I’ve been thinking about this. I haven’t really changed my mind about Ronald’s mother becoming more involved, but I think it’s great that when people open their homes to their kids’ friends.
One reason it didn’t happen more often at our house was because I was working and usually didn’t get home until 6, and then it was a mad rush of dinner, laundry, homework. I liked having other kids over, but it was something I wanted to plan for. The kids didn’t care that the house was picked up or there was juice for everybody but I did.
Our house was like the phall house. Kids coming and going, occassionally staying for dinner, sometimes overnight. Carl, the guy that lived about a block away, was dating my sister. His parents were alcoholics. Sometimes they’d lock him out of the house. He spent a lot of time at our house, and was like a member of the family. In fact, 25 years later, when my father was dying of lung cancer, a few of these kids showed up either before he died to say goodbye, or for the funeral afterward. What you do now may have a profound impact on someone’s life.
But on the otherhand, he’s a kid. You’re the adult. Feel free to say “Ronald, it’s time you went home.”
…Oh, I could tell stories about how Carlos’ parents decided he was “too mouthy” and “a bad son” and threw him out of the house. (He was 15 at the time, and although he was a typical 15 year old boy, he was overall a good kid.) Where did he go? Our house, until I went to pay a visit to his parents. Or how Carissa’s mother decided she didn’t want a “filthy whoring lesbian” living with her and threw her out (Carissa was 17 and had just come out of the closet to her mom–several month after she came out at my house). She came to us for a few nights until her mom cooled down to let her back in the house. But, during that time, Carissa still went to school every day and was able to bathe and not worry about eating meals or having a roof over her head. Or Shawn, who if it hadn’t been for eating dinner at our house, wouldn’t have had dinner after his frequent fights with his dad. Or Clarissa who visited frequently just to get out of the house from her junkie mom and creepy brothers…
Not addressing the OP, but my parents had a similar open-door policy, especially when I was a teenager. They observed that my friends were all nice kids, and that nearly always having extra teenagers around on weekends gave them an excuse to go out to dinner and movies. Several friends whose families were not great, or whose living situations were poor, spent some time living at my house.
It was lovely. We’ve got a very drop-in policy for our friends now, and I hope to be very welcoming when my kid(s) friends start coming over.
I should have added that I’ve talked to his mom and my kids occasionally play at his house. He has a much older brother and sister (he’s 12 years younger and a ‘whoops’ baby) who are off at college.
His parents don’t like us much, they tell Ronald that we are crazy because we have an Obama sign in front of our house. And Ronald comes out with a lot of things like ‘People who believe in global warming are so stupid’ But his parents are polite enough.
We often have other children at our house, but the ‘every day’ part of Ronald just gets on my nerves.
When I first started reading this thread I was shocked that people let their children play at all on weekdays. I do not. Weekends are for play and week nights are for homework and family.
Probably too late to implement that rule so Ronald doesn’t come at all.
Having the honor of being the house that all the kids play at on the weekends, I sympathize. I get tired of having other people’s kids around all the time.
You don’t have to be more tolerant of him. In fact, I think its best if you aren’t.
This isn’t a case that Ronald is being abused or that he has an unacceptable home (and even if he was, it isn’t your responsibility to be a surrogate parent - though its certainly a kind hearted thing to do). Ronald is bored, your home provides entertainment. You are under no obligation to be Ronald’s sole source of entertainment - or even just a minor one. You can say “there are no kids - other than mine - allowed in the house until EVERYONE is done with homework.” You can send them outside (as a grownup, I now understand what the whole ‘why don’t you go outside’ thing was about.)
Ronald should learn how to entertain himself - maybe without your children he’ll start reading extensively…make new friends…teach himself the piano.
Yikes, that phrasing is horrifying to me on a visceral level. But then again, I find there are a lot of people who’re horrified at how much I “play with my friends” (poker, video games, monopoly, etc) now at 29.
I expect that when my wife and I have kids (real soon now ™) that our friends and eventually our kids friends will be incorporated into “family time”.
Probably a big portion of my gut reaction is that my wife’s family is the kind of family that people like phall08 were sheltering kids from (thankfully, the abusive parent divorced and disowned so we don’t have to deal with him or his second wife), and my parents (while wonderful human beings) are small business owners in a poor part of the country so working 60-80 hour weeks was the norm for them as long as I can remember, so I got used to making my own fun and in the process forming close relationships with my friends that rival my family ties at this point.
My folks were definitely of the “the more the merrier” type. And I generally am too. And I agree that being able to provide a home away from home for kids that need it is a very very good thing.
