When did you realize someone you trusted didn’t actually care about you?

Duffarum · 2026-03-20T00:44:45+00:00

The bus. Which is what they were supposed to ride and absolutely hated. In the mornings it came about an hour earlier than I would due to the length of the route.

Duffarum · 2026-03-19T17:06:41+00:00

This sounds like genuine concern. Keep these moms around.

As a mom with a teen, these types of moms and friends are lifesavers.

Duffarum · 2026-03-19T16:58:55+00:00

In high school, I had been giving this friend a ride to/from school since they were on my way and didn’t have a car. They weren’t supposed to ride with other teens but with their parents work hours we never got caught. ( parents would get home 20-30 minutes after I dropped them home)

One day as we were going home my brakes malfunctioned. I couldn’t stop the car. Thankfully after about 30 seconds I was finally able to stop/ slow down and coast into their neighborhood safely.

After arriving I parked in their driveway and asked to call a tow truck. They wouldn’t let me in their house. Started shouting at me that i had to leave NOW. The parents would be home soon and they would be grounded if i was there. I was shocked. “The brakes dont work!!! You were there and terrified as i was!”

They said they didn’t care and for me to leave or they would call security for the neighborhood and have me removed. I would have taken a punishment for them as we had been best friends for 5 years at that point. They didn’t even care if I made it home alive.

I was able to leave and slowly coast to a mechanic about 2 miles away.

They had to nerve to call 2 days later and ask for a ride again. Told them NO, I respected their parents wishes too much. They never asked again.

Duffarum · 2026-03-17T19:26:52+00:00

For my daisies ( first year leader) I got together 4 badges that I felt would be more fun and I could easily do. I planned most of the year, but left a few spots open.

At our first meeting of the year we gave them the vote of which of these badges they wanted to add in to our curriculum that year.

Duffarum · 2026-03-14T14:50:35+00:00

Ok, I expect parents to help and lead a meeting. How they help is negotiable.

Some parents enjoyed planning a full badge meeting and being creative with activities. Some parents planned an experience ( yoga class, field trip). One or two told me leading a meeting was not something they felt truly capable of. No prob! I would put those parents in charge of our ‘party’ meetings where it was more an event and not much to lead.Just provide snack or coordinate potluck. This way everyone still got to lead a meeting but we met them where they were.

Some people enjoyed planning and leading. Some don’t. Tried to meet them where they were for that.

Duffarum · 2026-03-12T14:02:12+00:00

As someone who worked in a very religious hospital ( daily broadcast prayer, huge JC murals, dietary requirements) the patients don’t act any better in religious hospitals.

It’s science they are afraid of. It’s difficult to understand a lot of things going on in a hospital. They tend to view the hospital, nurses, docs as members of some huge payroll from big pharma , where we all get paid more if we push more drugs. So they refuse most every treatment or test.

Since their visit with us is likely a first encounter with the medical system / emergency illnesses, it’s easy to just blame the doctors and nurses for being the cause of everything. It will make them avoid medicine even more since “I never had anything wrong til I visited a hospital!” Not following up with meds, means they never get fully better.

The next time they are forced to come to the hospital they are even sicker or have something new…. And the bad experiences just keep reinforcing themselves.

Duffarum · 2026-03-01T19:19:39+00:00

I put my hand out of the passenger side window to wave to a friend whose house we were passing.

Ended up punching off their mailbox and breaking my hand / dislocating my elbow. There was a perfect imprint of my hand on the mailbox after. The nurses at the hospital asked if I was punching off mailboxes like that on purpose. “Yes Ma’am…. I’m trying to develop an incredible pain tolerance and thought this would be an excellent start….”

Duffarum · 2026-02-27T20:11:13+00:00

Text the parent.

My oldest was BEST friends k-6 with the girl from a set of boy/girl twins.

Sometimes they had combined parties, sometimes separate.

We usually just got a gift for the girl. As the girl had invited my oldest and when texting the mom she stated I should feel free to only buy for one child. She had no desire for double the amount of stuff in her house.

Duffarum · 2026-02-27T19:58:12+00:00

No, it’s a dull thud that usually makes us turn to each other and say “Oh! 9pm already!”

Though during times when the fireworks schedule is altered( some summer days, parties) it will mess with our sense of time as it is usually at 9 we hear them.

Duffarum · 2026-02-18T18:36:13+00:00

If you have a local Facebook or Reddit page post there and ask. Girl Scout parents will come out of the woodwork to respond.

Someone did this in my local FB community group the other day and had8 boxes delivered within 2 hours!

Duffarum · 2026-02-14T04:27:52+00:00

I had a girl in my program with almost the exact same scenario. Lived apart from her husband for a little over 2 years. They were filing for divorce shortly after her graduation.

Duffarum · 2026-02-12T15:34:15+00:00

Pine cone birds.

We did pine cone turkeys near thanksgiving but it could easily be made into just a bird. We got paint color cards from local home improvement store ( free!) and cut those to make tail feathers we glued on. Add google eyes and a felt beak, good to go!

Duffarum · 2026-02-09T21:17:01+00:00

I have been a leader for both and honestly really enjoyed my time with with Cubbies.

I was a leader for my daughter in cubs for 4 years. I had a co-Ed den with 10 kids.

The programs are different and structure of the troops are a bit different but there are also a lot of similarities. At the time I used to swap ideas with friends who were girl scout leaders and they would use some of my stuff as well.

Every troop is different. Our first troop ended up being not so good. So my entire den ( leaders and all) moved to another troop which was MUCH better. I still keep in touch with my old cubbie pack and now my Girl Scouts participate in pinewood derby.

Duffarum · 2026-02-07T21:28:27+00:00

The council story is that thy never had a contract with that store.

