Friend comes along on playdate with all her kids every time - AIBU to be annoyed

[elmow]

I have a friend who isn’t comfortable with drop off playdates. Her boys are 11 and 8. My son is 11 years old. She will find a way of them all coming and her two year old daughter too…My son’s actual friend is the 11 year old though he plays with both boys. I find it really exhausting having them all over as I have to then cook and entertain all of them and I only want a playdate for my son.

It's not just this, she’s made it perfectly clear she will never be happy with sleepovers. And will never accept a lift from me even if it inconveniences her. She just has no trust. She is like this with everyone. And has said she wouldn’t accept a sleepover with so and so because they have weird guests at their house, or so and so because they are having marital problems etc. Basically everyone is vetoed. And I don’t know the reason, but we are clearly vetoed too. I find it hard to be friends knowing she’s only at our house because she doesn’t trust leaving her kids with me. Ive held back recently as my son has plenty of other friends with parents that are happy to just drop off and where this is reciprocated.

Am I unreasonable to find this annoying? Or should I put up with it for the sake of my sons friendship?

It's up to her how she chooses to parent just as much as it is to decide that you don't want to deal with the fallout from her choices.

^^ Sound advice from @BreadInCaptivity . You can only control your decisions, not hers. Don’t host the four of them again, you’re under no obligation to if you don’t wish to.

It wasn’t intended to be snarky. It was however a reply along the same lines of those from the posters who do allow sleepovers and were unfortunate in their choice of words when saying so and commenting on those who don’t.

Who mentioned safety reasons?

Maybe she thinks you are friends and doesn't realise it's not what you want?

I certainly have friends who I have a chat with whilst our kids hang out. Now I'm wondering if they secretly think I'm a CF. 😂

It is a bit awkward to reset that expectation, if you'd rather not host the whole family, people have already given suggestions for how to go about it. For the friends where we usually meet up and chat we're pretty upfront if we are not free for a catch up too.

It's okay for you to have your boundaries too, just like she has hers. It could be that means the boys see less of each other outside of school/clubs and that's a shame. But more reasonable than you sitting there resenting her being round with the tribe - she won't want that either!

Or put it another way 95% of children haven't been assaulted!

This is really sad. I don't think you will be doing your children any favours in the long term. You run the risk of them rebelling and getting into dangerous situations if you are too controlling.

Talk about stranger danger. Have an open relationship so they can talk to you. You can't be there for every encounter.

I think she is within her rights to not want to leave her child at a playdate for safeguarding concerns. People should accept that. Most abuse is from people known to the family, male AND female. Be under no illusions.

But i do think she is unreasonable to bring her three children. She just just decline the playdate.

I don't get all this angst about playdates anyway. The kids see each other all the time at school, why is this so important?

Don't kids spend time at the weekend with family etc?

Most of the time, give it a couple of years and the kids might not even hang out together.

I certainly don't want to see parents from school in my spare time. My house is my haven and our family don't feel this pressure to organise our young DC social life. Maybe its just me!

I would be properly hacked off to be viewed with suspicion after such a long acquaintance the upshot being mehaving to sodding host these people. Sod that. The lads will be old enough soon to sort their own lives out.

Tell her it is your business the minute she plonks herself on your couch with her 2 year old in tow on a day when you had other things to do than entertain and feed her family.

I think if you've got to the stage that you're going to drop the friendship I'd try and confront the issue first - it might end the relationship but that's where you are anyway.

Friend, i hope this isn't upsetting to hear but I think you not letting your DS go to friends unaccompanied is very unusual and is limiting his social options a bit, which is a shame for him. For example, I'm starting to invite him less, not because he isn't lovely but because it means I've got to block off the whole visit and can't do the other things I need to do. I can see how anxious you are, and I wonder if there's any support you could get to help you with that.

Surely the whole point of having a mate over for mid to late primary is so they bugger off and play and amuse each other thereby freeing you up to do chores / care for younger child / have a sit down.

Of course she doesn't want to commit to the park... she has to watch her kids there, ensure they don't run off and also there's no food included. She wants to sit and have her kids entertained, no cooking/buying food and letting you tidy up. Have you ever been to hers?

Pretty sure your son will grow out of this mate

Once they're at secondary school, don't they just want to hang out with friends independently ? I remember backing away from a friend with a controlling and overbearing mother at this age. Not cool

YANBU and she's a weirdo.
Just ask if you can drop your son at her place for the play date.
She's a cheeky so-and-so using her son's playdate as a way to entertain her whole bloody family!

