I told my neighbor that if my daughter isn’t allowed to play at her house, then her daughter can’t play at ours. Am I wrong?
For context, our daughters are both four years old, born just five days apart. We live three doors down from each other in a townhouse complex. Over the past couple of months, especially the last few weeks, her daughter has been coming to our place regularly to play with mine.
I’ve never had an issue with that.
The problem is that whenever the girls go to her house instead, my daughter is sent back within five minutes. Every time. She’s a single mom, and when she’s working, her own mom and a family friend help with childcare. Both of them have told me that my daughter isn’t allowed over there because the mom “doesn’t want to clean up the mess.”
On top of that, her daughter often comes over to our place, and instead of coming to pick her up, she’ll text me and ask me to send her home. This has been happening more often than I’m comfortable with. I finally told her that while I’m happy for her daughter to play at our house, it needs to be more balanced. It shouldn’t all fall on us.
She responded by saying she wished I had talked to her about it (I’ve tried) and that she’s a single mom without help. Yes, my partner and I are together, but we’re essentially in the same situation. We don’t have family nearby, our closest relative is a ten-hour drive away. We’re managing on our own too. So I told her that if my daughter isn’t welcome at her house, then her daughter won’t be coming to ours either. Am I wrong for setting that boundary?
