For not choosing the underprivileged child?

[PolitePeep]

Named changed for this as maybe outing, plus I probably sound like a huge bitch.

We have 1 DD age 12, hormonal tween stage. But generally a polite, thoughtful, well behaved kid.

DD has a few 'best' friends, one from school, one who's a sports team mate and one who she's known since a baby as I'm friends with the mum.

Having an only we are able to have kids over whenever DD fancies. Take a friend with us on days out etc.

School friend I find rude/ungrateful and treats me like I'm an annoyance and not to be interfering in her time with my DD.

Other two are polite and happy to chat while I'm giving them a lift home etc.

Here's the guilt part. The two polite friends each are from backgrounds where they get plenty of holidays, treats, days out etc.

I feel bad that I don't want to spend my weekend days with the school friend and so we invite one of the other two to days out/weekends away. As I know she won't get to visit where we're going.

My DD generally prefers to take one of the other girls as she sees the school one 5 days a week.

Should I feel guilty?

I’m glad you found good friends @Lwrenagain. Dd manages her friend’s money when they go out as she doesn’t understand the cost / value of things. Her friend is year 10 dd is yr 11.

You don’t have to take her out but you do sound bloody weird and clueless.

Telling her to say please before giving her ketchup? It’s a condiment she asked where it was. So what if her manners need work, she is 12! And it’s not your job and you would have made her feel really uncomfortable, as an adult who should know better your behaviour was way worse in my opinion.

You sound like a helicopter parent and it will backfire. Leave them to play/chat or whatever it is 12 year old girls do.

I’m betting this is your first or only child because you sound far too involved to the point of obsessed with her friends and their lives and what role you can play to make yourself look important.

I can why this friend wants you to leave them alone, she has come to see her mate not you. The others probably think the same but are too polite to react.

A) Class background has nothing to do with whether a child is polite/ kind etc. that's down to the child's personality and individual parenting.

B) When someone is a guest in your home it's usually considered bad manners to make them feel awkward, uncomfortable or embarrassed, if we are going by the rules of etiquette. That doesn't mean you don't have standards or can't do what you want in your home. You also don't need to ask them back, but being a role is model is more effective than drawing negative attention to a child.

This.

See at 12 if we went to a friends house it was a quick " hello" to the parents for the sake of being polite then off to the friends bedroom or garden. Didn't hang about with the parents at all

I’m pretty sure they get taught them at school. Certainly at my kids school so there’s no excuse

If they are rude they deserve to feel uncomfortable for being rude. Maybe they’ll learn to use their manners in future

YABVU to say you are not choosing the child because he is “underprivileged”.

You are not choosing him because he is rude. I can tell you that there can be as many “privileged” children being as bad. Privilege has nothing to do with this, so don’t feed the prejudice.

Manners are a life long lesson and not just for children. Being pulled up on manners isn’t a bad thing.

The reason I’ll mannered kids find life difficult is because they can’t say nice things.

not read whole thread but if they’re generally a group of 4, and you always offer the other two then i’d say YABU purely because it’s excluding someone from the group

no one wants to feel like the forced friend

you can take who you want but it does show a lack of empathy for the other child - not her background or anything to do with money but because she’ll be wandering why

as parents of a child in that situation it’s indirect bullying at times

I often find MN a strange/unfamiliar place. I do wonder if the people I encounter in daily life actually think like this but only feel they can voice these opinions online.

Firstly, us poor/underprivileged people often have far better manners than others. It’s a matter of pride for working class families and it was often commented back to my family (of four living in a one-bed council flat) that I was ever so polite. I absolutely would say hello to my friends’ parents and not scowl at them when they were being kind enough to have me in their house. I remember my more ‘privileged’ friends being rude in how they demanded things from their parents.

Secondly, I fully expected to be pulled up by any of my friends’ parents if I was actively rude (dirty looks) or accidentally rude (forgot to say please or thank you), although this rarely happened. Of course it’s embarrassing but sometimes being corrected is embarrassing, even if done gently.

I knew this was the way of life from maybe around 7/8 years old. A 12 year old definitely understands this regardless of her background. There are a lot of people saying that it’s not OP’s place to correct her, but I disagree. If she’s so neglected that she doesn’t know that you don’t glare at people who are being nice to you or say please and thank you, then her life is going to be extremely hard. Eventually she will be confronted about her rudeness and if this happens when she is an adult, it’ll likely be in far harsher terms than, “did you mean to say ‘thank you for dinner and please can I have the ketchup’?” I think other adults, parents, strangers in the street being so hands-off with children has led, in part, to society being as it is today.

