Best friends children

[siobha9]

Hi folks,

 

I am looking for some advice. I know when some of you read what I am going to say you will be horrified by what I have done, but maybe some of you have been there and will understand.

 

I have a friend that I have known since I was 10. We have similar lives, and have had our kids very close together(now aged 8 to 14). My friend has a tiny house, and lives about an hour away, so for years she came to my house with her husband and 3 children every weekend. And I do mean EVERY weekend.

 

The problem is her children. They are rude, have no respect for me or my husband, or our house. They have broken countless things which my friend never replaced or even reprimanded her kids over. She says when you put 6 kids in a house thats what happens. Well earlier this year a bed, a chandelier and a door were broken and I had enough. I decided (wisely or unwisely) to tell my friend that she needed to take better control of her kids in my house.

 

Lets just say she didnt take it well, but eventually after lots of explaining etc she understood that I said it for my sake and for hers, as her kids were all approaching their teens and I really believed they were out of control. I told her it would have been easier just to say nothing and end the friendship! Anyway things have been more or less fine since, she comes up much less, and disciplines the kids much more in my house. Until this weekend things were fine....

 

She asked if she could come up with the kids for a visit. I of course agreed. But when I rang her to find out what time to expect her and she told me her husband wouldnt allow her to bring HIS kids to MY house.

 

I have known this woman since I was 10, but am thinking it is time to part company. If my husband had told me that I would have laughed and gone anyway. He hasnt been in my house since I told her about the kids....

 

What do I do now?

[danmcq]

It is sad to hear what events have been taking place at your home regarding your friends visit.

 

It sounds like your friend has no respect or concern for your home or property when visiting. Personally, I would have ended the visits a long time before you did, with a person that allowed that type of behaviour.

 

I will sit down a grandchild or group of children at my house in a heartbeat if they start getting out of control, even with their parents present, if I perceive their parents are not going to act of their own accord.

 

The times I have had to do this, were normally the only time I had to. The parents realized from that one incident, that I had rules and expectations in my home that needed to be followed or the party was over.

 

Most "Normal" people realize this and appreciate the friendship, good times and socializing enough that they do not want to jeopardize it in any way.

 

People that do not appreciate some type of order and boundaries will either quit coming over on their own, change or never be invited over again.

 

With a lifelong friend as you describe, I know it is very difficult, but it sounds like between the choice of continued friendship or your sanity and well being, one needs to be given up.

 

I can only assume the pain of keeping your friend has exceeded the pain of letting them go. :-(<br><br>Post edited by: danmcq, at: 2007/11/18 15:31

[Laurie]

You were not wrong to let your friend know that her children's destructive behavior is not acceptable. I'm raising my eyebrows over the statement that her husband won't allow her to bring his kids to your house. Allow her? What? Perhaps your friend can leave her kids home and come visit by herself.

I'm sure in a relationship as long as you've had, you will work through this. I think it's possible to continue the friendship with the new expectations in place. Good luck!

[judygram]

Laurie wrote:

I'm raising my eyebrows over the statement that her husband won't allow her to bring his kids to your house. Allow her? What?

 

 

That statement kinka got me hot under the collar too.

 

I would have never allowed this situation to go for as long as it did if it were me, those kid's parents would have been told to either discipline their kids or they all could go home and stay there. People who for whatever reason do not see that their kids are out of control and allow them to behave in such a manner would not be welcome in my home. I would probably jerk them up by their collars and spanked them on the spot.

 

Honey if he does not want her bringing his kids to your house, fine he can keep the brats home with him, but if you want to continue a friendship with her then do it, but leave the kids out of it.

[siobha9]

I agree with you. It was this statement which has me at the stage where I am thinking to hell with it. What bothers me is that I have been at hers, and she at mine for the past few months and he didnt appear to have a problem. I dont know what has changed?

 

I have told her time and time again, Kid X broke this, Kid Y told me to F off etc, but her reaction is normally to laugh at their high spiritedness! When I spoke to her in May she said that I had never told her how upset I was, and I said that showing her a broken chandelier that her son had broken etc should have been enough and anyway I was telling her now and look how upset she was.

 

Judy I have tried yelling at her kids and they yell right back at me. I darent spank them because that really would be me lowering to their level.

 

Really what I wanted to hear from you guys was that I am not mad, and that you would also have told her that her kids were out of control. And that I am justified at this stage in ending the friendship. I love my friend, but I didnt choose her husband and her kids. And I DONT love them.

 

The only dilemma is that her daughter is mine and my husbands Goddaughter. I take that responsibility very seriously. Her husband has already fallen out with the God parents of his other 2 children so I was the only one left. I suppose this isnt my problem.

 

Siobhan

[danmcq]

If your friend thinks a child telling an adult to F-Off is funny, it is no wonder the children act as they do. They seemingly have not been raised to respect any type of proper edicate, manners or respect for others or their property.

