Well this might top them all a far as bad host etiquette goes. My SD (14) still has friends from her old town, which is 45 minutes away from where she now lives with us. One friend, who has been a friend for many years and has been to our house many times and at whose apartment she has spent a night or two, invited her down for an overnight. So I dropped her off this afternoon, a 90-minute round trip. Small talk with mom at drop off, regular chit-chat and I'm on my way.
SD just texted us to casually mention that the girl's mom and her mom's SO were fighting, so she and her friend would be sleeping at a neighbor's apartment. Um...hell no! So now that it's almost 9 PM, my husband is making the 90-minute trek to go get her (and possibly her friend, depending on what's going on). I guess it's not a "call the police" kind of fight but bad enough to have the girls leave while those two idiots cool off.
How f-ed up do people have to be that they're going to have a heated fight in front of a child, who has a friend over? And who would then think a viable solution would be not to have the SO leave (who has no children), but to send the children to sleep at a neighbor's house? The girl told my SD that this happens all the time. Awesome. Not only that, the mother has yet to bother to call either of us to explain anything. Clearly she won't be spending any time at this house again, although we will continue to welcome her friend here, who apparently needs some normal people in her life.
I'm just shaking my head at this. So...what's the most shocking thing that's happened while your child has been at a friend's house?
This is the reason I don't do sleep overs. They can come here, but we won't be taking the kids there. My daughter was stuck at her uncles house as a child and wanted to call us because they were fighting. He would not let her. That was enough for me to say forget it.
God, reading this is like pouring salt on an open wound. My mom & short term step dad did this to me. My good friend would always have me at her house and I would never have her at my house. She finally got me to say yes which was a HUGE mistake. My mom & SD could not hold it together for anything. Needless to say I was extremely embarrassed and my friend was never allowed to stay the night again, which was fine with me!
Please don't bring this up in front of the girl and don't act upset (I'm sure you won't, I just remember how the mom made me feel way back when).
How about the most shocking thing that has happened to ME as a child?
When I was about 9 my mother went to the hospital to have my middle brother. I was staying with some family friends who had kids close to my age. The next morning we went to a baptism celebration. They are a Mormon family so I wasn't allowed to go to the actual baptism since I was Christian. So, that night we were going to bed and the mom asked me what I thought of the party/baptism. I said I thought it was fine and she asked me if I knew that when Christian's get baptised that they are just dunked in water and if I TRULY wanted to be saved I need to be baptised in the Mormon Church. Woah. Really? Who asks a child that when they know full and well that my family was devout Christian? I went to a Christian private school, we went to church three times a week. These were family friends and they KNEW what my family believed. Truly, that was a life changing moment for me. I stopped believing in God, I fought going to church, I was really lost for YEARS spiritually.
I think that was seriously messed up
L.
It wasn't at a friend's house but at Purgatory Ski area. We put the boys in ski school. That night at dinner, I don't remember how it came up, but our youngest told me that when he got "lost," he did exactly what I had told him to do if that ever happened. He went into a shop, found someone with a name tag and told her he was lost. He had gotten onto a lift that took him back to the resort rather than the bunny slope.
When we had picked them up, no one told us what had happened.
We were livid. They acted like it was no big deal. I don't think they realized he was missing until he returned.
With our older son, we found out after the fact that some of the other parents would let the teenagers drink at their houses. One of them was a former policewoman!
I have small ones...so they've only spent the night with family...
I do have to give you and your husband KUDOS...you've given her the skills she needs and given her a safe environment that she knew she could tell you this without any fear...she will remember this.
Oh my goodness! How awful! Thank god your SD notified you. I would be mad too! Me personally, I wouldnt have driven that far only because I am always afraid something bad might happen and need her to be no more than 20 mins top's away from home. The fact that the fighting was done in front of the girls is just wrong and sad! I have never had anything like that happen and have nothing to compare it to, sorry. But the fact that they were going to go sleep by the neighbor's is even worse, I mean here your sending your child to someone's house and obviously would like to know that they are at the place you dropped them off at. God knows what and who the neighbors are, it's scary to just think about it. Needless to say, I wouldnt send her there anymore and offer to have the girl come to your home where you know it'll be a problem free zone for them.
Its stupid, and irresponsible and selfish and harmful to the young kids who are forced to live in this and witness adults fighting to the extent that causes them to need to leave the house. Its not shocking tho. What a shame it isnt. We see it way too often in many places besides homes. Adults screaming, slapping, arguing and calling eachother names in public places, in front of kids and strangers. It makes me sick to see how horrible grown ups treat eachother when young impressionable kids are nearby. Im so glad weve never done that.
