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 take real exception to this. I would say as a parent it should be your job to manufacture friendships for your kids.

I was an only child growing up and always wanted to have friends on the road to play with, however I was shy. I relied on my mum taking me out on bike rides round the block until we bumped into other kids and forcing me to make friends. One of those is now my best mate of 25 years. Some of my best memories are the summers spent playing with the friends my mum manufactured.

I think any parent who is willing to go to that extent to ensure their child is having an amazing time is a fantastic parent.

I agree it sounds annoying... to you.

That is fine, you are allowed to be annoyed by it and that does not make you a bad person, everyone has different views and everyone is allowed to have those views.

You do not sound a bad parent, you children sound like they get a lot of love and fun time. You just choose to parent differently to the majority of parents (judging by the responses here and my real world exp). Different does not always mean bad nothing you have said suggests you are anything other than a loving parent.

I am sure I would agree with you some nights, there would be evenings I got home just wanting to get bath and bed done and there would be a meltdown I said no. However I grew up as that household (admittedly back garden not front). I had a trampoline before they were popular and my house became the place to be, anywhere from 5-15 kids most of the summer and multiple evenings a week would be over and it was the best time ever. I fully intend to give my children that same experience and would take the odd annoying evening in return for all the amazing ones.

I do not think you are a bad person, mentally ill, bad parent etc as some people have said but I will say that you haven't helped your case with the tone of some of your replies, they really have come across as attacking this woman and being very negative.

Clearly from some of your posts about not liking play dates or small talk you are not a social person, that's fine, you are allowed to be like that. However a lot of people are and they enjoy being around others, interacting and spending as much time as possible with others.

I think it's fine for you to be internally frustrated at the situation - you're at odds with your children which is tricky to manage. Your views on what constitutes a nice weekday evening are different from your kids', which causes tension, and it's a headache for you to manage that every evening.

Where I think you've strayed into being unreasonable is in calling your neighbour weird, suggesting she has "lured" children to her, tacit criticism of what you perceive as a lack of structure and routine, suggestions that she has been selfish. None of those things are true. She's providing a nice resource which lots of kids are benefitting from. It's fine if you don't want your children to participate, but that doesn't suddenly make the fact of her doing these things selfish.

Work on managing your own children's expectations and behaviour. Perhaps pick a night of the week where you do allow them to play at her house so that they know when it is allowed. Teach them not to whinge and re-litigate decisions you've already made. But also, I think you should try and work on your own aversion to playdates and messy play like arts and crafts. Children love these things, and they're amazing for development. You don't have to do them all the time, but you also shouldn't prioritise having a clean and quiet house over messy, fun play 100% of the time. (In fact, given that you hate these things you should perhaps be grateful that you can outsource them for free to your neighbour!).