My neighbour allows kids to play at her house

[Eolhc1990]

OK so I feel like a bit of an @ssh0le here but this is driving me crazy. Last year I moved into a new house with my husband and DC (now 6 and 3) we live on a small quiet road with only a few houses. There are kids under 8 in 5 of those houses. We have front gardens but the kids that are 7/8 years old play on the street riding bikes/scooters etc and they can be loud which is a bit annoying but its kids what can you do. Anyway one of the other families is a lady with a 5 year old child and a baby. Because her child is too young to play on the road she will let the older neighbour kids play in her front garden, she will set up a table with play doh or paint or today a splash pad! and the kids will play there for a few hours while she sits and watches.... my problem is now everytime I try to bring my kids in from creche I'm getting pestered by them to go over there.
She always invites them and is a very sweet lady but by the time my kids are home it's 6pm and I just want to get them in and into the bath etc.
With the recent warm weather this is EVERY evening im dreading this evening because il have to face a meltdown if i say no to them playing on the splashpad with the other kids and I just think its a lot. Im sure the other parents think this is great they can just leave their kids over there but for me it's a nightmare we are not really playdate house at the best of times. I prob need to get over it but just needed to vent. I feel like asking her can she get the kids to hide when I come home from work

I miss when all the kids in our close would play out. We had 8 young girls at one point all the same age, making a rukus in the street and having a laugh together on long evenings.
It doesn't last very long - one minute they are all playing out together, then next they are all off to different high schools & pretending each other doesn't exist.

I don't feel like I criticised her parenting I described her as sweet and kind and spoke of how my kids are obsessed with her and think she's perfect.

I think she prob is a great mother her daughter plays very nice and is very sweet and polite.
She is very good with all the kids.... I just disagree with her making her front garden an irresistsble playground for all the nighbourhood kids on weekday evenings. It's annoying to me just like the sweets at the checkout or the icecream man calling 10 times a day.

OMG - she sounds amazing - no wonder the kids love her! I wish i had an arty neighbour ike that, maybe my kids could draw more than just stick men... hahaha. I wonder if your own rigidity is making your kids want to go over more as next door seems more fun (not going to lie - it does) and i think your annoyed because your kids seem to like next door more... Sorry op - you sound bitter here and not very nice.

Yep. I was one. My mum was very weird about it, I can only remember being allowed friends over about three or four times throughout primary school (even when I had friends living in the neighbouring houses I was always to go to theirs, she never invited them to come and play at ours, and I somehow knew I wasn't supposed to ask if they could come - not sure how I knew, but I definitely did), and just twice when I was in secondary. I think she has extreme social anxiety and tbf I know she did struggle with anxiety and depression at the time, but I only remember ever being allowed one birthday party, and the year after that she asked my dad to take me and my friends on a day out instead (we lived in a seaside town) because she 'couldn't be doing with a house full of kids'.

I'm middle-aged now and to this day I've never truly mastered relaxed hosting - having people over makes me very anxious, partly because the relaxed 'drop-by' sort of visit was simply never modelled for me. Visitors were very much 'Visitors' with a capital V in our house, if that makes sense. (On the rare occasions I was allowed friends over, my mum tended to make my friends uncomfortable by being overly formal with them, I don't think she had any concept of relaxed hosting herself so wasn't able to model it.)

This thread has touched something of a nerve with me because it looks as though OP's children's lives are going the same way and it makes me sad.

OP I was probably v rigid in the v early years too for my dC bedtime. In fact one of them missed a really important moment by minutes because it was bedtime... I do regret my lack of flexibility now. I was also the mum with the finger paints and water table and play doh tho and had their little pals round.

The fact that most people disagree with you - does that make you reconsider, not your routine which is your own business, but your thinking on her? It feels like you want someone to blame for your children's whining.. but honestly you would be better off just accepting that you've decided their set bedtime is more important, again that's fair enough and your decision, so it also then means you have to deal with the whining that might follow and we all know that little kids whine! I'd say your dc are also picking u on your tension around this and they do love to push our buttons.

If that's even genuine, you are weird.
"lurking" children? 😂😂

Random kids in the FRONT garden where everybody can witness nothing is happening and where parents can keep an eye on their kids from their own house?
Ideal.

SHe sounds better and better.

she has manufactured these friendships by making her garden the "place to be". that's what parents do.. You should try, it's nice when your kids develop big groups of friends, which also encourage them to develop their own group by themselves.

If you feel inadequate as a parent, and feel the need to bitch about other people, do the work instead of resenting the ones who prioritise their own children.

I just disagree with her making her front garden an irresistsble playground for all the nighbourhood kids on weekday evenings.

should the world be miserable to match your lack of energy and efforts?
Most kids manage to walk past "irresistible" places without throwing tantrums 😂Just parent your own kids, and make their own house more attractive maybe?

The nastiness towards a neighbour doing a nice thing is unbelievable.

