We have new neighbours who have just moved in. They’re originally from Afghanistan and having only been in the country a couple of years their English is limited but they are friendly and like to say hello. They’re really lovely people and they keep making and bringing food over for us to eat. Some of the food is really delicious and I think that it’s so kind for them to offer this. I’m not the best cook but I did propagate a pretty house plant to take round to say thank you.
Recently a couple of things have happened that have made us slightly uncomfortable. They don’t have a car so asked if my mum (does our childcare sometimes and was at our house) if she could take them to the “big shop”. My mum agreed but they wanted to go right that second and for her to leave my 3 year old at their house- obviously she said no to this. They communicated all of this through their eldest son, who speaks quite good English. They then, the following week, brought their 3 year old into our garden to play with our DS and then left her there with my mum whilst they went to the shop for an hour! The eldest son said to his mum “what about (youngest child’s name) but the mum was saying (DM assumes) she’ll be fine and hurried off. DM was obviously not happy about this but couldn’t really say anything when they returned as the adults didn’t really understand her and she didn’t want to communicate through a child. When she told me we agreed that she would stay out of their way and out of the garden on her days with DS and take him to her house instead. Today, they brought food to our garden gate and tried to usher their children into our garden, we think to maybe bounce on our trampoline or maybe for us to look after, we’re not sure! When they saw our (very friendly) dog they backed away and shut the gate.
Whilst we want to be friendly and appreciate them being nice people, I do not want to share my garden with other people’s children, nor to be used as unofficial childcare when they want to do an errand. I appreciate it’s hard as they don’t really know anyone around here and they have 6 children to care for but I feel a bit at a loss as, whilst I don’t want to upset them or be seen as rude, surely this isn’t normal?!
Any suggestions on how to stop the food coming round (it’s getting a bit much now!) and how to communicate that we want to be friendly but not spend time with their children in our home?
Is this all a cultural thing or is this super odd?
TIA for any replies.