How to handle a neighbor who wants you to do child care.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
I live in a duplex with a shared backyard. I have a small table and chair where I take my coffee or have a glass of wine. I also leave the sliding glass door open but screen shut to listen the birds and get a breeze. But my new neighbor, “Kiki,” takes this as an open invitation to pop over and chat. She doesn’t just say hello. She will scoot over and plop herself down to start complaining and ask me to get her a drink.
Kiki is pregnant, and has a small child and a larger one in the form of her husband. The majority of the complaints are about how he will not help with chores or child care, followed up by excuses about how tired he is from work. At first I was sympathetic, since it looked like Kiki genuinely needed a friend, but now I am sick of her grasping nature. She has dumped her daughter on me more than once at a moment’s notice because of an appointment. 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 I really didn’t appreciate this as my time was precious too. Kiki went on her little pity parade about being a pregnant mom and how hard she had it.
Then, the other night, I was cooking and had the screen open to get a breeze. Kiki popped out like a movie monster and startled me. I dropped my food. Kiki let herself in my house to help me clean up, but told me her motivation was that the smell was too good and she was so hungry with all these pregnancy hormones. I told Kiki I only made enough for myself. Kiki pressed on about how I should cook for her and her family because when the baby is born, they will need all hands on deck.
This isn’t my boat. This isn’t my crew. I am not even on the water. I am not her deckhand!
I feel trapped. I stopped using my outdoor area. I keep my blinds shut and don’t even open the sliding glass door to hear the birds. If Kiki tries to catch me outside I make the excuse that I am in a hurry. I feel like a hunted rabbit.
I got invited to Kiki’s baby shower. She wrote a note that she really wanted me there because she could use a friend right now. I felt a stab of guilt and then a stab of anger. This feels very manipulative. I know Kiki has it hard but the solution is to make her husband step up, not step on me.
What should I do?
—No Fences Make Bad Neighbors
Dear No Fences,
In the past I have loudly and annoyingly advocated for neighbors’ responsibilities to help other neighbors. However, there exists a line the crossing of which signifies that good-neighbordom is off the table. I agree with you that Kiki is way too much. She should not be saddling you with child care because her husband is sleeping off a hangover. She should not be letting herself into your house and demanding food! Kiki needs to get a grip.
It sounds like you and Kiki don’t really have a future as friends. Embrace the role of polite, distant neighbor. That doesn’t mean you have to close your sliding door all the time! But it means that you need to lock the screen door, and if Kiki shows up, you should chat with her for precisely 45 seconds and then retreat to the bathroom. If you’re outside at your patio table and Kiki plops herself down, engage in one (1) exchange about the weather, then find a way to excuse yourself and head inside. Eventually, Kiki will take the hint.
Polite, distant neighbors do not attend baby showers. You’re welcome, but not obligated, to leave a casserole at Kiki’s front door. Use a disposable aluminum pan.
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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 its bowl. When Lauren got back, I remarked how difficult this would be for Aria, since she got “Max” as a present for her second birthday and had had him for so long. I began to go over ways for us to break the news to her, but Lauren stopped me and said not to worry. Turns out this is Max No. 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 casualty. Each time one of the fish has passed, Lauren has replaced it without Aria’s knowledge. The first two times she found the fish dead while Aria was at daycare and replaced it before she came home. When Max #3 died, Aria found him, but Lauren told her Max was sleeping and that he would be awake by the time she got back from daycare.
When I asked Lauren just how long she planned on continuing the charade, she said that maybe when Aria is 5 or 6 she will “be mature enough to handle it” when some future incarnation of Max dies. I told Lauren this sort of deception is unhealthy, and the fallout will be far worse than if we had been honest with her. She said there will only be fallout if I tell Aria, and if I do, it will be on me when Aria needs years of therapy to get over the “trauma.”
I understand losing a pet is very sad for a child, but it’s part of life. If anything, I think the pain and sense of betrayal that Aria will feel at being lied to by us would be far worse than the temporary sorrow she would experience over losing a goldfish. And I have no desire to repeat this with our younger son once he is old enough to have a pet. I have said as much to my wife, but she’s made clear that I am to keep this farce going, end of discussion. My suggestion that we speak to a therapist to come up with a way to resolve this was dismissed out of hand. Any recommendations for getting her to see sense?
—If He’s Dyin’, We’re Lyin’
Dear Lyin’,
Kids between the ages of 2 and 4 have essentially no comprehension of the permanence of death, and so I view your wife’s elisions of Max’s deaths as victimless crimes. If a person in your life died, I’d insist upon a more honest reckoning, but if you plan to replace the $3 goldfish anyway, what is the point of getting into it and trying to explain to your child a concept that she is simply cognitively not prepared to understand? Keep the peace; buy new fish.
The crime with a victim here is that she didn’t tell you about it. If I had to go on biannual emergency runs to the pet store, racing the ticking clock of a kid’s return from day care, 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 tell you is both funny and alarming. It’s almost as if your wife has spent two years shielding not only her small child from the reality of her goldfish’s mortality but also shielding you, her husband.
Anyways, this clearly has to stop. Explain to her what the real problem is, and stress that the two of you, together, need to come up with the proper age to tell a child that a goldfish has died, rather than her making arbitrary parenting decisions and then not telling you about them. (For what it’s worth, I think Lauren’s based-on-nothing guess of 5 or 6 is basically correct.) You should be able to reach this agreement without going to therapy about it. Good luck.
Dear Care and Feeding,
I had a parent-teacher conference for my 7-year-old son “Rick.” Everything’s fine with his personal academic progress. But while I was there, I noticed a bunch of writing assignments in his classroom, all about what they thought about going to [Our town name] Elementary “Skool.” I asked the teacher about it, and apparently, it’s a bubbled-up joke-slash-meme. She wasn’t sure how it started, but for a few weeks now, pretty much the entire class has been deliberately misspelling “school” and thinking it’s the funniest thing ever. She decided to roll with it, and allowed them to use the “alternate spelling” on the writing assignment.
I suppose it’s not particularly harmful, but I was left vaguely uneasy about the whole situation. Maybe I’m just a fossil, but none of my teachers would have ever allowed something like this at that age, and I find the notion of teachers bending to the whim of a class full of second graders to be a rather bad idea. Should I voice my concerns here, or just keep them to myself?
—My Kid Got Skooled
Dear Skooled,
This second-grade teacher stumbled upon a way to get a whole class even a little bit excited about a writing assignment? She sounds amazing. Don’t you dare get her in trouble.
—Dan
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