Some of my relatives are like that. At a recent family get together, once the sleeping arrangements were organized, it was blatantly obvious that I had been placed as a chastity guard for the organizer’s teen daughter, one of my cousins, who had brought a boyfriend. Guess the idea was that it would be difficult to arrange a liaison <3 with me sleeping a few feet away. What are you doing! Get back in your own bed! I’m telling your mom! In the end nothing seemed to happen.
Or maybe the kid had gotten lice from a sleep over before. Guess what? Clean non-mangy girls get and spread lice and sleep overs all sharing brushes and goofing around in close contact is a way they spread.My daughter has gotten lice a few times at one of her best friends house (hearing a few days after a sleep over that uh oh the friend or another friend who was there had just been determined to have lice). Mind you its not the end of the world, just a bonding experience of several hours over several nights. But once doing it is enough for most of us! I can imagine some parents who having had that happen once would avoid group sleep overs in the future.
Which is sort of the point here … who knows what experiences these people have or have not had that makes one or the other or both of them a bit irrational about this? It’s odd, yes, but the world is full of odd folk. And sometimes they are odd for good cause.
The way I see it our op could have …
- Said something at the time other than “Um, sure, no problem thanks for calling.” … like “What?!? I gotta tell you that is a bit odd and offensive.”
-Or he could have said what he said and then let it go with a shake of his head at the strange people. And moved on letting his daughter know that this girl’s parents are not comfortable having her friend sleep over but she’ll likely see her at the party soon.
-Or he could have said what he said and then silently stewed, upset that they didn’t politely lie about what their reason was, and consider punishing their daughter by uninviting her to his daughter’s birthday party … if only it wasn’t three days away … and plan on passive aggressively giving them the cold shoulder.
Somehow option two seems best to me. Trying to punish the kid and passive aggressively dealing with these parents who may have some personal past issues that we are not aware of seems the worst.
Just MHO.
Let me try to get caught up here…
Not really. We’ve been to a couple birthday parties and since the kids are good friends we sit next to each other and talk and the same for a few school activities. It’s all been group things. See, I’d expect them to bring her over and I’d give them a tour of the house and hang out for a while. I’d mention what I had planned, which was “bring your friend night” at my daughter’s karate class, then come home at 8 and probably give them some popcorn and put on a movie and hope they go to sleep so I could have some peace and quiet.
The phone thing is backwards. Before I called her, my daughter told her friend at school that we were going to invite her and the parents should call each other. The other kid said her mom couldn’t call because she deleted my number, which didn’t make sense at the time, then that evening I called.
The only reason it matters is that if they’re not comfortable with her staying here, ok let’s meet at the park or have a playdate or whatever. Get to know me better so you are comfortable, or just let the kids do things without a sleepover. But if she deleted my number, I think it means none of that will ever happen. It’s not an uncomfortable thing that can be gotten over, I’m just completely unworthy of their time.
And yes I don’t know for sure that she deleted it, I heard it thirdhand from 8 year olds. But I can’t imagine the other kid specifying that she deleted it on purpose unless it really happened. And during the phone conversation, there was no “…but maybe we can go to the park one day” or “maybe your daughter could come over and spend the night.” It was “she can’t spend the night because you’re not married. Bye”
#1 Well, it’s pretty clear what they mean.
#2 I don’t feel the need to do anything.
I wish I knew what.
I already have it. I don’t have much help with her so if my daughter is somewhere, I’m right there with her, or right there with the other parents.
You’re reading too much into it. I posted because I found it offensive and wondered if it was just me. I’m not stewing or upset though, now it’s just… interesting? That may not be the right word, but I have enjoyed reading the responses and I’ll be here as long as the thread is going. Uninviting their daughter from my daughter’s party was a joke. I am pretty much following option 2. But yes I’m going to give them the cold shoulder, if they are there. I won’t be actively rude to them but I see no reason to reach out because they obviously see no reason to either.
My apologies then.
Your kid will know
Her friends will know
You will know
The other parents will know
We don’t have to improve the whole world, just our corner of it.
The point to be made - do you have any (logical / scientific) reason to believe a single dad (or gay parents) are any more of a risk than a married couple? If you don’t have any such reason - then you should show an example of “anti-prejudice” by allowing it
I still don’t know if this was actual creepiness or just loneliness and strangeness but one time a new neighbor of ours invited me and my brother over to move some furniture. There was precious little furniture to move but the neighbor spent a lot of time talking about her (dead? very very sick and living elsewhere?) daughter, whose stuff was still strewn all over the place like she would return any day now. When I mentioned that she seemed sort of off to my mom, my mom actually agreed with me.
I still wonder if she just wasn’t lonely and grief strucken, and still do, but I feel bad until I remember the other psychotic neighbor of ours who was convinced that I was the devil and my brother was Jesus and took him around to protect her all weekend (I am not making this up.) (A year ago my brother mentioned that technically this was kidnapping since he was underage at the time).
So my point is that females can be dangerous and creepy too, especially if they are mentally unstable.
I suspect this just goes in the category of “people are weird”. I used to take care of a friend’s infant on a pretty regular basis, my friend’s brother in law’s mother become absolutely enraged at this and did everything she could (including trying to involve grandparents when parents fobbed her off) to stop this awful thing from happening. It would have been ok if the infant was a boy but I am a lesbian and she was a girl and I was changing nappies. Oh the humanity.
