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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel miffed next door neighbour refused to let DS go to play?

417 replies

MrsBarbaraKingstanding · 31/08/2009 20:35

Ok, I'll try to give the necessary info:

Next door neighbour is a friend and her children go to the same school as mine.

She has 3 children, I have 2 all within 4 yrs of each others ages.

My Ds's often ask if they can play with children next door. If they're home I'll say they can call to play. They are allowed to play abut 60% of the time, the rest of the time my friend says 'no they're busy' and oten they then play on their own in their garden.

My Ds's are confused and upset by this. I told them to stop asking for a while.

Then in the summer they've asked about twice and all played ogether really ahppily.

This weekend neighbours had cousins to stay. Yesterady morning 8 children playing games together in neighbours garden, my DS said to DH that sounds great can I play witth them? Dh asked over fence, next doors Ds went to ask my frind if my DS could come and play he came abck and said 'mum says no.'

My DS spends 2 hours watching other kids play next door out of back bedroom window, feeling very sad and forlorn.

Why would anyone do that to a kid?

My Ds's are quiet boys who are honestly no trouble. so it's not that.

so why would anyone have this attitude? I'd be really happy for the kids to play in and out of our houses on an easy going basis, where you kick them out when it's dinner time etc. I really dislike this closed door attitude it seems very cold.

I guess I know the answer to this: we have different attitdes and I've got to accept that.

But I don't like it.

OP posts:
diddl · 01/09/2009 08:44

Good grief!
Just because you tell your child no doesn´t mean he copes with it!
If the neighbours said no, that´s it!
Why should they have to give you a reason?

thesecondcoming · 01/09/2009 08:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

roundededges · 01/09/2009 08:54

OP YANBU!!!! You carry on welcoming their kids over. I can't bear that exclusive attitude, it's mean. I don't see the problem myself with having people round, unless say, it's a funeral or family emergency, but some people just can't cope with it. I do think, though, that she could have come out and explained herself, rather than sending her dc, a bit gutless if you ask me. YANBU!! And you lot who think she is BU should go and live in Spain or somewhere in Africa for a couple of months. That'd shake you up a bit.

juuule · 01/09/2009 09:04

"some people just can't cope with it."

So, if someone can't cope, they are mean?

"a bit gutless if you ask me"

Maybe she just didn't think it was an issue. Or maybe she found it irritating.
Or perhaps she didn't want to be interrupted with her guests.
Maybe, she was busy.

"should go and live in Spain or somewhere in Africa for a couple of months."

Why? are they worse in those countries?

Original poster
MrsBarbaraKingstanding · 01/09/2009 09:19

It was a bunch of kids, yes cousins granted, playing in the garden, you'd think I'd sent them to beg at the table of a family meal the way you're going on. It wasn't an 'event' thr grown ups were in the house it was kids playing.
The I'd grow the leyleani to stop neighbours occasionally asking if our kids who are frinds can play' is very sad attitude I really dislike.

Foe tjose who keep missing my kids do not ask all the time or constantly. It;s an occasional frindly gesture.

I think once again I live in a parallell world to many MNer's.

It's a worls where my DH and all men I know are kind. caring people, where helethy eating is important but not obsesive, where bf and bf are ways of feeding babies and not political issues, and where occasionally asking kids to play is normal behaviour, and where saying 'oh can Tom (not his name) join in with your game?' to cousins is not the appalling socially unforgivable crime you claim, requiring you to keep your curatins shut and grow leylandi.

I much perefer the world I inhabit.

OP posts:
Original poster
MrsBarbaraKingstanding · 01/09/2009 09:25

Actually you do exist in my world, you are the woman who lives across the road and keeps her curtains shut and has a barrier of leylandi around her house.

Don't worry I don't ask her kids to play.

The more I think about this I think I get mixed messages from neighbour about the level of our frindlines, so when the barriers come up, it seems hurtful.

I'm obviously misjudging this, bt finding the level she and I are bth happy with hard to establish.

OP posts:
CyradisTheSeer · 01/09/2009 09:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

LadyStealthPolarBear · 01/09/2009 09:36

OMG the OP has had a battering.
She said early on that the mum has a right to say no and that she has to just deal with that, but her "AIBU" was "to feel miffed".
And I'm the least sociable most reclusive person I know (apart from DH) and I didn't realise there was a family / friends thing! DS is too young at the moment but when I used to go to my cousins we used to meet up with their friends. Glad I learned this now before I commit a huge faux pas.

