Hi,
My daughter who is ten met a girl, also ten (I'll call her Hannah) at a club she is part of last week (she has just moved up to the next age section so this was the first time they had met.) They were going to be an activity the following week where they could present something in pairs so they swapped numbers and arranged to practise at the girls house yesterday. I had only briefly seen Hannah but my husband very briefly met her and her mother when he picked my daughter up from the club and he said the mother had said she would 'leave it for the girls to arrange.' My daughter has only recently had a mobile phone so quite a few messages were exchanged between her and Hannah.
So fast forward to yesterday when I dropped my daughter off at their house - the daughter was on the road waiting for us wearing a little crop top, low cut leggings and no shoes - giving my husband a surly look as he pulled up on the pavement. She was really unkempt and looked dirty (I am fully expecting to get flamed for this but I'm trying to give an accurate picture.) The mother seemed a bit vacant and generally a bit odd. Bearing in mind we had never met I was surprised by the lack of engagement. Leaving my daughter there felt completely wrong and I just had a really bad feeling about it. Call it what you will - mothers instinct perhaps.
Two hours later I went to pick my daughter up - with my husband and younger daughter waiting in the car outside. The Mum ushered me into the hall, my daughter was nowhere to be seen and Hannah was on the stairs video chatting to her friend. The mother then said we should watch the girls' performance and insists I get my husband and daughter from the car. It was odd because it wasn't that the mother was welcoming - she was just insistent that we watch. My daughter appeared then and clearly didn't want to 'perform' but obviously felt she had to. We all went into the sitting room where the husband is - he was sitting on the sofa on the laptop and he didn't even look up until I said hello. He didn't speak at all other than 'hello'. He just gave me the complete chills - he looked very odd (as my husband said - 'not fit to have children') - completely vacant and very creepy. When I looked at him watching the girls perform he looked as though he was enjoying it for the wrong reasons. I cannot explain well enough on here but I hope you know what I mean. Pervy - it just made me so uncomfortable. My daughter got hot performing and took off her jumper and every part of me wanted to ask her to put it back on. We thanked them for having her and went home. I don't have this feeling with other Dad's of my daughter's friends by the way.
When we got home my daughter was very upset and was tearful - lashing out (not physically) at us and struggling to express what she was feeling. After sometime she was able to tell us that she had felt uncomfortable there and that Hannah's parents had made them perform for them about eight times, constantly criticising my daughter and asking them to do it again. My daughter said she was exhausted and that she wasn't sure she wanted to do it anymore at the next session as she felt she wasn't good enough. It also transpired that Hannah was on Instagram, Snapchat, had a YouTube channel, Twitter - you name it, she was on it. We do not have those things for our daughter (and she wouldn't want them now anyway) but I was shocked at how exposed Hannah was by using them. The mother has the 'We're very relaxed here' attitude that really means 'I have little or no idea what my daughter is doing in her bedroom.' My daughter said in the end that she felt she had to say something good about her visit there to me as it's the first time she had been there.
Bottom line is I don't ever want her to go there again. I feel awful for letting her visit them when I'd never met the parents or daughter before. She will obviously be at the club they both attend and is likely to be at secondary school too but I do not feel comfortable with her going to their house again. How do I navigate this if there's another invitation? I'm hoping my daughter won't want to go anyway as she is very different to Hannah (our daughter is very young in the year, not very mature for her age - Hannah is already hitting puberty and has a completely different lifestyle and attitude.) I feel really sick about it all - I'll never know how much the Dad got out of watching my daughter. I know I've got nothing to base it on other than what I saw and my gut feeling but I know how it made my husband and I feel.
I do accept people bring their children up differently - my daughter has lots of different friends, not all 100% my cup of tea but that's fine - this was different though. If anyone has any constructive advice I'd be so grateful. Thanks.