Wow, LW has some nerve!

[conuly]

Dear Prudence,

The community pools are not open yet. We are in a heat wave. One family on our street has put in a pool and is lording it over the rest of us. They have a teenager and a little girl “Bea.” Bea acts like the little queen of the neighborhood and doles out her favor to the few chosen capable of earning the right to swim. Bea is only “allowed” to invite a few kids over at a time because her sister doesn’t want to “babysit the entire street.” All the girl does is sit in a hammock and play on her phone while the kids swim.

Our three daughters constantly want to swim, but our oldest one made the mistake of pushing Bea into the pool after an argument over a toy. No one was hurt, but you’d think Bea had been beaten bloody. Bea’s mother has banned our girls from coming over because our oldest was “too violent.” We got into an argument where I told her it was just roughhousing and maybe if her daughter had been actually watching the kids instead of her screen, it wouldn’t have happened. I should have kept my mouth shut.

Bea’s mother went on social media and put up the Pool Rules and the diatribe about community values, personal responsibility, and how she wasn’t going to stand by and watch one daughter get “physically attacked” only for her other one to be verbally. She will close the pool gates otherwise. She didn’t name my family, but everyone figured it out.

The heat index keeps rising. Help please.

— Pool Exile

Dear Pool Exile,

You can’t really go over to someone’s house and push them into the water after an argument and be alarmed when you’re not invited back. I believe you that Bea and her mom aren’t doing a great job being gracious as new pool owners, but there’s no right to due process when it comes to friendship or going to other people’s homes. This is a teachable moment.

And it might actually be a positive one for your family, at least when it comes to safety. I was alarmed to hear about the apathetic teen lifeguard—not because I agree that you are entitled to free babysitting but because I just read an article ( https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/07/03/1012270779/you-could-save-a-child-from-drowning-this-summer-heres-how )about how easily (and quietly) kids can drown and how much supervision they require when they’re in the water. My understanding is that the best practice is to have one sober adult totally dedicated to watching the pool at all times. And ideally, lifeguards will switch on and off so the person watching is fresh and alert.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/07/dear-prudence-exiled-pool-heatwave.html

Comments

[conuly]

Just, wow. WOW.

[melannen]

WOW

Hey lady, buy a sprinkler!

[conuly]

The nerve of that family, only inviting their daughter's actual friends over to swim!

[futurism]

This is entitled and all shades of Bad, not much discussion about that. I wonder how much of this is LW's actual personality and how much has been made worse by the heatwave, as many people get grumpier in the heat.

[conuly]

I really want to know what sort of advice LW thought they'd get. Did they imagine they could wave their letter in their neighbor's face, "See, this advice columnist says you're mean!" and get let in to the pool?

[ashbet]

WOWWWWWWWWW.

[tielan]

Dear LW, bad behaviour on the part of the neighbour and the neighbour's daughters does not entitle you and your daughters to bad behaviour. "They started it" is not an argument that is accepted in anyone over...well, no, it shouldn't be accepted from anyone at any age.

The heat index keeps rising...and your neigbour is not obligated to let your daughters swim in the pool. No. No, she is not obligated, not at all. Install a pool yourself, or find a sprinkler and turn it on, or work out how to eat humble pie and prostrate yourself sufficiently to be allowed back into the hallowed Pool Of The Neigbour(hood). Or just suck it up and deal with the fact that you and your kids will never be persona grata at the pool. Your move.

😂

[cimorene]

It's not just the entitlement, or even the entitlement and the stupidity of arguing back that are so funny to me, it's the idea that this woman is sitting at home, fuming and imagining that a five-year-old is some scheming sadistic Mean Girl because she actually (gasp) chooses who she wants to play with on her summer vacation based on liking them and enjoying playing with them. Like she isn't just entitled to this small child's time and attention on her own child's behalf, but on behalf of every other small child in the neighborhood, and she further has some elaborate paranoid delusion that the small child being a small human child is mean-spirited and smug about it.

This looks like a narcissist doing narcissistic projection, tbh.

Re: 😂

[conuly]

It's the scare quotes around the word "allowed" that get me.

Re: 😂

[cimorene]

Rght, like they're an illegitimate puppet government who've taken over their own pool with no power to enforce or something.

Or no, like actually the parents wouldn't care if she had a kegger every day and invited everyone, but they pretend she's only allowed because she enjoys creating competition for her affections, that's probably what the LW is actually thinking.

Re: 😂

[conuly]

It couldn't possibly because four children in a pool with one teenaged babysitter is more than enough!

[minoanmiss]

Mm, I think irritation, like other mood alterants, brings out a person's true self by making it harder to think rationally before emoting and acting. The heat wave is melting away what sense LW might have to reveal her essential entitlement.

[conuly]

The fact that "everybody" guessed who it was suggests to me that it was charitable to ever allow her kids over in the first place.

[xenacryst]

LW, put your face in a sprinkler. It's getting red and you're overheating.

Neighborhood pool owner, please consult your homeowners insurance agent stat. Make sure you understand the term "attractive nuisance." Swimming pools are not toys. Bored teenagers on their phones are not lifeguards. (TBF, pool owner may have done that and have good gates, but the bored distracted teenager as lifeguard makes me question that.)

[shirou]

To all the comments about entitlement, I will just add that pushing someone into a swimming pool actually is violent and dangerous. LW provides no ages, but given that Bea is a "little girl" needing babysitting, who fights over a toy, I'm going to guess pretty young. I would be pissed if somebody pushed my young child into a pool, even another child. No way would that child be invited over to swim again, at least not without parental supervision.