Would it be rude to send her home after an hour vs. taking to pool?

[Anonymous]

Feed and return child.

And what's with the stretchy suit nonsense? My daughter can't use the next size down and the next size up. They're not that stretchy! Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why you feel put upon, OP. Or why you texted the mom. If you wanted to offer lunch, you can ask the kid if she wants to stay for lunch. If you don’t want to, say it’s not a good time. If you don’t want to take her to the pool, then say it’s not a good time to play. What’s the big deal?
Also don’t understand the posts about driving her home, evidently she biked there and can also bike back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course not-clearly the other mother is rude. Just tell her that you have plans in an hour so will need to send the child back before then.

How is the other mom rude? (And even if so, why isn’t the other dad, too?). The kid came and asked to play. OP just has to say “Sorry, it’s not a good day.”

[Anonymous]

OP, don't even use the word "rude". Now, you're being ridiculous. If you have plans, you have plans. Send her home when it's convenient for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not just tell the mom we're going to the pull in a an hour. If you want her to join us please bring her things over within 30 minutes otherwise I'll drop her off on my way out.

Because our pool passes are expensive and I don’t want to watch an extra kid at the pool by myself all afternoon. -OP

So invite the mom too. You don't sound like a good neighbor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why you feel put upon, OP. Or why you texted the mom. If you wanted to offer lunch, you can ask the kid if she wants to stay for lunch. If you don’t want to, say it’s not a good time. If you don’t want to take her to the pool, then say it’s not a good time to play. What’s the big deal?
Also don’t understand the posts about driving her home, evidently she biked there and can also bike back.

OP is feeding the child lunch and changing her plans to let them play a bit, how is that acting “put upon”? She’s asking our advice as to whether she should do the pool thing, and we’re saying it’s not necessary. Moving on.

I do think why would you not text the other parent to make sure they’re home/available before sending your kid on a long bike ride. Running down the street to knock on a neighbor kid’s door is one thing, but a long bike ride, yeah as a parent you kind of feel obligated to at least let the other parent know you have to send their kid home so that someone is watching and waiting for the kid to make it home!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not just tell the mom we're going to the pull in a an hour. If you want her to join us please bring her things over within 30 minutes otherwise I'll drop her off on my way out.

Because OP doesn’t want to take her to the pool. Which is 100% reasonable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course not-clearly the other mother is rude. Just tell her that you have plans in an hour so will need to send the child back before then.

This

[Anonymous]

My wife and I would see this differently. She loves being the host and is almost always happier having more people joining her. She once invited two kids to join us on our family weeklong lake trip the day before we left when she found out they didn't have other plans.

I approach it from a more protective angle of wanting healthy boundaries. I do not like overcommitting or feeling taken advantage of. For example, our kid has a friend at school and they invariably ask to have last minute playdates at afternoon pickup. I always say no because I don't like surprises and I feel like it's a basic courtesy for those kinds of activities to be arranged in advance.

That being said, I would want to call the mom and say we have to send the kid home because we have prior plans but that we should plan a future playdate together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not just tell the mom we're going to the pull in a an hour. If you want her to join us please bring her things over within 30 minutes otherwise I'll drop her off on my way out.

Because our pool passes are expensive and I don’t want to watch an extra kid at the pool by myself all afternoon. -OP

So invite the mom too. You don't sound like a good neighbor.

So invite the other mom and now have to buy two pool passes? You sound entitled. Our pool passes are $15 each and you have to buy four at a time. You really want the OP to all of a sudden be spending $30 or whatever with this all being sprung on her? Maybe to you that’s nothing but to some families that could be a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course not-clearly the other mother is rude. Just tell her that you have plans in an hour so will need to send the child back before then.

How is the other mom rude? (And even if so, why isn’t the other dad, too?). The kid came and asked to play. OP just has to say “Sorry, it’s not a good day.”

It’s rude to just send a youngish child over to play with a friend (especially right at lunch time) without first confirming with the other family that it is convenient for them. It’s doubling down on rude to simply respond “no” when asked if your uninvited child has already eaten and apparently presuming the other family will feed them lunch without apology or offer to provide something.

The OP specifically indicated that she was in contact with the mom regarding this incident. If the dad was also home and involved then yes, he’s also equally rude, but we have no information to suggest that he was around (or even in the picture). It’s not discriminatory to go off of what the op stated in assigning responsibility.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are a drama queen. No one asked you to feed the child or take her to the pool and you don't need to feel bad about not doing either. Just own it. First you say the problem is that swimsuits wont fit and then later you say you just dont want to pay for the friend. And then you add that you dont want the bother of watching another kid. You dont need to justify your decision and that you need to do so in this overwrought way shows that you may be making assumptions about the expectations or judgments from the friend's parent. Letting a kid knock on a door to see if a friend can play is something I and many other parents encourage in my neighborhood. It doesn't mean any of us are trying to thrust our child on other parents. If it were me, I would think nothing of it for my child to be sent home because the family was having lunch or already had other plans. And when kids come over tonour place, sometimes I feed them during mealtimes and other times I send them home. This is all no big deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not just tell the mom we're going to the pull in a an hour. If you want her to join us please bring her things over within 30 minutes otherwise I'll drop her off on my way out.

Because our pool passes are expensive and I don’t want to watch an extra kid at the pool by myself all afternoon. -OP

So invite the mom too. You don't sound like a good neighbor.

I think inviting the mom is a little naive. The odds are minimal that a mom whose kid comes over to play will suddenly be free to join that kid at a last minute pool trip. And asking her just admits or implies the kid can go with you to the pool, which makes it all the more awkward to back out or to say that your offer has the string attached that a parent must join.

It's simpler and less messy to call the mom and say the kid has to go home because of a conflicting family commitment. This helps reduce the odds of of setting up an unfair expectation of future, last minute tagalongs. Alternatively, if you are open to the kid coming, I think you seize it as an opportunity to be a hero and just call the mom and make sure it's OK if the kid comes, and then plan to seek to have the favor returned later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not just tell the mom we're going to the pull in a an hour. If you want her to join us please bring her things over within 30 minutes otherwise I'll drop her off on my way out.

I would send her home and tell the girl and her mom that you're heading to the pool and she can meet you there if she wants. Easy peasy.

Oh and ignore your phone for the next hour because she will probably try to get you to do the extra work of getting her daughter to the pool. Hopefully she's not that type of mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are a drama queen. No one asked you to feed the child or take her to the pool and you don't need to feel bad about not doing either. Just own it. First you say the problem is that swimsuits wont fit and then later you say you just dont want to pay for the friend. And then you add that you dont want the bother of watching another kid. You dont need to justify your decision and that you need to do so in this overwrought way shows that you may be making assumptions about the expectations or judgments from the friend's parent. Letting a kid knock on a door to see if a friend can play is something I and many other parents encourage in my neighborhood. It doesn't mean any of us are trying to thrust our child on other parents. If it were me, I would think nothing of it for my child to be sent home because the family was having lunch or already had other plans. And when kids come over tonour place, sometimes I feed them during mealtimes and other times I send them home. This is all no big deal.

You can’t read. In the original post, OP says:
“I frankly don’t want to use a pool pass on her and my daughter’s suits won’t fit her, so is it rude to send her home after an hour or so of lunch and playing so we can go to the pool as planned.”

OP isn’t changing the story—she said up front she doesn’t want to use a pool pass AND the suit won’t fit the kid. You are wrong when you say “first you say…and later you say.” If you had correctly read the original post, you wouldn’t falsely accuse OP of changing the story.