There is a divide in life between people raising kids and people who aren’t (or no longer are) coping with kids at home.
It’s not always insidious; it’s just about people sharing similar life experiences.
OP and her neighbors are all child-free at the moment but when a family moved in, she tried to be friendly.
Last month my old neighbors moved out and some new ones moved in. A couple in their late twenties with four small children. The wife is a SAHM and the husband is a trucker.
I went to introduce myself and bring them a pie right after they moved in. I didn’t really like their vibe but I’m a friendly person so I tried inviting the wife to things.
Our neighborhood is small, a collection of ten houses. Everyone knows everyone and is generally pretty friendly. No one else has young kids though. It’s mostly couples with no kids, or older couples who’s kids moved out.
I hang out with two of my female neighbors who are a similar age to my own (mid twenties). We go on walks, have lunch at each others houses, etc. I only work three days a week so I have a lot of free time.
I invited the new neighbor, Molly, to two different things.
It backfired when the other woman always brought her kids along.
Lunch at my house and also a walk/hike me and the others were going on. Both time she just assumed she could bring her kids and showed up to my house with them.
I turned her away from lunch at my house because I don’t want four rowdy kids under the age of six in my not childproof house. She was upset because she has no one who can ever watch them, and she can’t come without them.
She did bring them on a walk with us but we couldn’t go in the forest because of her stroller so it kind of ruined things for us. There’s no trees or shade in the neighborhood and the summer heat makes it awful, the forest is much better.
Since then I’ve been avoiding Molly like the plague. I just don’t want to be her friend.
She’s invited me over, asked to come over and bring her kids, she even asked me to watch her kids the other day so she can have a break.
I barely know the woman and I feel like her behavior is pretty inappropriate and she’s maybe just not picking up on social cues.
Now, they’re close to becoming mortal enemies.
Today me and my other neighbors went for a walk in the forest, and she saw us go.
She texted me to ask why she wasn’t invited, and I said it’s because we don’t want our plans to be altered by her children, and she’s expressed that she can’t do anything without her children.
She went on a rant about how it takes a village and we don’t understand what it’s like, and she called us all jerks.
I agree with her that I don’t understand what it’s like, because I would personally never choose to have four kids with an absent husband.
I just feel like she’s being unreasonable to expect us to have a bad time just so she can have a good time. Her kids were super annoying and hard to deal with.
My husband thinks she’s a jerk but my mom thinks I should be more sympathetic.
AITA for excluding my neighbor from activities?
Did OP do anything wrong? I’d love to have Reddit’s take on this one!
The top comment says no one has the moral high ground here.
But this person says you can’t assume there’s no one else to watch the kids.
And this commenter agrees with the first one, that everyone could have done better.
There was a lot of back and forth.
Other stay at home moms sided with the neighbor.
This friendship obviously wasn’t meant to be.
The damage is done, so everyone should just move on.
Want to read another story where somebody got satisfying revenge? Check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.