I live in a small neighborhood - 30 tracts of 5 acres each, mostly mobile homes, several nice houses, mine is the nicest or second to nicest. Anyway, at the end of the street is a cluster of mobile homes, white trash IMO, trashy, deadhead throw backs, no jobs, dirty, filty people and that's just the impression I get.
They have a daughter my daughter's age. She came up a few weeks ago and asked to play.
So do you, as a parent, allow your kids to "play down" to this kid or not?
You got two things to do here - I'll call the girl Jamie -
(A)let Jamie play becuase hey, just because her parents are trash and her siblings and how they live etc, don't judge the 9 year old based on that or
(B) don't let Jamie play, be a hard ass and almost create a aura that you're better than they are, that your kids are too, and "playing down" you won't allow.
Both have credible reasons to go with - what would you do ?
You let kids be kids and give them proper guidance. Not everyone comes from the best of the best. You all can't be me. Seriously, though, if your doing a good parenting job, your kid knows who to hang out with. My son hangs out with kids who are good moral characters not who has better living conditions.
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Let them play, the kid has no control over the situation. Now if there were a health issue like lice or such then that would be a different story. I think in the end it'll be your kid making the decision.
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RE: what would you do here ?
At age 9 I think I would let them play but keep an eye on how it is going. Good parenting is the basic cornerstone of allowing your child to develop into a functioning adult with values. That said, peer pressure can often alter a child's decisions. I would encourage them to play at your house rather than the other place. If you don't like the way it is going then pull the plug on the friendship.
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Too busy with fishing to spend much time here.
How would you feel if someone from a really nice neighborhood wouldn't let their kid play with yours because, by your own admission, you live in a pretty crappy neighborhood populated with its share of white trash.
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"Shoot him again....his soul is still dancing"
I think others have it covered. You let them play. If "Jamie" is not a bad influence on your children, no harm done and perhaps some valuable experience may be gained. So many of us live in homogenous neighborhoods and get little experience of how others may live.
On the other hand, some other thoughts do creep into my mind. What if "Jamie" reports back to her parents with big eyes about the big screen plasma television and fine big game mounts displayed in your home to her parents. Let's say that her parents, though living in mobile homes, are not themselves criminals but may be friends with criminals or whose friends are friends of criminals. Could this report that was propogated by Jamie about your high value consumer electronics lure burglars? Could this report of big game heads lead to burlgars invading looking for guns? Of course, this is possibly a concern anytime you let strangers into your home -- cable guy, plumber, whatever.
In my experience, the unemployed white trash often have just as many big screen TV's and other goodies in their homes as the people who have jobs and decent houses.
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"Shoot him again....his soul is still dancing"
good thoughts fellows - and I followed basically the same things ya'll are saying - that her parents are nasty white trash isn't a reason to assume she is, after all she's just a kid right ? So for the past few weeks she's came up and played at our house, 2-3 times a week, seems like a nice kid, we watch and listen you know, like we're suppose etc
yesterday afternoon however, there was an incident .... edited
what would you do here ?