There is nothing wrong with an adult correcting a child, if it’s done in an appropriate way. Of course Op wouldn’t say ‘what’s the magic word?’ to an adult but a 12-year-old isn’t an adult. I probably wouldn’t tell an adult to stop spitting on the floor of the bus, but a 10-year-old, on the other hand, could likely use some adult intervention, alongside the benefit of the doubt that they haven’t been taught that’s wrong.

I think this is quite insightful

I get now why your DD is embarrassed

This - in a nutshell

my dc had some rude friends whatever their family background but the dc made the friendship decision

Mm tricky. I don’t think anyone would appreciate her lack of manners with you, but there might be all sorts of reasons. It would be nice if your daughter said something to her - like ‘mum’s alright, she just likes us all to say please and thank you’.

Could you maybe just occasionally take the school friend out? I wonder if you absolutely never do whether that will affect her friendship with your daughter, who always invites her other friends to anything special. School friend might also realise you don’t like having her around much which could increase awkwardness.

Yanbu.

Personally I wouldn’t let some 12 year old into my house who was going to blatantly disrespect me either and would be encouraging dd to make some different school friends.

I can accept that yes the girl may not have had the same experiences but as she manages to get through school and life without getting punched in the gob on a daily basis she’s knows what she’s doing. I wouldn’t have it elsewhere on mumsnet it’s called boundaries.

A 12 year old looking at a grown woman raising a family like she’s a loser? Jog on love.

My daughter had a rude best friend, I invited her over alot less than then others. My home is my safe space, and i don't want to feel uncomfortable or disrespected in it. I was glad when that friendship ended. So of course I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. If anything you invite whoever your daughter wants, so you've done nothing to sway her.

Well quite^^

This thread is frankly bizarre.

My DD has a best friend that never used to say please or thank you - it used to bother me massively, she wouldn't even say goodbye as she slipped out of the door. My DD used to realise that it bothered me and say that her friend had 'told her' to say thanks to me. As she's got older the friend has begun to feel more comfortable and now is as polite as anything - but I think that's because she's learnt social skills being around us that she doesn't see modelled at home. I have always drummed into my DCs that if you visit someone you must say please and thank you - and also 'thanks for having me' when you leave. But then I think manners are extremely important and I've been known to hold onto a my DC's dinner plate and not let go until the recipient has said thank you!

This. Children in difficult homes are in survival mode constantly. The soft and calm niceties that a child from a nice home engages in automatically are a sign of weakness and that ,at best, causes you to lose the thing you have been given and ,at worst, puts you in a hideous situation. Something ' nice' required for something nice given.

If her home life is really that bad then the OP needs to report to social services. Letting the child walk all over her helps no one.

It’s all ‘maybe’, awww ‘maybe’ no one on this thread has any idea what’s in the child’s head at all.

Is the child really that underprivileged or just lacking in manners and basically a rude attitude? What makes you think she hasn't had treats (not necessarily the same treats)
Not saying please or thank you may come down to a lack of being taught to say that, but demanding ketchup is just entitled and rude.

If you don't want to have her round then don't.! My dd had a friend like that - the girl and family suddenly moved away. My dd was actually relieved. The girl was a domineering person.

I knew a moody, sullen teenage girl. It turns out she suffered with crippling social anxiety.

You just don’t know what it is going on. My own son was very reluctant to speak to anyone for a good few years. He’d grown out of it now but I’d have been devastated if any of his friends had parents who viewed him like this.

Take the child your dd wants to take on outings.

As to the school friend’s poor manners, I feel she will learn more easily and readily from the good example your dd sets. And from witnessing the warm and respectful interactions between you and your dd. Later on, her peers will also make a bigger impression on her than you can.

At this ‘tween’ age, it’s best not to treat her like a younger child by trying to remind her of her manners as if she were a toddler…as in ‘what’s the magic word’ Teaching her a lesson hasn’t worked. As you say, it really is embarrassing for her, for your dd and for you, plus it highlights your displeasure to her and puts her on the back foot. Let her feel relaxed, even if the manners are missing. Then she can learn by observing.
For now, she is probably already well conditioned to be either wary or defensive of adults and will be fighting back against your reaction. Maybe it’s survival of the fittest in her own household.

Just carry on being a lovely, welcoming, approachable host and ignore the poor manners for a while. Pretend not to notice (unless she is deliberately abusive and controlling, in which case, you wouldn’t be inviting her.)

Maybe she has yet to learn that a mother-daughter relationship can be positive and warm, happy and loving.

I feel you and your dd are really helping her broaden her experience of family dynamics other than her own troubled one, just by inviting her to play, which can only be a good thing. No need to push the manners agenda until she is comfortable enough to take it on herself without prompting from you.