I've had shades of this with my daughters friends mum who doesn't necessarily stay but puts in place all these ridiculous strictures which I get to hear via my daughter....eg. Susan's mum says we can only go to the cafe for hot chocolate if you are with us. I find it intensely irritating as an adult and experienced mum to be told how I should run my day and MY time in the service of two sensible 12/13 year olds. It really puts me off having her over even though she's a fab girl and they are great friends. Because I'm clearly not trusted, I feel on edge. And then there's they ' I suppose you think me a real helicopter parent' with a tinkling laugh, which I have to sort of grit my teeth and disagree with out of politeness.

I have a very similar thing with a friend of mine. I invited her daughter to my daughters birthday. She replied “if you mean do we want to come to daughters birthday, then yes we would love to”. The we she is referring to is her, her daughter and her 13 y/o son who just sits yapping to his mates on his phone or listening in on our convos. You can’t have an adult chat with him there and she won’t leave him home alone. It’s always the 3 of them and is infuriating. I’ve pulled back now because I don’t want to always have an extra adult and child in my house. And we never get invited to hers.

I think I would have replied , "No, I mean does DD want to come to my DD's party. It's not a family thing." 😂

I started to suggest to meet in a park which she nearly always says ‘I’ll come back to you’ on but never does

Funny how she doesn’t trust you but would prefer to be in your house rather than the park.

She doesn’t come back to you because she enjoys sitting there and having you cook and clear up after her dc.

Yes, this is probably true.

Yes, I remember a bit of this from when I was a kid. Someone else’s parent would have a rule (not one I had) and would expect me / my Mum to enforce it.

In this case, it might be worth texting her to say that you aren’t planning to go to a cafe with the girls because you are doing XYZ. If she doesn’t want them to go, can she please make that clear to her daughter as you are otherwise fine with it.

I think I’d make a point of booking tickets to a thing (with assigned seating) so she couldn’t do this. I can see why you’d pull back.

Half the threads on Mumsnet are filled with people surprised that things are different in different circles.

If you live in a suburb where every school has a small catchment and there’s a pavement everywhere you want to walk, then it makes more sense for older children to get to friends’ houses independently. In a rural area, with pavement-less roads and long distances, not so much. Children going to independent schools are also likely to come from a much wider area. As with anything else, it all depends.

I do sometimes stay and chat when my child visits friends - because the other mums are my close friends. We’d be organising a coffee at some other time anyway, why not do both at the same time?

I think the issue here is the siblings, as I can see that three DC plus an adult must feel like too much, especially when you have a small baby.

Sleepovers: not related to the OP but in general, no one is obliged to explain why they don’t want their children to take part in sleepovers. It’s a personal choice and completely up to them.

I personally find it a bit bizarre that parents go to huge lengths to protect their children from strangers, but are quite happy for their children to be bedding down for the night easily accessible to men that they only really know as ‘Lucy’s dad’ or ‘Angela’s husband’.
Read any thread on here about CSA if you’re in doubt. Hopefully it never happens, but why add that risk?

There are also medical reasons why sleepovers might not be ideal. Epilepsy, diabetes, allergies, bed wetting, sleep apnea, night-terrors…none of this is anyone else’s business but the child and their parents.

So if someone declines a sleepover then, rather than taking it as an affront or assuming that parent is controlling, perhaps the kind thing to do is to accept it without questioning and try to include the child or young person in other ways.

Sounds to me like she is too lazy to parent her own kids and wants them entertained. Maybe next time offer to pick her son up if you are able to and take the two boys to the park together. Either that or invite one of your son’s other friends

This OP.

This is as much about what suits HER as anything else.

I must agree with posters who are ambivalent about sleepovers.

They weren't a thing in our large but tight circle until secondary school.
We live close to many friends in an urban setting and it didn't come up.

Perhaps we were lucky that it didn't, but if it hard when they were much younger I wouldn't have been keen despite knowing their friends parents pretty well.

I certainly wouldn't think to judge a parent who said no.

Of course children need to see friends outside of school. They hardly get any time to socialise during the school day and it is great for them to build different relationships outside of the confines of school. My two are always playing out at the weekend and in the school holidays. Dd (8) mostly pre-arranged stuff, but she does have a couple of friends who just come and call for her, but ds (10) just bikes round to his friends' houses to see if they're playing out. Also, they both have friends who don't go to their schools so when do you suggest they see them?!

Regardless of trauma background (which I myself have before anyone jumps down my throat), I think it is very unusual and limiting her son's social skills for her to be present whenever he hangs out with his friends and unfortunately, if this continues into secondary school, he is going to find he doesn't have any friends outside of school hours. Which is sad, but true.