Her Daughter Is Always Welcome Next Door, Yet She Won’t Let The Neighbor’s Kids Inside Her Own Home
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Imagine living in a neighborhood where your children are friends with the neighbor kids. That sounds pretty idealistic until you think about the reality.
What would you do if the neighbor kids came over to play and left your child’s room a complete mess?
In this story, one woman was in this situation, and her husband decided to make a new rule. Now, the neighbor kids are only allowed to play outside at their house.
She’s not sure if this rule is fair.
Let’s read all about it.
AITA for having a “No Neighbor Kids” rule at my house?
My neighborhood has a lot of kids around my daughter’s age (6).
She most often plays with her best friends: 9F and 3F from one house, 6M, and 3F from another.
She goes to their houses often and often goes inside to play.
It’s summertime, and the kids play together often, as summer school is only part time.
It can be hard to work from home while watching kids.
I am a full time remote employee and have 3 dogs.
The dogs go crazy when people come inside, and the kids are constantly asking me to cook meals and serve drinks when they play inside, so I made the rule that no one is inside while I work.
I work until 1-2 hours before my kid’s summer curfew.
For a while, neighbor kids were allowed to visit in the evenings.
But this caused problems.
Unfortunately, either 2 or all 4 show up and my kid’s bedroom is a disaster right after.
Husband and I are working to teach her not to let kids tip over bookshelves, bring food into the room and leave it all over the floor, etc., but in the meantime she is still just 6 and has a hard time standing up to 4 kids who don’t have the same toys at home and are excited to play with hers – which I understand!
But because of how badly they have all torn the place apart in a short period of time, my husband has set the rule that between the dogs losing their minds and the messes, the kids can only play outside at our house, even when I am off work.
But it feels unfair that she is allowed in the neighbors’ homes and we are not reciprocating.
She isn’t sure this rule is a good idea.
It would be different if it was only one or two of the older kids, but the older kids always have their respective 3 year old sisters in tow.
I have only spoken a bit to the parents about this because there is a huge language barrier with the adults in both houses.
They have said they like to keep the household “easy” in their culture – let the kids roam, play wherever, don’t worry about how often my daughter comes by, etc.
I think they might like that my daughter helps with the 3 year olds. She is awesome with the little girls, and loves playing big sister to them. But still- she’s another small human in their home.
She feels conflicted.
Anyway, the lack of ability to clearly communicate with the parents makes me wonder if my husband and I are AHs for letting our daughter visit the neighbors’ homes indoors often, but make their children play outside (except for bathrooom breaks) in our home due to it being disruptive to my work and the dogs.
The houses are directly across the street, so I feel it might be ok because if they want to play inside they can go home anytime.
We provide plenty of snacks as well. (My daughter eats lunch at summer school so I don’t cook during the day unless the kids are here and ask, I only provide snacks until dinner time after work).
Should we be more welcoming and let the neighbor kids play in our house to reciprocate? Or AITA for banning it?
I hope someone is keeping an eye on the kids when they’re playing outside. I don’t think it’s a good idea to let the kids come over and play outside if they’re unsupervised.
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Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with their rule.
One person shares a neighborly idea.
This person doesn’t think there’s any problem.
Another person thinks the rule can change as the kids get older.
Parenting isn’t one size fits all. What works for one family may not work for another family. In this case, OP is working from home while watching her daughter. Adding more kids to that, a complete mess and barking dogs sound like complete chaos.
On the other hand, the neighbor might be a stay-at-home mom without a job and without barking dogs. It might actually be helpful to have neighbor kids come over to play to keep her own kids entertained and busy.
One parent’s decision doesn’t have to be the same as another parent’s decision, but it’s nice of OP to be concerned about what does or does not seem fair.
I just hope someone is supervising the kids.
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