close
close

How to deal with a neighbor who wants you to babysit.

How to deal with a neighbor who wants you to babysit.

Slate Plus Members Get More Care and feeding every week. Do you have a question about children, parenting or family life? Submit it here!

Dear care and feeding,

I live in a duplex with a shared courtyard. I have a small table and a chair where I have my coffee or a glass of wine. I also leave the sliding glass door open but the screen closed to listen to the birds and enjoy a breeze. But my new neighbor, “Kiki,” takes this as an open invitation to come and chat. She doesn’t just say hello. She will rush over and plop down to start complaining and ask me to get her a drink.

Kiki is pregnant and has a small child and a bigger one in the form of her husband. The majority of complaints are about him not helping with household chores or childcare, followed by excuses about him being tired from work. At first I was sympathetic, because it seemed like Kiki really needed a friend, but now I’m tired of her greedy nature. She dropped her daughter on me more than once at short notice because of a date. Last time she made a hair appointment and when I asked why her husband couldn’t watch their daughter, well he was out late Saturday and sleeping in Sunday. I told Kiki that I really didn’t appreciate that because my time was so valuable. Kiki did her little pity parade about being a pregnant mother and how hard it was for her.

Then the other night I was cooking and I had the mosquito net open to get some air. Kiki appeared like a movie monster and surprised me. I dropped my food. Kiki let herself into my house to help me clean up, but told me her motivation was that the smell was too good and she was so hungry from all those pregnancy hormones. I told Kiki I made just enough for me. Kiki insisted on how I should cook for her and her family because when the baby is born they will need all hands on deck.

It’s not my boat. This is not my team. I’m not even on the water. I’m not his sailor!

I feel trapped. I stopped using my outdoor space. I keep my blinds closed and don’t even open the sliding glass door to hear the birds. If Kiki tries to catch me outside, I’ll pretend I’m in a hurry. I feel like a hunted rabbit.

I was invited to Kiki’s baby shower. She wrote a note saying she really wanted me there because she could use a friend right now. I felt a feeling of guilt, then a feeling of anger. This seems very manipulative. I know Kiki is struggling, but the solution is to force her husband to intervene, not to step on me.

What should I do?

—No fence makes bad neighbors

Dear No Fences,

In the past, I have loudly and angrily defended the responsibility of neighbors to help other neighbors. However, there is a line whose crossing means that good neighborliness is out of the question. I agree with you that Kiki is way too much. She shouldn’t leave you to look after the kids because her husband is sleeping with a hangover. She shouldn’t come into your house and demand food! Kiki must regain the upper hand.

Looks like you and Kiki don’t really have a future as friends. Take on the role of polite and distant neighbor. This doesn’t mean you have to close your sliding door all the time! But that means you have to lock the screen door, and if Kiki appears, you have to chat with her for precisely 45 seconds and then retreat to the bathroom. If you’re outside at your patio table and Kiki plops down, engage in one (1) exchange about the weather, then find a way to excuse yourself and go back inside. Eventually, Kiki will take the hint.

Polite, distant neighbors don’t attend baby showers. You are welcome, but not required, to leave a pan at Kiki’s front door. Use a disposable aluminum pan.

Catch up on care and nutrition

· Did you miss any previous columns this week? Read them here.
· Discuss this column in the Slate Parenting Facebook Group!

Dear care and feeding,

One recent morning, just after my wife “Lauren” left for preschool with our 4-year-old daughter “Aria,” I discovered Aria’s goldfish dead in her bowl. When Lauren came back, I noticed how difficult this would be for Aria, since she had received “Max” as a present for her second birthday and had had him for so long. I started to think about ways to tell her the news, but Lauren stopped me and told me not to worry. Turns out it’s Max #4.

According to Lauren, Aria’s first fish died five months after we got it; No. 2 lasted seven months; No. 3, eight months. Max 4.0 was the most recent victim. Every time one of the fish passed, Lauren replaced it without Aria knowing. The first two times, she found the dead fish while Aria was at daycare and replaced it before coming home. When Max #3 died, Aria found him, but Lauren told her that Max was asleep and would be awake by the time she got back from daycare.

When I asked Lauren how long she planned to continue the charade, she said that maybe when Aria is 5 or 6 she’ll be “mature enough to handle it” when a future incarnation of Max dies . I told Lauren that this kind of deception was unhealthy and that the consequences would be much worse than if we had been honest with her. She said there would only be consequences if I told Aria, and if I did, it would be on me when Aria needed years of therapy to overcome the “trauma.”

I understand that losing a pet is very sad for a child, but it is part of life. If anything, I think the pain and sense of betrayal Aria would feel from lying to us would be much worse than the temporary heartbreak she would feel from losing a goldfish. And I have no desire to repeat that with our youngest son once he’s old enough to have a pet. I told my wife, but she made it clear to me that I had to continue this prank, end of discussion. My suggestion to talk to a therapist to find a way to resolve this issue was rejected out of hand. Any recommendations to help him find meaning again?

– If he dies, we lie

Dear Lyin’,

Children ages 2 to 4 have virtually no understanding of the permanence of death, and so I view your wife’s elisions on Max’s death as victimless crimes. If someone in your life died, I would insist on a more honest calculation, but if you’re still considering replacing the $3 goldfish, what’s the point in going in and trying to explain to your child the concept that it is simply Cognitively, you are not ready to understand? Keep the peace; buy new fish.

The crime with a victim here is that she didn’t say it You about this. If I had to make twice-yearly emergency runs to the pet store, run the countdown for a child’s return from daycare, I would have a good old time telling my wife all about it when she got home from work. That she didn’t want to say it You is both funny and alarming. It’s almost as if your wife spent two years protecting not only her small child from the reality of her goldfish’s mortality, but also protecting you, her husband.

Either way, this clearly needs to stop. Explain to him what the real problem is and emphasize that you both need to find the appropriate age to tell a child that a goldfish is dead, rather than him making arbitrary parenting decisions and leaving you alone. don’t talk about it. them. (For what it’s worth, I think Lauren’s guess of 5 or 6 based on nothing is basically correct.) You should be able to come to this agreement without going to therapy about it. Good luck.

Dear care and feeding,

I organized a parent-teacher conference for my 7 year old son “Rick”. Everything is going well with his personal academic progress. But while I was there, I noticed a bunch of writing assignments in his class, all about what they thought about going to elementary school in (name of our town). I asked the professor about it, and apparently it’s a joke-slash-meme. She wasn’t sure how it started, but for a few weeks now, almost the entire class had been deliberately spelling “school” and thinking it was the funniest thing ever. She decided to comply and allowed them to use the “alternate spelling” for the writing assignment.

I guess it’s not particularly dangerous, but I was vaguely uncomfortable with the whole situation. Maybe I’m just a fossil, but none of my teachers would have ever allowed something like that at that age, and I find the idea of ​​teachers pandering to the whims of a classroom full of Second graders is a pretty bad idea. Should I voice my concerns here, or just keep them to myself?

—My child was schooled

Dear Skooled,

This second grade teacher stumbled upon a way to get an entire class a little excited about a writing assignment? She looks amazing. Don’t you dare get him in trouble.

—Dan