Neighbourly act a lesson in kindness for kids

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This article was published 27/10/2021 (1754 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My neighbour has long grey hair flying and looks like a witch. She hollers at my kids to stay off her lawn and waves her long-fingered fan rake around at them.

I know she’s old now, and losing it a bit, so I warn the kids to never to talk disrespectfully when they’re going by. I remember her when she was younger and quite pleasant.

The other day someone came by and helped her into their car, and she hasn’t come back. She might be sick. She’s always fussed about her yard and garden and now it’s covered in leaves. Should I rake her yard for her or leave it alone? What if she came home and caught me, would she freak out? I am a pretty fast raker!

— Her Longtime Neighbour, Winnipeg

Dear Neighbour: There’s nothing wrong with a kind, neighbourly gesture. If you decide to do it, get the kids to help, as a lesson in kindness.

Be sure to leave a note on her door to let her know it was you and your kids who did the raking. Then she won’t feel worried or disoriented, because she doesn’t remember doing it herself, and think somebody has been in her yard.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My mother, who was divorced from my father when I was young, married a man when I was 14 years old. He acted like a father to me, and we had a good relationship. After university I moved just outside the city for work, and got married. He even walked me down the aisle.

I ended up by having two girls. When they were two and four, they told me they were molested by him. My husband and I pressed charges, and he went to jail for a year and a half.

You’d think my mother would have left him, but she went to one counselling appointment and left because the counsellor told her to get a divorce. She’s still married to him.

It angers me to the point where I don’t even want a relationship with her, but I still talk to her as you only have one mother. It’s torn our family apart. Her own sisters barely talk to her.

She made all new friends over the years because any friends that found out about her husband dropped her. She doesn’t even tell all her new friends that he’s a pedophile, because they’d drop her too.

She acts like it never happened. Meanwhile, my kids had years of counselling and are grown now.

Should I cut all ties with her? It’s getting to that point. My husband and I fight constantly when she comes by herself for a visit, and he’s at the point where he doesn’t even want her in the house (I only see her three times a year now, where we used to be really close).

The whole family has a nickname for him. We call him “Pedi” behind his back, and he’s never apologized. They both just act like nothing happened.

— Guilty Jerk and Hating it, Manitoba

Dear Hating It: You call the proven pedophile a guilty jerk yet your mother, who stands behind him after he molested your daughters, is allowed to visit in your home? It’s high time you cut ties with her.

She made her choice. Now you need to make your choice to fully stand by your daughters. Be aware your husband is more disgusted than you are with your mother, and it lowers his estimation of you when you let her in your home. No wonder you’re fighting! Would you rather lose him than your mother?

And how about your daughters who lose more trust and feeling for you the longer you do this? It’d make everyone feel better if you cut your mother off completely.

But, if you must have contact with you mother even once a year, talk by phone, and away from your home. Totally block her on the home phone, so your husband never picks up and has to hear her voice.

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6.

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

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