A person who was accused of having “crushed” a little boy’s imagination as he pretended to be a pirate has been backed online.
The person, who did not give their name but posts to Reddit under the username u/TripleDigitMan, took to the r/AmITheA*****e sub on May 6, where they asked if they were in the wrong “for not letting my neighbor’s kid ruin my lawn in the name of imagination?”
The neighbor explained they are on “polite” terms with their neighbors two doors down, who have a 9- or 10-year-old son who is going through a pirate phase, from wearing eyepatches to pretending to battle with squirrels, which the neighbor first thought was “pretty wholesome.”
Until, that is, they started noticing holes appearing in their yard. First attributing the damage to raccoons, the holes started getting bigger—and the neighbor then found a pirate treasure map beside a “completely torn up” patch of grass.
Jo Hayes, of EtiqetteExpert.org, began by saying “this ‘pirate phase’ is supremely cute,” as “burying treasure in the yard sounds like a great play activity for a young boy,” but added: “As long as it’s in his own yard.”
“This etiquette expert is 100 percent behind [the neighbor]. It is not ok for his neighbor’s kid to be burying treasure in his yard. Especially as he has been very clear about his not agreeing to this,” Hayes said.
The neighbor wrote in their post that they eventually caught the boy “mid-dig” in their yard, and warned him he was not allowed to do this—and while the boy “got a little huffy,” he went home, and the neighbor thought “that was the end of it.”
But it wasn’t. The very next day, they found a box of buried treasure in a hole behind their shed, filled with cards, money and toy coins and jewelry, and so took the box to the boy’s house and told his mother what was going on.
To their shock, the mother got “defensive” and gave no apology, instead insisting, “He’s just using his imagination, I think it’s sweet.”
Hayes told Newsweek: “What planet is this mother living on? 99 percent of the normal adult population would understand that one cannot let one’s child dig up, and leave holes in, another person’s yard. Completely not ok.”
She suggested the mother’s reaction was, “unfortunately, typical of the ‘entitled mom’—the mom who’s blind to her child’s faults and responds defensively to anyone laying down healthy boundaries towards her child.
“The correct response to finding out that her child has dug up another person’s yard is to
apologize profusely, and to explain to her son that he cannot go around digging holes in
other people’s yards. This is about respecting other people’s property.”
But when the neighbor pressed the issue of the boy destroying their lawn, the mother responded: “Can’t you just let him have this? It’s not like your grass is that nice anyway.”
Admitting they were “stunned,” they wrote: “I said, as politely as possible, that I didn’t want holes being dug on my property by someone else’s kid. I handed over the box and left.
“That night, she sends a long text telling me I humiliated her son, crushed his imagination, and ‘created an environment where children can’t feel safe being children.’ She said he cried for over an hour and now thinks I’m ‘the villain in his story.’ (Her words.)”
The neighbor felt torn over the situation, as they understand he’s “a kid,” but they didn’t yell at him or shame him, and gave his box of treasure back. They wrote that they are simply sick of their yard being “turned into a sandbox and being insulted for not being okay with it.”
Expert Hayes assured the neighbor that they had done “nothing wrong here” and had in fact “done everything right.”
“It sounds like you weren’t mean to the boy—you simply made it clear this digging of holes couldn’t continue. You have done nothing to create an ‘unsafe’ environment for children,” Hayes said.
“This latest interaction may have upset the boy, but this ‘cried for over an hour’ could have been prevented, had his mother done her job properly, and taught him the ins and outs of correct behavior. Digging holes in the neighbor’s yard is not ok. It’s disrespectful.”
The neighbor asked Reddit commentators whether they were in the wrong—and was instantly vindicated.
Their post racked up more than 11,000 upvotes, as one commenter wrote: “His mom needs to teach him to respect others’ property. You don’t get to do whatever the hell you want as a kid in the name of ‘using your imagination.'”
One suggested the neighbor should “send the family a bill for repairing the damage” to the yard, as another agreed: “People don’t respect polite boundaries, but they sure listen when you bring up consequences.”
“Whether your grass is nice or not, it’s your grass. She’s raising her kid awfully if she isn’t teaching him basic boundaries like respecting other people’s property,” another said.
And as one put it: “You didn’t cross any boundaries. He did. When a kid oversteps, you inform their parents, and they have a teaching moment with their child. You have every right to enjoy your property, even if she’s an ineffective parent.”
Hayes, too, said the neighbor appears to have “acted calmly, clearly communicating” the issue, but the mother “acted emotionally, defensively lashing out with unfair and unjust accusations” that make her appear “unreasonable.”
And like Reddit users, she suggested the neighbor “keep his cool, and if this happens again, inform local council or appropriate government agencies,” as a letter from the council warning the neighbor “should do the job in hitting home the fact that what her son has done, and what she’s allowed him to do, is not ok.”
Newsweek has contacted u/TripleDigitMan on Reddit for comment on this story.
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