My husband doesn't like other kids in our home.

[whirlingswirlingsaucepan]

My husband doesn't like other kids in our home. Particularly young boys, as they TEND (not all) to be more energetic and he is worried they COULD break something. We live in a fairly large house at the edge of a small town. He has been strict with our kids, making sure they are extremely careful in our home. (I found this hard, as I believe young kids should play and be free (within reason) to make mistakes). We have a comfortable lifestyle, so we can afford for kids to make mistakes.

The problem is we have lots of family and friends with young kids. (Our kids - all girls - are also under 10). And it's a very important value of mine to invite people round to my home. I wanted to have a small bbq and invite a few people, including my sister and her kids round. My husband is happy to invite other people, but not my sis as her kids "Might" break something. (They never have). It makes me so sad. I'm very close to my sister.
When I insist on things like this, my husband gets grumpy, he says I'm not considering his feelings and we end up arguing and arguing and arguing. This happened a couple of months ago when I invited a couple of close friends round with their kids.

What can I do?

Tell him to go out when the children are coming round because that is a weird setup

he says I'm not considering his feeling

Well, he's not considering yours.

Your husband sounds like a bore who values things over people. What’s the point of having a great home for entertaining if the kids aren’t allowed to enjoy it too. Tell him to go out.

Options:

organise a big picnic meet up in a local park

organise a bbq where people are mostly outside unless they need the loo (put signs up)

especially in summer this is quite easy to meet both of your needs as socialising outside is easy

How sad for your kids (and you) when things are more important than friendships, this is what it boils down to. Invite him to live in the shed with all his precious belongings whilst you and the kids have a normal sociable life with the family.

Does your husband think of anybody but himself?

My DP used to be like this. I ignored him completely.

Tell him your rule is hospitality before possessions, and he’s free to lock away his prized glass rhinoceros collection before the visitors arrive.

You’ve posted about this before, haven’t you? Or else someone else is also married to your DH.

He’s training you.

Or husband chills out a bit and accepts that part of having children is having other children in the house. There is nothing to suggest that any of the kids being invited are particularly disruptive and will break stuff- he’s just being overly anxious about what might happen (that has never happened in the past)

Tell him to go out when you have all your family or friends round for the whole day. He is a miserable old man and will be all alone with his possessions for company very soon. Life is for people not stuff.

Is he like this in other ways? Do you get to dictate who can come to your house?

Could he be out when you have people round?

Has he made your DC’s lives hard with his ways, is it just breaking things he is fixated on or other things too?

Yep. Train him right back op. I didnt even enter into conversation after trying a few times, he'd just come home and DC pals would be here. He did learn to take the rod out his arse when he saw nothing terrible happens.

I think you just have to have the “look, we both view this very differently. There is no right or wrong answer here so we need to find a middle way” conversation.

One way could be - I am
happy to do the work of entertaining, why don’t you put away the items that are of particular value to you and go out for the afternoon?

Say it doesn’t have to be every week but you are not happy with a blanket ban on entertaining in your home…

Obviously children need to learn to be careful with things and not wilfully damage them, but there is a wide spectrum between accidentally breaking something and wanton damage

Child proof the space a bit when expecting boisterous children.
All active play to be outside - balls, swings, cubby, etc.
Shut some rooms off inside or have a designated couple of rooms where kids are calmly playing puzzles, screens, craft, lego and toys. Any monkey business and all kids outside.
Can you not both agree on acceptable boundaries that decrease risk of damage?
Offer to take kids on an outdoor walk to park to expell energy if need be..

I agree with @Megifer and always went ahead anyway. Give him a glass of wine and the barbecue to run and he perks up.

I always frame it not in terms of me vs him but about the kind of childhood we want our kids to have. We have some friends who grew up in glass-houses type set ups where they didn't have mates over and of course as adults reflect how lonely that was. Vs my own messy chaotic childhood where my mum always said we can always put up another chair at the table, always add some more potatoes to the stew, and we were always surrounded by friends and laughter. I want same for my kids.

I dont' believe this is about worrying about breakage. this is about ensuring that he is in control and that you, and your DC, are doing what HE wants at all time. Is he happy to socialise at other people's houses and go ot and be with other people and for you all to do that? I doubt it.

And even if, best case, it IS about a weird anxiety about breakage, then actually, that's something HE Needs to deal with because it is not normal to refuse to allow other people into your home, it's not normal to be so paranoid about young children (vs child proofing a house which is what most people do) and it's not normal to put this kind of barrier up to you seeing your sister.

The issue here is he's not compromising. Why cant he just put away valuables and make himself scarce? You could say that your ideal amount of hosting is xxx times but your compromise will be xx times. Sounds like at the moment he's expecting you and your kids to just do all the compromising so he gets his way.

Is he like this with other things?

This is a good idea. To husband "what exactly are you worried they might break" and allow him to lock special things away. Unless you have glass tables etc... though even then we have a few and just took the glass tops off and put away safely when having very boisterous kids over.

Oh, and to add, we had a nephew who absolutely DID break things ALL THE TIME. It was horrible. So the level of child proofing we went through for a few years when he was around was x100 what we had normally. He is a similar age to DD and we used to spend a good 20 minutes before he came over ensuring tha tanything breakable or that she particularly loved in her room was put away before he came over and me/DH would also monitor him closely (don't get me started on SIL and BIL's uselessness).

My point is that child proofing a house is perfectly doable. We still have a rule that no children that aren't ours are allowed up to our bedroom (loft) and none of DD's friends are allowed in DS' room and vice versa.

Your husband doesn't get to decide that you can't have your family over

In fairness he's not alone, since the majority people on this site refuse to have/reciprocate play dates in their homes because they don't want other children there...

But realistically it's something he just needs to endure. Most people aren't massive fans of other people's kids (especially if they're not used to the word 'no') but it happens to be something that's quite important when raising kids and/or socialising generally.

He's a selfish cunt trying to deny his children their playmates.

Jesus, how miserable and controlling. What on earth does he think will break? The simple solution is to move anything you going a shit about out of the way. But it's not really about that, is it?

He sounds controlling and like he's trying to isolate you and wield his power over your poor daughters. Are you drifting away from your sister because you're not seeing her and her "boisterous" sons very much?