Carolyn Hax: Open your door to neighbor kids

While I’m away, readers give the advice.

On having “extra” kids, who spend more time at your house than they do at their own: A very generous neighbor opened her house to me (and other kids as well), and I would go there every chance I got, saying that I liked playing with her children, and that I liked her house better than mine. I never told her that I was being mentally, physically and sexually abused at my own home. My neighbor’s house was the one place that I felt safe from being yelled at, beaten, or worse.

My neighbor provided the one small slice of sanity that allowed me to survive my childhood, and I am very sure that without her nurturing influence, I never would have had a chance at a normal life.

Please don’t turn these children away. When a child calls asking to come over every day, your family is obviously fulfilling a need that he can’t fulfill at home. It may be just more interesting entertainment than he gets at home, or it may be something much more important. Everyone thought my parents were “extremely nice,” too. – Former neighbor’s child

On choosing someone you love less/more than s/he loves you: Sometimes the “more” vs. “less” love really means different understandings of what love requires: more togetherness, more valentines, more sex, etc., or more autonomy, more space, more capacity for differences of all kinds. “If you really loved me, you would … ” can be a relationship-killer.

I find, after 47 years of marriage, that what annoys me in my husband is also what attracts me, and what I have a deficit of in myself. The challenge is then whether – as equals – we can live with, enjoy, respect, celebrate and nurture one another from complementary perspectives on life and love. – O.