Visiting Families and the Holidays

For most, the holidays are a time to come together and enjoy the company for friends, relatives and loved ones. However, there seems to be a lack of social etiquette on the part of the visiting children and their parent’s lack of managing their own kids.

Over this holiday this family came over. A single mother with three kids. The oldest was a 14 year-old girl (acting parental figure), the next was a 7 year-old girl and a 5 year-old boy. I have met all the children before and each seemed fine, however on this occasion the boy upon 20 minutes of being in the house began to play with my 18 month old daughter’s toys. I didn’t see a problem until he began jumping on her toddler cars which he was much to big for. I told the boy nicely “I think you are too big for those” but he continued to ignore me. Then he began stuffing items into the seat of the car and when it wouldn’t close was about to kick it shut. This prompted me to tell the boy “Okay, now you need to get off because you are going to break it.”

It was at this point that the 14 year-old got upset with me and was defensive of her brother placing me in a “Larry David” situation. Meanwhile the mother kept yakking away with the rest of the fam ignoring the situation.

Why should I feel like I did something wrong? When I go to someone’s house I watch my kid. I don’t let her wander into rooms or take toys from corners without asking. Is she perfect, “no.” But I do this because this is what my parents taught me. The whole time though I was having flashbacks to when I was a kid and visiting kids from church which I didn’t know or want to know came over to my house and raided my toy surplus, wrecked my stuff, stole little weapons for my action figures and my mother just told me to “let it go because they are less fortunate.”

Now as an adult I won’t stand for it and personally I hate being the one to say “no, don’t touch,” but if you come to my house and can’t control your kids well then… it can’t be helped.

Merry Christmas