Imagine living next to a neighbor who you don’t know very well but who also doesn’t bother you. A lot of neighbors can be like that. I personally don’t know most of my neighbors very well, but I’m lucky not to have any real drama with any of my neighbors either. Neighbors who keep to themselves are much better than neighbors who stir up drama.

Anyway, the single mom in this story has a next door neighbor like that. He’s a middle aged man who lives by himself and who pretty much minds his own business.

But one day this neighbor said something to her child that the child didn’t understand. When he told his mom when the neighbor said, she was confused and furious. She’s wondering why he would say such a thing, but she’s also wondering if she’s overreacting.

Let’s read the whole story to decide if she’s overreacting or not.

AIO – Neighbor said inappropriate name to my minor child

I live in a community that is very compact and close together.

I have a male neighbor across the driveway from me who is older, maybe 40’s. He has kind of a doesn’t give a care attitude. He has never been disrespectful towards anyone that I’ve seen.

I have only had a couple brief interactions with him, and so has my family. He is kind of nosy, but mostly harmless as far as I could tell.

Overall he seems like a good neighbor…

This seemed odd.

Well this morning, I was in the garage starting the car and my minor child was putting the garbage out for pickup today.

I saw the man and saw he was looking in the direction of my minor child and I could see his mouth moving, but didn’t hear anything. He was walking back to his house, and I saw his head still looking in the direction of my minor child still with his mouth moving like he was saying something.

I saw my minor child shrug and get in the car.

As we are driving, I asked my minor child. What was he saying to you?

This is definitely not okay.

My minor child tells me that the male neighbor said “what’s up, ***** boy” and my minor child responded “what?” The man said AGAIN “what’s up, ***** boy”

I was stunned.

I dropped my child off at summer camp, and circled back to our neighborhood. I knocked on his door a couple times, I waited a few minutes, but there was no answer.

She’s pretty confused.

I am NOT a confrontational person; and I am a single woman. He is not much taller than me, but definitely burly and bigger than me.

I feel very shaken up about this. I also have really bad anxiety, so I am spiraling pretty hard over this.

My child has had interactions with him the past just fine. I’m really confused why the neighbor would say that.

The good neighbor quickly turned into a creepy neighbor.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a man who was so upset about dog messes in his yard that he involved the whole neighborhood in the solution.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person suggests talking to her son.

A mom with two boys weighs in.

Here’s a similar thought.

Here’s another suggestion.

Let’s just hope that the little boy misunderstood what the neighbor said, which is entirely possible. The fact that the boy asked the man to repeat what he said means that he didn’t hear him clearly the first time. It’s also possible that he didn’t hear him clearly the second time.

It would probably be a good idea if the mom talked to her son about avoiding the neighbor though just to be on the safe said. She obviously doesn’t know him at all, and it’s always better to be on the safe side.

It’s good that she saw her son interact with the neighbor. Otherwise she never would’ve even known to ask her son what the neighbor said.

She sounds like a great mom who is right to be concerned. I don’t think she’s overreacting, but it is possible that her neighbor actually said something else and isn’t a creep after all.