 

I had I child at a swimming pool one time tell me to F-Off. I promptly removed that teenager from the pool and walked him straight to his home and asked his Mother to take care of the situation. She was a Big Black Women (reminds me of Big Mommas House Movie), and at her reaction, I was confident that teenager was in for a "Whoopin". <br><br>Post edited by: danmcq, at: 2007/11/19 16:14

[sandra902]

Your House Your Rules.

 

i will not claim to have had the best behaved children in the world, but i told them that each house has its own rules and it was their job to figure out what the rules were and to abide by them. but on the other side if the house had more lax rules than my own house the stricter of the two shall apply.

 

they are now both grown and gone and i am happy to say that they are observant of their surroundings and they also remember that children do not get to call the shots.

 

your friend, as a guest in your home, is responsible for her children and for being sure you are paid the respect that you deserve as Host. i would say shame on you for rolling over and playing dead all this time but that was then and this is now. you are responsible for the way your house is run and i sense you'll now be taking a more leadership role in that matter.

 

good for you for asking the question, that makes it clear that you know things were out of order and that you are ready to put things right for your own home.

 

PS define "best friend"! to me a friend is the person that wants the best FOR you, not the person that wants the best FROM you. thought for the day.

 

-s

[judygram]

I like your rules and your thoughts on the subject, Sandra, and karma for you.....

[siobha9]

Sandra I too love your rules, and I never thought of the definition of best friend that way.... You are right of course!

 

Well the update on the saga is that there is none. During the phone call where she told me she wasnt allowed to bring the kids to my house, she also told me that she would phone me later when her husband wasnt home. Surprise surprise, she didnt phone.

 

I have posted a Christmas card and a present to my God daughter, because after all, it isnt her fault her parents are self centred idiots!

 

I now consider this phase of my life "closed". It is nice to have my weekends back! I could get used to this new life

 

Thank you all for your support!

 

Siobhan

[judygram]

Well I am glad you got your weekends back, no one should be taken advantage of like that but if you don't stand up for yourself that is exactly what will happen. Glad you could get your God daughter a present, after all she didn't choose her parents.

 

Thanks Siobhan, for updating us on this.

[Dave007]

Although this is the off-topic area, I had a similar problem with my's wife's sister. She has 4 children and constantly visited our home. Each visit 3 of those 4 children insisted on tormenting my greys. Over and over and over. I gave her many reasons for not letting them do this. She laughed. Out of respect, I spoke to my wife about it. She was equally angered by what was happening. 2 of my greys were extremely leery and nervous about those kids. They poked and prodded and tried to pull tail feathers out of the birds. Eventually, after those visits, the birds were constantly upset, nervous, hyper and short tempered after each visit. Nothing my wife said to her made any dent in the situation . The sister thought that the kids were just being kids and never reprimanded the kids. BUT, she had a dog and if anyone were to act aggressively towards that dog, there would be hell to pay. Basically, her kids were spoiled little bastards. So, I took my wife aside and told her that because nothing had changed, I was going to do things my way short of spanking them. My wife knew I was really pissed off and didn't dare ask me what I was gonna do because she knew I was at my wit's end. Personally, I didn't give a s*it about her relationship with her sister anymore. My house, my rules, my animals. So, the day came that she was visiting with those snotty little bastards and I decided to leave 2 of those 3 cage doors unlocked. Sure enough, it started all over again. This time however, one of those kids picked on the wrong bird who instantly pushed the door open and flew on this kid's head and put a hole right through the bridge of her nose. Screams and some blood was present. The sister was extremely angry and actually accused me of agitating the bird into doing that. Actually, I was in another room when I heard the screaming. Long story short--I never apologised, I told her not to come back, told her that she wouldn't be allowed to come back unless she apologised to my wife. I also told her that her kids weren't welcomed in my house. I told her what I thought about the kids but more importantly I told her what I thought of her. All of these words weren't nice but were descriptive. That kid wound up with one butterfly stitch on the nose and my only sadness was that I didn't do it sooner and I was happy that I did it and if I had to do it all over again, I definitely would. That bite taught all those kids much more disapline then the mother did. After 6 mts she did apologise and came over but those kids were never allowed in my home again.

[siobha9]

You see this is the problem. In your case you married your wife but got her sister and her sister's kids. In mine I chose my friend, but got her husband and her kids. Why can people not see that although while they are visiting someplace, and their kids are being amused, the actions of those kids have effects that last???

 

Honestly if my friends kids had touched my birds I would have coldly and calmly killed them. I told her kids that Greys bite - Really Really Hard. So they were afraid of them. Lucky for my birds!

 

My furniture I can replace, my walls I can paint - but if they had touched my birds I would not have been responsible for my actions.....

 

 

So now tell us honestly - we are all friends here - did you agitate the bird into biting the kid????:evil:

 

Tee hee

 

Siobhan

[judygram]

I imagine Dave's lips are sealed, LOL

 

Yes you are right, possessions can be replaced but your birds cannot and I would not have blamed you in the least for your actions.

