Yesterday, my daughter got off the bus and told me that the neighbor’s daughter, J, said that the girls could not play together anymore, because I’m too weird.
I didn’t think too much about it. I thought maybe J was mad at me because this past Sunday, I didn’t let my daughter go play.
This morning, the neighbor bitch was outside waiting for the bus with her daughter and giving me dirty looks. After the kids got on the bus, she came up to me and asked if my daughter had heard the news, that they can’t play together anymore. I said, yes she told me, why ? Neighbor bitch said I was too strange and she didn’t like her daughter being at my house. I asked what she was talking about and she said:
She didn’t like the way I diciplined the kids. Her daughter is always good at my house and I’ve never had to dicipline her at all, she said she was refering to a time when one of the neighborhood boys was here and acting up, with his moms permission I made the boy sit down and watch Barbie and the Nutcracker with my son, who was also acting up.
I listen to the radio when we’re waiting for the bus and sing to it with my kids. She thinks it’s weird for me to do that.
The other day, we were waiting for the bus and singing Christmas songs. I changed the words to a few of them to fit my kids names. J asked me to do her name. Neighbor bitch found it insulting that I did.
She thought I was wrong in not letting my daughter go to her house on Sunday. I had two valid reasons for saying no. First, it was snowing pretty bad and we couldn’t even see the road. Neighbor bitch only lets the girls play outside, never inside, so I didn’t think this was the best idea. The second reason is that we were decorating for Christmas and it was a family day.
So, now I’m hurt and my daughter is hurt. I try to be a good mommy. I’m silly with my kids and I’m close to them, but now I’m hurting my daughter. I never thought I was doing anything wrong, and I’m not sure I am.
No, no, no.
You are not too weird. Neighbor bitch is too vindictive and, well, bitchy. What kind of mother hurts her OWN CHILD by taking away a playmate because of her own petty grievances? I can see trying to limit time with a child whose parenting she finds objectionable, but the hurtful part is the way she phrased it and made sure you and your daughter knew why.
She is a bitch. I don’t see anything weird about how you parent, from these examples. But maybe that’s me. I must be weird, too, because I change the words to every song to include my daughter’s name.
I don’t think you’re hurting your daughter. Your neighbor is. If you changed your entire lifestyle to match what she thought you should be like, you’d be miserable, your kids would be miserable, and your neighbor would still find something unconscionably wrong with you.
I do the same kind of things as you do with my kids. They call me weird. I call them weird. Then we all laugh.
It’s garbage night and we have a few little bags of garbage that won’t fit in our bin. I tell the kids we will have to secretly put the bags in neighbours’ bins. We don dark clothing, paint our faces and sneak out to ambush the garbage bins. It all involves crawling through bushes, jumping fences, hiding from cars with secret whistles and birdcalls and soldierly arm gestures. The kids wanted to do it every garbage night for 2 months.
Kids like weird.
I wish I’d thought of making a disruptive child sit and watch something like Barbie and the Nutcracker because sometimes time out was noisier than the original behaviour.
I was gonna ask if I could come over to dragongirl’s house to play, but now I wanna go to don’t ask’s. Y’all are cool, your kids will grow up to be cool, and the neighbor will be a miserable old bitch until she dies.
Well, see, the problem is that she’s not humming the lastest Brittany song, she’s singing Power Of Love, full blast, and not quite hitting the high notes.
I get this crap a lot because I am weird. But Rez, Jr. seems to enjoy the sillyness of mommy making secret faces at him or my made-up games (how many sevens are on the wall at the grocery store? is a favorite).
Just the other day I got a “What kind of mother are you?”
It’s kind of become a source of honor for me - I am weird woman, hear me roar! type of thing.
This made me laugh so hard I cried. I wish my parents had been fun like that.
dragongirl’s neighbor is a lunatic and should be shunned. I’d make a point of driving by her house with the windows down, everyone in the car singing and laughing their heads off.
I’ve got a small problem with using The Nutcracker as punishment. You’re instilling the idea that ballet is to be seen as bad and as punishment. Sure it’s aimed at girls; and by making it a punishment for boys you’re reinforcing the idea that boys can’t like girl things.
As for singing with the radio, I think it’s more weird not to do it. Questioning your reason for saying “no” for a play date is asinine. You shouldn’t feel the need to justify your decisions.
One of the cool things about being a parent is that you it gives you a pass to be weird. Kids love that. My 2-year old’s current favorite thing is to watch my husband pretend that he’s been attacked by a (clean) diaper and can’t get it off his head. It involves pulling on the diaper, crashing into walls, jumping up and down. Yesterday, I “tried” to get it off his head and we both went careening into opposite walls. My son thought it was hilarious. He’s the only one who is strong enough to get the diaper off daddy’s head. Weird is the best thing ever.
You see, she wasn’t using the Nutcracker as punishment. She was using the “Barbie and the Nutcracker” as punishment. I would think this would be worse on little girls. Setting up boys with the same unrealistic stereotype of beauty sure would have longer lasting repercussions. It made me laugh.
I also think dragongirl’s neighbor is quite psycho. I truly feel sorry for her soon to be very lonely daughter.
It made me laugh.