We moved into a upper middle class neighbourhood. I was a single mom, working from home - with three sons, two of them teenagers. We were renting, when everyone else there was married, home owners and the houses were worth around $500,00.

This one neighbour seemed to dislike me on sight. She would glare at me, and wouldn’t let her son play with my youngest when both were a similar age.

I don’t know why exactly she disliked me, but I can see that we didn’t fit in, and I didn’t make any effort to do so.

So I decided to “kill them with kindness”. Every day that I would see her, I slapped a big grin on my face and say something nice like, beautiful day isn’t it!? and just keep on walking.

I kept this up for months. One day she decided she wanted to be my best friend. She finally let her son play with mine. I took care of her little girl when she needed help. But I kept my distance - I was never going to be her friend.

When my son was 10 years old, the neighbours insisted that my son join their baseball team. He was very frail, in very poor health, and I knew he would struggle, so I said no - trying to explain how difficult it would be for him.

They refused to listen, paid for his membership anyway, and insisted he had to play.

After just two games, he came to me in tears and said he just couldn’t do it. I told him, that if ...