Question: My room mate ignores her son. She feeds him and keeps him clean, but hardly ever talks to him or plays with him. She doesn’t spank him when he does something wrong but she will scream at him. He is only 3 years old. He gets bored and will start whining and following me around. I know he needs attention but this is not my child and really, I don’t want to be bothered. I am childless and don’t know much about kids. I am starting to get very annoyed by the situation.

I shared two houses with a friend for about 4 years years ago. One house was an up & down 2-family, the other was a side by side 2-family. So we weren’t actually roommates but still, for all intents and purposes lived together. I know exactly what you are going through…it is very hard when your room/house mate does not parent as you do.

My friend would not only ignore her kids sometimes, she would scream and curse at them as well. And also hit them with shoes and other various objects. I felt like, I’m going to say something because this mess is crazy, it’s getting on my nerves. Telling her that, saying “You know when you call your kids little motherfuckers and dumb bitches at the top of your lungs it really irritates me” worked a lot better than telling her “You are doing extreme damage to your children by cursing and yelling at them” or “Your parenting sucks, big-time” or “If you throw one more shoe at them I’m going to beat you with my boot, see how you like it” all things I told her which pissed her off to no end and resulted in us not talking for a while.

Maybe you could sit your room mate down and tell her how the situation makes YOU feel…yes, her concern should be for the effects her behavior/parenting style is having on her son but sometimes saying that directly hurts the mother’s feelings to the extent she won’t listen to you…she may honestly have no idea that she is doing anything wrong or she may feel that this method of parenting works best for her and her child. I know when I was younger (I was a teen mom) nothing got my back up more than someone telling me how to parent my child even when I was able to intellectually realize that they were telling me something that would benefit her.

So if you make it all about you, telling her that it bothers you when she ignores her son because then he whines and that aggravates you, she may make an effort to change things just so as not to irritate you. As opposed to making an effort to change because you think her parenting sucks or because she realizes such a change would benefit her son and greatly enhance his life.

This blog entry written by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Mama Specific Productions!

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