No I don't reconsider my thinking of her, I still see her as a sweet nice lady who's choices make my life more difficult so I find it annoying.
Everyone here acting like they've never been annoyed at something that everyone else thinks is great.
No-one has ever had a coworker who's extra chirpy in the morning before you have your coffee and you feel like an asshole for being annoyed by them?, or felt annoyed by someone laughing too much or breathing too loudly?
Just because someone is "not doing anything wrong" doesn't mean they are not annoying.
Like I said I'm not mean to her but I feel how I feel

The more you have posted the worse it sounds about you. Resentment is very clear. What you have is control issues, because all you keep harping on about it YOU want her to only do it at weekends, it annoys you, you can't handle your 2 LO asking to go there so much, it is convenient for you to see it etc. There is structure and then there is controlling, rigid, uptight attitudes. You don't have any flexibility with even putting bedtime to 7.30pm. All you seeth about is you, your routine, your LO asking and it is an annoyance for you! Summertime is lovely, when the weather is nice, and children can play out and have some fun in the garden. Why do you feel so wound up about her choices? You don't even see how you talk of familytime, think normal bathtime play and reading is somehow enough for your LO, and yet your 2 are in the house and in bed 1 hour after coming home from a long day in school/nursery then care. Those are very exhausting days for a 6 and 3yo and they want fresh air and play. Play is so important and fresh air and it aids a child's development. Don't let them resent you growing up. Will you be this strict when they are older? No tv to watch films, a teen drama etc? Not allowed out with friends? I think it is sad you seem judgy and resent children enjoying Summertime and actually a selfish bore who wants to control others and can't see you have problems.

It's not a irresistible playground, it's a table with playdo on it and a splash pad, I'm imaging one of those toddler ones

No-one has ever had a coworker who's extra chirpy in the morning before you have your coffee and you feel like an asshole for being annoyed by them?

no, I don't feel like an asshole if they annoy me. If they come to bother me, they ARE annoying 😂

You are being annoyed by someone because it hits a massive nerve and touch your own insecurity, it's completely different.

OK I'm a narcassistic, cold, rigid, mentally ill, selfish bore for having a routine Monday- Friday.

The kids are in a creche with a big outdoor area they play outside ALL day even when it's raining they puddle jump and do water play in creche. They are not prisoners locked away inside.
Evenings at home are our time to wind down together after a long day and I'm.not apologising for that.

Why do you feel the need to be so strict and rigid with your children? Childhood shouldn’t just be a series of routines with absolutely no freedom or flexibility.

Some of my best memories as a child are of when my dad would pick me up from school with all my swim stuff and take me swimming as a surprise, or to the pick your own strawberry farm, or to the park with my friends. Your kids won’t remember days and days of “family time” - they remember the fun stuff and out of the ordinary stuff, not the repetitive routines and early bedtimes.

no one is asking you to do anything about your routine, just telling you how unreasonable and ridiculous you are to expect other parents to have the same.

You are not the one playing with your children ALL day and resent someone who is playing with other children. You are so unpleasant.

OP, you have shown zero interest in taking on any of the feedback pps have offered, instead becoming increasingly snippy and defensive towards pps who are trying to offer alternative perspectives. I now believe that your antipathy towards this woman, and the fact that she parents differently, is why you won't let your kids play. Nothing to do with what your kids might want, it's about you and your grudges/hang-ups. And that's really unfair to them.

You may well have fun with your children but they want to play out with other children. You seem to be viewing this as 'they've played enough/been with other kids enough at school/creche, now it's time for them to spend time with me because I want them to.' But it's natural for kids to want to play out after hours too, if they see that other children are doing so and having fun. If you're so tightly scheduled that you only have that one hour with them, that's not their fault. At this point I'm feeling so sad for your children not being able to go out to play on a lovely summer's evening because you seem hellbent on everything being done your way. You're just setting them up to be known as the kids who aren't allowed to play out. (I mean with other children, just to be absolutely clear - I'm not disputing that you play with them yourself, but it's not the same.) But you clearly just want some sort of echo chamber of agreement on this thread, so I'm out.

Just one last thought: if you were genuinely so satisfied with your life and routine as you're claiming, do you think your antipathy towards another woman, who does life differently, would be quite so great? I don't.

You can have your routing but don’t be surprised when your kids start resenting you for it 🤷‍♀️

@Eolhc1990 Like I said I'm not mean to her but I feel how I feel

That's fine, you can feel whatever you like. But I'm not sure what do you want people here to say? You are obviously not happy with the responses you are getting but people are also allowed to feel how they feel, even if it's differently.

As I said I'm fine to agree to disagree.

In your opinion, what is the downside of letting your kids play for an extra 30m and go to bed a tad later once a week?

What would be the negative impact on your children?

And I mean your children, not you.

Plot twist: this is stealth brag and op is actually WONDERFUL ARTY NEIGHBOUR 😂😂😂

If 99% of people believe you are being unreasonable then you should probably at least reflect on it.

I'm sad for your children. There are so many middle ground options here. You could invite their friends round more, you could move bedtime (that's crazy early for a 6 year old), you could let them go out and keep an eye from your front garden so you don't have to socialise, you could just close your windows and tell your children to stop whinging... so many options. And I think all you wanted to hear was that people would be equally annoyed by something everyone either thinks is (1) lovely or (2) none of your business.

Socialising at daycare is not at all the same thing as totally free form socialising at home. My children were in childcare a lot too but that didn't mean they should be done with other people and content to sit in the house after. Of course we have routines and structures and bedtimes, but I can't work out why you are persisting with such a rigid, super early schedule. Surely your children don't need 12 hours of sleep every single night?

Who is it.more reasonable for? Not her probably not the kids who enjoy it.

You basically want her to change what she does to suit you. Honestly you are beyond entitled. Whether you intend to say something or not doesn't mean your view is ok. You'll come across many things that your kids want to do that dont fit in with your needs, get used to saying no

Her choices don't make your life more difficult, your blinkered rigid routine does and the inability to just say no, controlling when there's no need to be, you've actually been over there with your DC, next time show her the MN post!

Add “manipulative” to your description because this phrasing in the first sentence is exactly what manipulative people do and say when they feel like they’re cornered. You’ve done it on nearly every one of your posts after your OP. You’re becoming more upset because people aren’t falling for that trick though. You possibly don’t even realize you’re doing it actually…