Now to answer your question about the most shocking thing that happend to my kids while at a friends house. Years ago we planned a trip to Hawaii for 2 weeks. I spent weeks planning who would keep our kids for this long time and talked it over with many friends and neighbors to make certain they each were understanding the situation and agreeable to taking extra kids for a few days. We sent our youngest to 1 family who had daughters her age and I knew she would have fun and be taken care of. Our son was a different matter and I had to arrange for 4 other families to house him. It just turned out that no one family had enough time free to keep him for 2 weeks. It would mean taking him to school, sports and music and we didnt want anyone to have to go too far out of their way to take him, so he had a good schedual of where and who he was staying with. Everyone had everyone elses numbers and addresses. The first 3 days our son was going to the next door neighbors. They were all happy, and looking forward to his short visit. We left for our first ever "no kids vacation" since having kids. Well, it turned out, the dad next door had planned a surprise visit for his mother in law for his wife for those same days! He had known for weeks. He knew he had bought the plane ticket, and planned her arrival, and he never bothered to say anything to me about it! He let us leave and fly clear to Hawaii knowing he wasnt going to want our son in his house because his mother in law was coming instead! We didnt find out until we called the 2nd day to talk to our son and see how things were going. He wasnt there. They said they had sent him to the next family on the list. We were a bit shocked and called the 2nd family. That family hadnt been available to keep him for 3 more days so they sent him to the next on the list too. We finally tracked him down and were so mad by then that Im sure we sounded like lunatics on the phone. The family who had him for longer than planned was ok with it, but had to include him in things they hadnt intended to. They treated him fine and made him feel welcomed but it was all such a mix up, all due to the neighbor guy who didnt bother to walk next door and tell me he had something planned and didnt want to be bothered with our son those first days. It pretty much spoiled the friendship between us and those neighbors. They never were too willing to think of anyone but themselves anyway.
I agree this is pretty bad. I can't top it, but my oldest child is only 9. The worst thing that's ever happened so far is when she was only in first grade, I picked her up at a friend's house to find her and her friend playing outside alone. Since I didn't let my daughter play outside w/out an adult at that time, I was pretty mad. Even now that she's in 4th grade, I'm still outside when she has friends over.
Glad your SD called to let you know instead of having you find out after the fact. I would rip that mom a new one!
My 10 year old dtg slept over a friends house. A family that we have socialized with and thought were pretty nice people. When I called the next morning to find out what time I should pick her up, the father answered the phone and in a very snotty, stern voice he went on and on about how bad my daughter was during the sleep over. He said they were noisy during the night and did not quiet down when he asked them to ( I agree very annoying and rude and I expect my daughter to be more respectful, but the way he behaved was not appropriate) he also said that the girls spilled nail polish remover on his dtg desk and ruined it and that the girls used markers on his dtg bed and some got on the sheets, these were washable markers. He was very very angry, I immediately went to pick my daughter up and they had her waiting outside with her bag. Later my daughter told me what happened and it all sounded pretty innocent due to excitement of having a sleep over, she told me how he yelled at them and she felt very upset. The next day we found out that their daughter was grounded for a month and the only punishment was she was not alloud to play with my dtg. so that goes to show that he blamed it all on my dtg, this was very hurtful to my dtg. I realize what happened was rude, but I also know my dtg and she did not do any of these thinks purposely to be disrespectful and she did not do them alone, the other little girl participated. My dtg cried and cried about this, her feelings were very hurt. (yes, she was disciplined for misbehaving, but that father was way out of line) I told them that they should have just called me and I would have picked her up during the night rather than have this continue at their house. My dtg has never slept over there again and never will. Infact, I think I might have posted about this last year when it happened.
Yeah....that's pretty bad. Nothing like that (or even close) that I can think of.
Sounds like another mother of the year putting her flavor of the day/month/year ahead of her own child. Nice.
Sorry you had this happen. Live and learn, I guess?
Once after a sleepover , my friend's friend came to pick her up with her mom. They dropped me off at my house because they were going to something(softball,gymnastics ?). They dropped me off without waiting to see if anyone was home at my house. I sat on our porch for almost 2 hours until my older sister showed up(she was at a friends house).It started pouring. It was pretty scary.
I've only had one strange thing happen like this.
My daughter spent the night with a friend and went to church with them the next day. While the mom and dad were still inside the church after the service ended, my daughter and her friend were out in the parking lot "trying" to get into the car with her older brother (just 16) who was driving the family car. They would try to get in, and then he would drive away and wait. They would try again, etc. If you think about this for a few minutes -- about all the things that could have gone wrong -- it makes you crazy. They were 11 at the time.
My daughter told me about this as we were driving home from their house. She's never spent the night again with them.
hmm.. so this person and her boyfriend fight but only if there is someone else there, typically a child.. hard to say which one of them has more problems, dont take your child over there, and i would limit the time that your child spends around the other child.that way you dont get pulled into a situation that may be uglier then you think.
K. h.
