We live in our house in the village. My daughter is 10 years old and she is friends with her classmates and the girls next door. She has a best friend who is just a neighbor. They have been friends for a long time, for several years, but lately I began to realize that I don’t like this friendship.
My daughter is a slave by nature, she treasures friendship and tries to do what they say. She is soft, kind, always sharing what she has. And her best friend is very different. She is a very perky girl who often gets my daughter into various adventures. She encourages her to go for walks far from home, or go to visit older children.
This girl’s family is ordinary, but she doesn’t get much attention. She is left to herself all day long. Mostly she walks with my daughter and spends time at our house. This is starting to seriously stress me out. Until the evening someone else’s child is at our house. After school they come to our house, do homework together, and then play or go for a walk. It would be okay, but there is another thing – I have to feed this girl all the time.
It’s dinnertime, I call my daughter into the kitchen, but they come along with her friend. Nothing embarrasses her – she eats everything on the table. And soup, and second, and a few slices of bread, and then tea and candy. It’s not that I feel sorry for her, but we’re not rich enough to feed other people all the time.
I tried to call only my daughter to the table, and asked her friend to wait in the room. But the girl begins to ask for food. “I really want to eat, can I at least have some soup or bread?” I can’t say no to a hungry child, and I give up.
I’ve also tried sending my daughter’s girlfriend to her house for lunch. “Go to your place, let your mom feed you.” But the girl refuses, saying that her mom is not home, or they ran out of food, or her mom did not taste good, or her mom did not cook. I can’t take someone else’s child by the ear and kick her out.
I recently had a conversation with her mom. Since this situation was starting to piss me off, I asked her to feed her child herself. But her mother was extremely indignant: “Don’t you feel sorry for a bowl of soup? We are neighbors! If your daughter comes to us, I will feed her! And I won’t say a word!” But the most interesting thing is that the children spend time at our house.
In fact, the situation will soon be resolved, since we are going to move. And the cheeky neighbor and her daughter will be left without free lunches. But still, I wonder how this problem can be solved?
