Child’s friend insulted house

[Spicychili]

As heading- my daughter’s 8 year old friend came over to play and kept asking why our house and garden are so small and commenting on it. This is a sore point as most kids at their school have larger houses! I overheard them so didn’t get involved in the discussion. My daughter seemed to brush it off. AIBU to be upset by this or is this normal?

She's 8. She's probably just thinking it's a genuine question and wouldn't understand that you find it insulting. How can an 8 year old understand how finances and house prices work? They'd be as likely to see photos of starving children and wonder why their parents didn't just go out and buy a takeaway - it's naivety, not bitchiness.

Yeah we got it from a boy in year 3. He pointed out we didn’t have a play room nor a very big garden. He wasnt being spiteful, just making an observation. The fact that we lived in a £1m house was neither here nor there to him as he lived in a £2m house. All depends on your point of reference!

They're kids

My son once had a friend round at about the same age who took one look at our garden and said “Our garden is a thousand times bigger than your garden!” Turned out it was true - his family owned loads of land - including a deer park! I also remember when I was a very little girl, pre school, visiting a child and asking where her playroom was. She showed me to a tiny tiled hallway - where there was only just about enough room for us both to stand - and told me that this was her playroom. I was very confused.

We get this all the time when my kids' friends come around, as most of them live in a house with a garden and our flat is exceptionally small with no outdoor space.

I have never found it rude or insulting because they are children and it is obvious when they have never seen a similar type of home. The comments are just neutral observations.

If a child were using a demeaning tone or trying to cause offence I would take note, but that has never been the case.

If my own child made a comment that an adult would know is rude, I would make sure to fill them in on the background (in this case, different homes that exist) and at some point it would be appropriate to let them know what might seem impolite or hurtful, but not in the moment.

When my own kids do complain that "all" their friends live in lovely houses, I do point out that certain friends never invite anyone home and this is because they are more overcrowded than we are by far, so they are comparing themselves with an unrepresentative set of people.

Hopefully your daughter won't internalise the idea that a smaller home is shameful and will continue to treat it as if her friend commented on anything else that she noticed.

Sounds like it's more about your insecurity than your child's.

You're only bothered because you feel bad that you have a smaller house. It's tricky for small kids to learn that commenting on houses, bodies, cars etc is rude when they're being factual, not judgemental. They don't necessarily get the difference between compliments and insults. Older than 8 I would expect them to be learning.

Yes, exactly! One person’s Sign of Obvious Poverty is another person’s Sign of Infinite Good Taste. 😀

Yesterday my almost 4 year old told my friend that we live in a normal house and she doesn’t.

We live in a 3 bed semi, my friend lives in a knocked through row of listed cottages with a huge garden.

Kids comment on difference.

The child is 8, you're an adult get a grip.

When I was about 11, I remember trying to describe my house to a friend when I'd visited hers for the first time. I drew a diagram just to show the relative layouts, shapes and sizes. I had no intention to brag - I actually thought her house was better because she lived near other friends and they had shops and buses and all sorts of exciting things that we didn't. I was shocked when she later told me I'd been insulting.

I'd just say that perhaps we have less money than her family, but our house meets our family's needs, and while we are on the subject, just a heads up, but people can find such comments or observations quite rude, so perhaps it would be best not to make them.

She's a child. She's curious. Kids wonder about anything that looks different to their norm. Its not an insult.

When we sent our DCs to a school where there was a lot of wealth, we explained beforehand that most people there would have much bigger houses, better cars and holidays.
we also said it wasn’t a competition and that we were happy with what we had.

So apart from one occasion where younger DC came back from a play date and asked why we didn’t have “Land” , which we laughed at, it was fine

We purposefully have a small house and my daughter had the same sort of comments from friends. She responded, 'only 3 people live here, how big do you think a house should be?'

It’s not “everything” though is it. 🙄

One of DS’s friends had just moved into a leafy road when they walked down it as a class. When the boy proudly pointed out his new home (purchased for the best part of £3m), the classmate said ‘Oh that’s a small house’. The lad who made the comment lived in a 6000 square foot mansion nearby so it’s all relative. I’m just thankful they didn’t see ours! 😅. This was all relayed to me by DS who despite his tender years then was very careful around the subject of privilege and money as it had been drummed into him.

The poster who mentioned the rigid ideas around LMC status/status symbols has nailed it and I love that they are challenging the perception of what wealth actually is for these people!

This child hasn't been educated to understand what's socially acceptable to question or express or has learned these values from somewhere.

If they are otherwise nice, I'd just make sure my child understands their worth and value doesn't come from the home their parents have.

Unfortunately though, there always has been and always will be around home snobbery. There were (awful) kids at my school who wouldn't speak to people who didn't live on the right streets. Hopefully they've grown up to have better values.

But at 8 years old the kid probably doesn’t even understand that a smaller house is making a comment about money or having less or more. 8 is still very young where those sorts of calculations are concerned.

This. She was making an observation and she didn't know it was rude. I can understand why you were slightly upset though.

I think kids from both ends of the scale just need direction on how to navigate stuff like this. Kid is 8yo and not an unusual comment.

how did you respond?

when dd was at primary we lived in a 3 bed semi and her best friends parents were multi millionaires who lived in an 8 bed mansion

dd once asked why we didn’t have as big a house as her friend. And I just pointed out that dd is lucky compared to others. Her house may not be a mansion but she has a bedroom and there’s always food in the fridge and we can afford heating, unexpected bills, etc. she seemed to take it on board.

I saw this happen. (Not about my home thank goodness) child A who lived in a large house in an unfashionable area asked child B who lived in a small house in a hugely fashionable area why her home was so small. (And she meant it unkindly).
I considered intervening but decided explaining to 8 year old girls why location made child B's house far posher than Child A's house was a conversation I wasn't willing to have.

I don't think she was insulting it. It is just literally a fair bit smaller than other houses she's been to. That's not to say you shouldn't guide her towards saying things in a sensitive way. Or kind of deflect it maybe...

Something like 'people, houses, animals, everything comes in different sizes. You're small now but will get bigger. Some people and things are just meant to be small and will stay that way'.

Or 'its smaller because it's made of less bricks and has a smaller roof, and less bedrooms.'

A kid once asked me at pick up why "my mum and dad were so old" (parents in their 30s compared to my friends who, looking back was probs early 20s). I then asked my parents this completely as innocently.

Kids at this age say what they see, its nothing personal.

As someone who’s home(1 bed flat) , is smaller than most people’s… meh. All DD’s friends lived in 3 bed houses , some even in 5/6 beds. There were comments, sometimes even from adults like “how do you fit it all in?”. The main thing was that no one was actually snobby about it and kids actually loved coming over and it was the “gathering “ house.