When my kids were little and I went to someone’s house – I watched them like a hawk, making sure they weren’t into things, or breaking anything. We’re now approaching empty nest stage, and have a nice house with nice furnishings. We find when friends or family bring their little ones over – they’re literally into everything – and the parents just sit there, we find we’re chasing them around making sure they don’t hurt themselves or get into something dangerous. At Christmas I made a punch, had a crystal punch bowl out (up high) and one parent wanted to let her 2 year old drink out of the crystal cups – instead of a plastic cup or sippy cup – because he liked the crystal cup. I said no kids need to drink out of unbreakable cups – and we gave him something else.
Anyway – we feel bad being the bad guys – but are amazed at how lax parents are at being parents to their little ones. It makes our visits very stressful – especially the one who just drops in without a call. We kind of feel we raised our kids, now for over 20 years – and we kind of feel it’s their job to raise theirs – whether it’s a grandchild or a friends child.
Has anyone else experienced this? How do you handle – no one wants to be the "mean" grandparent, or the "mean" old lady next door, but at the same time you cringe has they’re tearing apart silk flower arrangements, or denting the new wood floor, or going under your sink, where there are chemicals, or eating the dog food, pouring out the dog water bowl.
We live in the south (now) and no longer have a basement. We do have a FROG (finished room over the garage) and have tried to childproof it, but it is separate from the house, and we seldom go up there. We have lots of toys – I ran a daycare, and bring them down, but that doesn’t always work.
The drop in situation, I can’t always stop and go outside, last time I was in the middle of making dinner, so while I was in the kitchen cutting up fruit, and potatoes – I was also chasing her 1 yo around our house, while she sat in our living room.
We just sold our house, and the kids definitely took a toll on that house, along with the daycare kids. We took a huge loss on that house – because of the economy. So we’ve bought a new house and new furnishings, and would like to keep it nice.
FYI – it’s not always keeping things "nice" the bow the child pulled out of the silk arrangement was on a spike – so he could have easily poked his eye with this – my husband said "hey what does he have" and he had the ribbon out of an arrangement that was on a spike. I hate to admit it but he found a small Zyrtec on the floor (I was horrified) but I give them to my dog for allergies, either one dropped on the floor and I didn’t know it or he spit it out and again I didn’t know it. Again my husband asked me what he had – and it was a pill – these were both the drop in situation, so I wasn’t expecting company, but both a safety issue. Like a child drinking from a crystal goblet, they break it – glass all over.
