Mom isn’t OK with neighbor kids playing in her yard without permission, sparks internet debate

A frustrated mom is taking to TikTok to ask if she’s in the wrong for being uncomfortable over the fact that kids in her neighborhood use her backyard playset without asking. While this may sound a tad curmudgeonly at first, she specifies that they use it even when her own kids aren’t home.

And now the internet is weighing in, as this has sparked a debate in her comments section.

“Do other people’s neighbors do this? We have an open backyard, which means that there’s no fences and we can’t put fences up because we don’t have a pool,” TikTok creator @s_hubby14 asks in the beginning of her video, which she filmed from inside her house while the neighbors in question used her family’s backyard playset.

“So, our neighbors just come into our backyard and literally play on our structure and don’t ask us and they just play like they….own it, like it’s a communal backyard just because we don’t have fences.”

The mom explains that she didn’t think much of it at first, because her own kids then went outside to join the neighborhood kids. But now, those kids are playing on the playset all alone—including the family’s trampoline! And she’s not comfortable with that.

“They have a pool. What if I just, what if they came home, and I was just in their f******pool? Like, this is so weird to me!” she says.

She also shares that her husband thinks she’s overreacting (because of course he does), but she says working in a law office has given her enough pause to worry about the liability of kids playing on her backyard equipment without supervision or permission.

“What if one of them gets hurt? Then our homeowner’s insurance [is] the one that’s getting sued,” she says.

If you ask me, at best it’s poor manners. At worst, it’s rude and a liability. I have two young kids who love those backyard playsets (we don’t have one because they’re astronomically expensive and the thought of building it alongside my husband sounds about as fun as a tooth extraction). Our next-door neighbors (and several others) all have them. Our neighbors have told us time and again that we’re welcome to use it anytime, and they don’t have to be home for our kids to play on it, etc. And I know they genuinely mean it. But the thought of just taking over their backyard when no one’s home, or when their young son isn’t already outside playing, also makes me uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because I have a good sense of boundaries, maybe it’s because I was raised very strictly and need to unpack my feelings with my therapist. Either way, it’s a no from me.

The comments section is rife with people sharing their opinions on the matter, too. And a majority of them are on the mom’s side.

“I’d be like ‘you know this is my backyard and not a communal park, correct?’”

“I would 100% be in that pool if only to prove a point.”

“Not on the trampoline too! At first I was like ‘your husband is a really nice guy” but now Im like “your husband has lost his mind!'”

“As an insurance agent I agree with you 100%.”

“I would go out and be like ‘does your mom know you’re over here? I can’t watch you right now but maybe we can arrange a play date another day.'”

What do you think? Team Mom or Team Free Reign