she goes. She may well see the entire male species as predators when they get into double figures, it is not a unique viewpoint and many females seem to share it. That is her choice, and her daughter's adolescence and future.
Just make sure your sons are very aware of how they should behave around her, and be careful about comments, jokes, interactions in general. If they choose to be with her, then make sure they are supervised, or in a large mixed group otherwise they will have no independent witness if accusations are made.

Oh, I suppose fathers with a very traditional view may also see their daughters as at risk from boys. So not just women.
When I taught in Greater Manchester, we had a lot of Honour-based violence from fathers and brothers determined to protect their women's virtue from men outside the family or clan.
Including one boy stabbed to death by an outraged father as he helped a girl with her science homework in the boy's house in the kitchen. He was 14, an A* student and she was struggling to pass the subject.