Oh and as usual for AIBU people aren't reading what the OP says!! OP, I can feel your frustration

roundededges · 01/09/2009 09:39

no it's just that people get so hung up and stressed over having people over and I think they need to chill. People talk about a tolerant society and yet they can't tolerate very simple things. It's the whole "it's my house, it's my family, It's my garden it's our time" thing. Things are much better shared and fiercely holding on to it for yourself is . . . . mean(in the miserly sense of the word). Yes some people do change our dynamic but these things make us grow

claw3 · 01/09/2009 09:41

I invite kids round to mine and i wait for an invite back, i never ask can my kids go to someones house.

If invites are not forthcoming, i assume that parents are busy. If my invites to come and play here are constantly refused i would assume that parents or child dont want to be here and stop inviting.

She invites your kids, you invite her kids, so its not a case of constantly refusing. You seem to be taking any form of rejection very personally.

katiestar · 01/09/2009 09:41

If i invite a friends from school or cousins to play,then I wouldn't invite neighbours kids.I think the visiting child should have their undividid attention.Too often a situation can develop where the DC play with the neighbours kids and leave the invited guest out .

roundededges · 01/09/2009 09:43

Very simple things like inviting someone in when it hasn't been in the diary for at least a couple of months.

Ande juule no, they are not "worse", they are very sociable and welcoming . . . . and think you're a bit strange if you're not. (I realise this is a generalisation!)

Original poster
MrsBarbaraKingstanding · 01/09/2009 09:49

claw3-my kids go around and ask them to play here.

Scenario-

my 2 little boys once a month on average go around to next door and say 'would Ben, Sue and john like to come and play?' Neigbour who I supposedly friedly with says 'no they are busy' about half the time.

We then often see them playing on thier own.

Seems a bit like a snub.

Please all, at least base your kicking of me on the facts.

OP posts:
thesecondcoming · 01/09/2009 09:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

claw3 · 01/09/2009 10:02

If you are friends with her, why not have a chat ie do you mind the kids 'cold calling' and asking 'Ben, Sue and John' to come and play or would you prefer if we actually arranged play dates in advance?

Fimbo · 01/09/2009 10:06

I give the dh a round of applause for saying no, I would never ever have the balls to do that and would then spend the afternoon seething to myself that I should have grown a pair.

roundededges · 01/09/2009 10:12

it wasn't the dh fimbo, she sent her son back to say no. read the op properly.

Fimbo · 01/09/2009 10:13

Thanks for telling me off roundedges

Sorry, well the woman then via her son.

roundededges · 01/09/2009 10:20

I do know what you mean about balls though fimbo, but I'm still on the side of OP

independiente · 01/09/2009 10:27

I think good neighbourly relations are based on making people feel at ease, and not putting them in awkward situations.
How different would this situation have been if you, OP, had popped over briefly to your neighbour (without your DC in tow!) and said something like: 'just thought I'd ask on the off-chance - would it be okay for DC to pop over? If you'd rather not with family there, I quite understand and it's no problem - we can do something another day.'
You never know, with that approach, your neighbour might feel more inclined to be more 'sociable' with you...

Thunderduck · 01/09/2009 10:57

I see this is still going on.

OP You are quite convinced that YANBU aren't you and that nothing will convince you otherwise.

LadyStealthPolarBear · 01/09/2009 10:59

I don't think she's BU to feel a bit miffed. I think she'd be BU if she demanded it, or called her neighbour a cow.

lal123 · 01/09/2009 11:11

maybe they just don't like you or your kids??

pigletmania · 01/09/2009 11:20

Each to their own MrsB, yes i would allow my daughter to have her friends around but not all the time, and reserve my right to say no especially if its dinner or lunch time or we have family over, or I am just too busy to look after more kids. Its not just kids coming to play at your house and they are responsible for themselves, as a adult they would be in your care and so you are responisble if anything happens.

Yes i would limit it to a few kids, I do not want the entire street in our house thanks its our private space too and should be respected does not make me anal just reasonable setting boundaries. Your son has hear no or feel rejection sometime, its part of life i am afraid. Not many girls would play with me as i had Eczema and seemed a bit of a tomboy, it hurt yes but i learned a hard lesson from it. Mabey if your neighbour keeps saying no mabey you should not be friends i dont know.

TsarChasm · 01/09/2009 11:22

Lol blimey is this still going on?!

Most people with one or two exceptions seem to err towards yabu to yabvu.

Once again I wonder to myself who on earth would ever start an AIBU thread?? I give 10/10 to MrsB for sticking this out though.