'My neighbour insists I look after her child so she can have time to herself'
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A stay-at-home mum is frustrated with her neighbour because she expects her to look after her daughter so she can have some “me time”. Raising children is no easy feat whether you’re a working parent or one who stays at home. One 53-year-old mum decided to help her neighbour, who works full time, but now feels she’s being completely taken advantage of.
She has two children of her own, 10-year-old John and eight-year-old Ava. Her neighbour, Zoe, 42, is mum to nine-year old Sue. Initially, Zoe asked the woman if she could drop Sue off at her house for an hour before school started twice a week. The woman was “happy to help” but “things got bad pretty quickly”. Unfortunately, John and Ava don’t get on well with Sue and find “entertaining” her to be a “chore”. While they “enjoy sports, arts, and playing outside”, Sue is “glued to her phone” but “pouts” whenever John and Ava “do their own thing instead of trying to engage her”.
Over the course of Sue being with the woman’s family, her mother Zoe has made multiple demands - albeit “respectfully”. She’s “nagged” the woman to drive the three children to school instead of letting them walk or ride their bikes. She’s asked her to cook Sue meat sausages instead of the vegetarian ones the woman and her husband buy, and she’s asked her not to play songs with explicit lyrics or let multiple children on the trampoline simultaneously. The woman refused.
On Reddit, she explained: “I told her I was not going to make adjustments to our family lifestyle and inconvenience my family for the sake of her child. Sue’s safety was not at risk. If she was unsatisfied with Sue’s situation, there were plenty of other people in the neighbourhood who could watch her. Zoe seemed really receptive, and I was hopeful that would be the end of her nagging.”.
