A little neighborly love...or not

My family and I live in a townhouse. There is a shared wall on each side of our humble abode. On one side, there lives a woman who tends to be VERY extremely unpleasant every time our paths cross. On the other lives a young mom and her two children. While I wish that the neighbor on my left would be a little friendlier, she causes us no real problems . She does however raise hamsters, and I find myself singing that Jimmy Buffett song whenever I see her. I am drifting off topic though, the young mother on my right is what I would like to talk about.

This is a young woman, all of 22, with two small girls. She has a 5 year old and a 3 year old. She is currently going through divorce proceedings with the children's father. I can understand as a mother who married very young and started her family very young that she feels compelled to sow her oats a bit. I get that. What I am a whole lot less understanding about is the constant partying. I feel like I am trying to raise my family in the basement of a frat house.

There is music that blares at all hours of the day and night. There is the screaming, yelling, and impromptu drunken karaoke. There are the cigarette butts and beer bottles that are all over the drive. There is the scuff on my bumper that wasn't there when I parked, but magically appeared when your drunken guest peeled out of here. There is the broken glass from the beer bottles that get thrown or run over. So far, I have had to pick it out of my daughter's hands when she fell on her skates and my dogs' paws. There is the puppy that gets chucked outside for hours so that she can sleep in, who barks non stop, causes my dogs to bark and ensures that there is no rest for the weary in my home.

As much as all these things bother me, I am bothered most by the two little girls, one in school already that have to live through it. When I see her children run outside at 2:00 in the morning looking for her, it makes me sad. Then it makes me mad, because I can't imagine what school must be like for her the next day. I am the last person who will judge a Mommy or a Daddy because they are drinking beer in front of their children. I will however shed actual tears when I see a mother stumble and fall and alternatively feel up today's boyfriend while her children look on. I wish that I could shake her, tell her that once she loses her children's respect there is no getting it back. I want to tell her that she will have the whole rest of her life to drink and party if that is what she wants, but, that she'll only have her children for a little while. One day soon, maybe I will tell her. Our friendly acquaintance is already a thing of the past, what have I got to lose?