Two summers ago, my kids were playing with the neighbor kids, quite a bit older. My twins were 4; my eldest 6. They were going to play in the sprinkler in the neighbors’ back yard. I told them not to go in the neighbors’ house. The neighbor kids actually borrowed my sprinkler for all this.
So, the kids were playing. Then one of the 4 year olds decided, in typical 4 year old logic, to change into a dry dress afterward. In the neighbors’ back yard. The grandmother saw this out the window and went absolutely berzerk and screamed at their kids to tell my kids they were not allowed to play together anymore. My kids came home crying and bewildered. No adult ever came to speak to me.
The next day I screwed up my courage and went to that house. The man who lives there (uncle?) answered the door. I asked him if he could help me understand what happened, although I agreed my child had been in the wrong, and I had spoken to her. Well, he didn’t know a thing about it. He excused himself, went to talk to the older kids, and came back in a moment to say he was sorry, he’d sort it out, he didn’t see why the kids couldn’t play together, and so on. He mumbled something very quiet about sexual abuse.
He never came to speak to me about having sorted it out. After a tense summer following, when their kids played in the street and mine couldn’t go out because otherwise they’d have been infringing on the other kids’ “space”, things eased off. I guess. I mean, the kids do talk together in the street now. But I still have no idea what happened, or what kind of grandmother freaks out about a 4 year old changing into dry clothing in the back yard.