Hi all,
Not sure this is a case for AIBU but thought I’d give it a go. DS1 (14) has a best friend, let’s call him Toby. They hang out together a lot at school and like to do things out of school too. However, the problem is that Toby’s mum clearly finds my parenting skills wanting and this is beginning to impact on the boys’ time together.
For example, when Toby and DS want to organise a sleepover, it is almost always at Toby’s house. Whenever I invite Toby here there is usually some reason he can’t come so DS goes to his house instead. This is fine by me but DS would like him to come to us sometimes, which seems fair enough. The odd time he’s come, Toby’s mum meets the boys from school to walk them to the bus stop. The first time I thought “that’s nice she must have been in the area” but she seems to do it each time, suggesting that she’s not happy with them getting the bus together even though my son does this every day on his own and I can't see the problem as the boys are teenagers.
Another time, we organised for the boys to sleep out in the garden (in the summer, of course!). She made it clear she didn’t think it was a good idea even though the boys were really excited and texted various times during the evening to make sure Toby was ok.
Then, final straw was on Friday evening when I was picking DS up from school (unusual occurrence as I’m normally working). Toby’s mum took me to one side in the playground and asked me “what was I thinking?” as she’d seen DS out on his bike the other day without a helmet. Full disclosure here, he never wears a helmet – he rides a decrepit bike with no gears on a bike lane with no cars on it so I’ve never really thought about it although I probably should have done. I told her this, probably confirming once again that I am way too relaxed about my kids, although I’ve since been beating myself up for being pathetic and feeling the need to explain my parenting decisions to her!
So, I’m sure this sort of thing happens all the time to other people so I’m curious to hear what you think I should do about this. Should I just accept that if we want her son to hang out with us I should be a bit less relaxed about things and make sure we pick him up/drop him off and avoid potentially health and safety-busting activities while he’s here? Or, assuming that this is Toby's mum's plan, should we just let the boys hang out more at their house? Perhaps there's another strategy I haven’t thought of or maybe I'm just totally overthinking this!