My friend stuck with the free babysitter and the grandparents refused to take calls on the subject.
The default should be letting your kid socialize with their friends if you don’t have a reason not to, but because it’s fun and it’s good for the kid. Not because you’re using your kid with no regard for their safety.
Of course there is–the perspective of the two other adults involved, as has been discussed. Life is a process of making decisions and forming opinions based on what you know. Until other kid’s parents front some other rational reason, their reason is: “you’re a single dad and it’s just you and your daughter living together and I just wouldn’t feel comfortable with her spending the night without a woman there.” Now yes, there are a dozen inoffensive scenarios in which this might be inoffensive. But there is one really big one that kind of jumps out at you. If you’re going to drop a line like that on someone, and your point is NOT to make them feel like you think they’re a perv, then you owe some measure of explanation.
I gotta disagree, if I have some traumatic experience that comes into play when sending my child to your house, that’s my business. I’m under no obligation to expose my trauma of being raped as a child to you, just so you don’t judge me.
Look, she was honest, she is ‘uncomfortable’ with the arrangement. That should be enough, in my book.
Giving her the cold shoulder? Sure, why not, that’s mature, right?
Bingo.
Clearly I agree with shrugging it off and wondering if there may be something of a personal nature behind it … but they were also no “obligation” to offer that it had to do with him being a single father or to explain at all. They could just have said that she can’t do the sleep over. Period. No other explanation or excuse needed. No washing her hair that night, nothing. Just no. The problem, such as it is, that they volunteered a reason as if it was something that would be obviously normative to all, and that to some degree our op validated its being normative by saying “sure.”
Again, I am in the shrug it off camp, but the argument can easlily be made that this is a bit like saying that Jessie cannot sleep over at your house because you are (pick your group, Black, Jewish, gay, Mexican …) and I am sure you understand. Maybe the mother has reasons of private trauma to have irrational prejudices of one of those sorts, and she does not need to explain them to me … but then don’t offer them up either,don’t behave as if your prejudice is rational and normative.
I probably would have reacted much like the OP, but what I think should be said in a situation like this is something like:
“I understand your concern, since you don’t know me at all and you want to make sure your daughter is safe. So let’s get to know each other a little bit. My daughter and your daughter could end up being really good friends, we don’t want to spoil that over nothing. How about all of you come over for dessert or coffee and we can get to know each other while the girls play?”
Exactly, it’s normalizing the prejudice of all males especially white males as potential predators, defects when it comes to kids. If that’s what someone thinks keep that ugly shit to themselves. It’s not ok to normalize that.
That might actually work but from a logical standpoint makes no sense.
People are a lot more confident that they can tell pedophiles from non-pedophiles than is actually warranted. There’s nothing anyone can tell from having desert or coffee with someone that should allow them to change their assessment as to the likelihood of them being a pedophile. So that shouldn’t change things.
It’s an ugly prejudice not worth trying to change by coddling and convincing, he shouldn’t have to because it’s just as ugly as “well because your black”. Besides I don’t think it would make a difference at all. In a way he’s lucky they told him out right, because after an admission like that I wouldn’t want that kid in my house at all. Imagine what would happen if she fell and bruised her knee at his place, or got a small cut ? Nu-uh.
So she should lie?
Because he’s so delicate?
I think not. She was open, and she was honest. Should be enough.
To answer the OP subject title, if I had a daughter then yes I would let her stay over as long as there were other children with her. With the standard caveats about obviously creepy people. Molesters find a way even with other adults present, and being married certainly isn’t evidence that you’re not a predator!
That said, and this should be obvious but I’ll say it anyway because Sandusky, I wouldn’t let her stay over if there were no other children present, even if there were other adults present. No matter what the two genders are (even though I’d think that girls staying with women would be the least dangerous combination of genders, there’s enough predation out there to be wary of the motivations of anyone who would be interested in having this arrangement outside of a babysitting context.)
On the third hand, I still would not be blunt about my refusal. If they would insist despite my politeness then I’d think they’d be protesting too much. That would not be the case if I outright came out and said “whoa, staying with my daughter, mega creepy dude!” Then, I’d expect protestations no matter if the adult were a predator or not.
elbows,
You do understand the difference between not saying everything you think and lieing?
Saying “no, she can’t sleep over” is not lieing. It is honest and I have no right to demand the reason. Saying “no, she can’t sleep over because you are Jewish/Black/single male/gay/Muslim … I’m sure you understand” is honest and also open. True that. But if you are so open and honest that you feel the need to reveal your prejudices then you should be prepared for people to be open and honest with you in return. The open and honest response was “no, I don’t get that, that seems very odd … and frankly very insulting … good-bye.” Avoiding that conflict was understandable and likely what I would have done, just shrugging it off … not worth the effort. But as a general rule prejudices expressed publically should be challenged else they are normalized.
Your position seems self-contradictory. We should both tolerate whatever hateful things people say in the name of openness and honesty but once those things are said we should respect the privacy of the person who said it as to why they hold such beliefs? You don’t want to be open? Then keep your piehole shut and don’t express your irrational prejudices to me or in my presence. You want the freedom to openly express your prejudices? Then accept that people like me may be open in expressing what we think about them back. You do not get to reserve the right of openess to you and you alone.