[ziggy]

Hello,

In most cases this story reflects to to old saying "Dont blame the children you need to blame the parents". This is a text book example. The kids are raised and the parente have no control over their kids actions. Sab but all kids need structor and if the teacher (parents) is out to lunch they learn nothing. You so called friend has no consideration for you or your home the best thing that could have happened, happened. I dont think the kids are the ones to blame, its the parents. If you raise animals they will become animals. You see in the news about how rootys and pitbulls are nasty and vishious. They are not they were trained to be that way. Same with kids it all comes down to how they were raised period.

Like I have for every post "To recieve respect you must respect yourself" and it is true. Sorry you lost your friend but in the long run you won.<br><br>Post edited by: ziggy, at: 2007/12/13 14:39

[siobha9]

Ironically I wrote an essay with that title this year (I am studying psychology)and I used this family as my example. Not literally of course, but it certainly made sense of some of the course work!

 

I always blamed the parents, my friend never disciplined them. She threatened a lot, but never carried through. Maybe I am learning to respect myself.... or maybe I am just turning into a cantankerous old bleep in my old age:( Whichever it is, I do feel that I have won.

 

My Goddaughter phoned today when she knew I would be out collecting my kids and left a message thanking me for the present. Wow... she has never thanked me before.. I usually get "I would have preferred money!".

[judygram]

Well at least you got a thank you, and if you hadn't gotten that I would have told you to stop the presents, you don't owe her a present, you give out of the goodness of your heart.

 

You are right to blame the parents, and you said it in a nutshell, "she threatened them a lot but never carried thru", they knew her threats meant nothing, just hot air out of her mouth.

 

Kind of like that saying, Who is the parent and who is the child?

[Dave007]

Judy says ""I imagine Dave's lips are sealed, LOL""

No, they aren't.

 

siobha9 asks ""So now tell us honestly - we are all friends here - did you agitate the bird into biting the kid???? """"

 

No, I didn't agitate my birds into biting the kid or in this case, kids. As with every other visit, I told her to control her kids and stay away from the birds. As with every other visit, the mother didn't heed my warning. I simply left the cage doors unlocked. I didn't swing the doors open. As with every other visit, they annoyed the birds and as with every other visit, the birds jumped to the door to retaliate. This time, when the bird did that, the door opened up allowing the bird to continue retaliating. I wasn't in the room. I don't know how to agitate a bird in order for that bird to go after someone. The kid continued and the bird flew over to kid's shoulder and quickly bit her nose and actually tried to bite her again. I came in and took the bird off her shoulder and recaged him. Am I sorry that she got bitten? I'm only sorry that she didn't get bitten twice.

I have a friend who has a girlfriend who has a son. My friend has a dog. When he and the girlfriend were together, this kid had a bad habit. He used to pull on the dog's balls. The kid thought this was very funny. The dog growled alot. The kid was told to stop doing that because the dog might bite. He didn't heed the advice and constantly grabbed the dog's nuts. One day, the dog was in a bad mood, the kid pulled on his nuts and the dog turned around and bit the kid on the hand and made the hand bleed. The dog then had to be tested for rabies which was negative. As far as I'm concerned, the girlfriend should have been the one responsible for the cost of the rabies test. He's still my friend but he broke up with the girl. She was immature and an a*sho*le

[ziggy]

Good post Dave, Friends and family need to have respect for your rules in YOUR house. If they dont like it the hell with them and dont come to my house. Kids need to be trained the same thing. If you cant respect a few simple rules how can you survive in tnis world. Imagine these derilics in the work feild. They will bounce from job to job because they cant follow directions. Again who do you blame THE PARENTS and the parents only. You need a license to drive a car and a license to do most things in this world but any jackass can bere a child. Go figure. Most are total idiots. And whats worse they pass the jean to the next generation. God help us in the future.

[nevjoe]

First thing I believe is, you have a friend for years, and you both are not free as of today. You HAVE to remember, YOUR FAMILY COMES FIRST. Forget all about the other crap> YOUR KIDS FIRST, MOM AND DAD NEXT, YOUR HUBBY THIRD, AND FRENDS A FAR FORTH OR FIFTH. If we all can do this, all families would do a lot better in the year 2007. The world is the world, we can’t control the way for all, but in your world it’s the real world for you and your family, so make the right decision.

You have many ways to spend time with her without the big weekends, and as for her hubby, tell him he is an ass, and you should treat him like the piece of Crap he is. What a PUNK, and a real HEEL.

 

Joe

[siobha9]

Hi Joe,

The way I look at it is that she is also an ass. Yes I realise her husband has to come before me, but if my husband told me, who I could and couldnt see (not that he would dare), and when I could see them, I would laugh and go anyway.

 

My sending her kid a card and present should have been an invitation for her to pick up the phone and call, but she didnt - she had the kid do it.

 

Honestly - I have had enough, my kids have had enough, and my house has had enough, and I am happy with my decision now!

 

 

Dave - That is hilarious.... The poor doggy though, I am cringing just thinking about it.