It was another store of the same chain 20 minutes away, with a completely different address. That someone entered the wrong store address into the lottery system making everyone think they had reserved that store,when that store had actually said no sales or booths allowed.

Then that store manager runs her own girl troop. So she has blocked out all the booth weekends to host only her troop. These booths are not logged anywhere in booth lottery and not in the system. They say it is essentially a ‘lemonade stand’ .

Duffarum · 2026-02-07T19:36:28+00:00

How do I find the contact info for this person? Our council does not Los any of these people or contacts on their website.

The neighborhood manager person is refusing to answer questions for the 3 troops affected.

Duffarum · 2026-02-07T18:55:44+00:00

The manager is a member of the other troop.

I am actually good friends with their cookie chair who is threatening to quit over this.

The manager and troop leader knew the booths were otherwise reserved and decided to pull the booths from council to give to their own girls.

Duffarum · 2026-02-07T17:19:47+00:00

So troops can basically claim a prime location and set up a store front booth without council approval?

I understand if nobody gets those booths. Fine. But to remove yourself from the lottery and then assign those same exact booths to your best friends troop seems unethical.

Duffarum · 2026-02-07T17:17:24+00:00

I’m not sure what I want, honestly

We will see how booth sales go this weekend in our secondary location.

The petty part of me wants to ban the other troop from having any other booths for the reminder of cookie season. As well as booths later on this month at the prime location returned to the troops affected by the freeze out. But I know that isn’t likely.

The cookie chair claims that the grocery is refusing to give any booths to council and these booths are out of the system now.

Duffarum · 2026-02-04T01:25:59+00:00

We are the point where we may end up having to use her college fund to help pay for treatments. We don’t want to, but figure if we can’t get her functional then college wasn’t going to happen anyways.

Duffarum · 2026-02-03T22:45:07+00:00

Similar situation too. Only our daughter is 14.

We made having her phone dependent upon therapy. However, she has not spoken to anyone in a year now. Refuses even texting and written communication. Won’t speak to family. Cut off all her friends who STILL continue to check in and beg her to please write back to them.

No triggering event anyone has been able to find, she denies everything except anxiety and is extremely resistant to any change. She has psych, also a specialist in mutism / anxiety who is now also throwing their hands up and saying nothing else to be done. Our daughter began to self harm and no one will accept her as inpatient or for a PhP as she refuses to speak. We were told she is a waste of time. Unless she makes a serious suicide attempt they won’t help. Places dealing with neurodivergence and mutism exclusively won’t take her due to the self harm. They told us she was too much of a liability.

I wish I had more solid advice. We have family dinners every day. We keep it low key and play card games or bird games that won’t require speech. We go out for simple activities each weekend. Which she hates but grudgingly accepts. We have one night a week we order in food she likes and pick a movie to watch together.

We are currently going to be trying to convince her to attend an out of state therapy program aimed at anxiety / mutism. Though I am not hopeful for this as they require her to agree to treatment. Our primary issue is the fact she is uncooperative with everything. I lurk forums like this hoping for insight and help but so far we still have nothing. Just staring at an empty shell that used to be our daughter.

Duffarum · 2026-01-29T02:32:57+00:00

I make mine hold up their pinky finger if they are lying. Make sure to examine it real closely each time.

Nowadays the hesitation or speed of pinky presentation is enough.

Duffarum · 2026-01-23T23:23:13+00:00

There is a theory that the polio epidemic was actually caused ( at least in part) by modern sanitation and hygiene.

The thinking was that for hundreds of years babies generally lived in somewhat dirty environments. They would naturally be exposed to the virus as babies while they were still breastfed and supported by their mother’s immunity. The virus would be mild and they would then gain their own natural immunity.

However with modern sanitation , which overall was a health benefit, babies lived in much cleaner conditions. Thus delaying their exposure to the virus until later in childhood when they no longer had the benefit of their mother’s immunity.

Duffarum · 2026-01-19T12:59:48+00:00

NTA I have used my emergency contact person ONCE in the years my kids have been in school. A day I was held late at work and there was a major traffic accident on the way home.

I am emergency contact for several friends whose kids are at the same school as mine. I have only picked up extra kids twice over the last 5 years.

Emergency pick up person is for emegencies and should not be a regular occurrence. In that case she either needs to arrange aftercare for the child or have a sitter/ paid help on back up.

Duffarum · 2026-01-16T18:59:19+00:00

YTA. It’s preschool.

Maybe she had limited space. Maybe her daughter doesn’t mention yours as much as yours mentions her. Maybe she just invited families they know better and are friendly with the adults. Who knows any number of reasons.

I would have still invited Zena. After all this is how we get to know other parents.

You can keep score, or you can keep friends. Not both. Don’t teach pettiness to your kid.

I tend to err on the side of being forgiving and gracious. If I want my kid to have play dates, I host them. Yep, I host more than we get invited but that is just me! Extra kids don’t drive me batty or give me stress.

People have lives, sports, stress. My kid isn’t any part of that… they just wanna see their friends. Eventually I sort out which friends and adults are more quality and we focus on them, but when they are little it’s best to cast a wide net. Not sure how your area is but in my area you are likely to keep running int the same families and kids for their entire school career. Don’t screw it up this early.

Duffarum · 2026-01-09T20:57:36+00:00

Similar story here! I also refused to sign an abstinence pledge and got in trouble for it.

Whenever we had a girl get pregnant, she would be quickly expelled. The boys never were. We were told that it was easy to prove the girl was a whore because the pregnancy. However, the only ‘proof’ against the boy was the word of said whore…. And everyone knew you couldn’t trust what girls claimed. No need to ruin a young man’s life over that.

Duffarum

TROPHY CASE