But that may not work for autz and her family.
If having Ronald around all the time distracts her kids or consistently annoys her, then she needs to do what she needs to do, for her family and for herself.
This all reminds me of what happened to my friend when she was a teen. Her mother was manic/depressive but the whole family kept it a secret from everyone, included extended family. One day my friend came home and found all her stuff in the front yard. Her mom kicked her out for no reason. Thankfully she had a friend with understanding parents who took her in for a few weeks until things got back to normal at her house.
A couple of years ago I heard from a woman who went to junior high and high school with me. She told me that some of her best memories were of hanging out at my house after school. We’ve been getting together every few weeks since then, and I’m glad to have her back in my life.
However, my mother would have sent her home very quickly if my mother felt imposed upon.
It’s autz’s house, so she gets to set the rules. If she wants her kids to do homework directly after school, then she should tell Ronald that he will not be admitted until after 5, or 6, or whenever. Or perhaps she can change her rules, and allow homework to be done after dinner, BUT her kids would have to give up after dinner TV.
I do think, though, that Ronald shouldn’t be in her house EVERY SINGLE DAY. Hell, sometimes you get tired of your own kids, let alone someone else’s!
This is pretty much how I ran my house when my kids were younger and I still run it that way. I don’t think there was one weekend during the school year or one day during the summer that some kid(s) was not sleeping over. Last summer one of my daughters best friends was having issues at home and she almost spent the entire summer with us. Things are better now and she only stays over once in a while and not because she is hiding from home troubles but she knows she can come here if she needs to and she is welcome. She does not even knock when she comes in.
I will admit there were times that having the kid central house was frustrating because I have such a small house but I enjoyed talking with them. Teenagers can be a great joy to listen to when they sit around and bullshit about school, friends etc.
They are older now. They have cars, jobs and social lives so I don’t get to see them as much as I used to but every once in a while they stop by to visit with my daughter and I get a chance to chit chat with them and I still enjoy their company.
I also know I can ask for thier help if I need it. Nothing like a pack of strong teenagers on moving day:)
Every family has different priorities. I played with my friends a lot after school on weekdays, and I’m glad now for those experiences. I hope that my kids can enjoy similar experiences.
Even sven’s comments above about being “kicked out” of the house between school and dinner rang true for me.
Many of my friends (well, acquaintances) and nearly every aunt/uncle/cousin had houses like this in the little towns where I grew up.
Unfortunately I rarely got to participate. The nearest child my age was 3 miles away down gravel roads.
I did get quite a bit of unsupervised forest/fishing/boating experience between 6-10, however, and as I had given our television away at 6, I learned to love those books.
In other words, go with what works- as a child I always wished for a more social environment, but I can’t say that I didn’t grow quite a bit from the solitude.
You can just tell Ronald that he can’t come over before he’s phoned you and gotten permission to do so. Set clear boundaries with him, but beyond that you don’t need to justify yourself.
Honestly I think you’d be doing the kid a huge favor. I’ve met a few people, as adults, who had cultivated such a willful obliviousness to other people’s boundaries that it rose (sank?) to the level of a fine art. To the point where I actually had to have a conversation with a former boss to tell him that he had no access to my private life without an explicit invitation from me – and a month later, he decided the entire office was going to do some weird group therapy exercise together, telling each other of the high and low points of our lives thus far, complete with line graph. And others, who asked me for the same damn favor, once a week, 6 weeks in a row, even though he got a “no” every single time (because he’d just “forgotten” that we’d already talked about it). They were absolutely untrainable. I got really tired of saying “no” over and over and over again (and it’s a really awkward conversation to have with the guy who’s holding your paycheck). So if you can start instilling it now, that other people have boundaries and he has a responsibility to respect them, it’ll do him a lot more good than if he gets away with it all during childhood and thus expects to continue to get away with it in adulthood.
Well, different strokes, I guess. I come from a fairly close-knit family, and I always got to play with my friends on weekdays. Weekends were family days for us. Every single Sunday it was church and grandpa. Most Saturdays it was visiting one of my cousins. I almost never saw my friends on weekends–weekdays were the only times for me, and I saw them at least three times a week, usually every day.
I’m a goof. I purposely admit I haven’t read any of the other responses. I thought everyone else has been rational, so I might as well give my reaction:
You have nothing to stop. Your newfound neighbor friend sounds like a wonderful guy. He may inadvertently hinder their HW, but he sounds like a wonderful friend. Gently keep on discouraging him from being so bold, but let him be your childrens’ friends.
