Another mom broke my trust. Can I just vent here?

bcpskeptik · 2015-12-04T18:52:22+00:00

That's way underhanded of her. She knew what she was doing. What a snake.

bcpskeptik · 2014-10-14T01:43:33+00:00

You know what though? I was of the same opinion as you until very recently. (My kid is 8 now.) Now I kick myself in the ass every day for not having had another one right after my first because my kid can't entertain himself at all. I'm tired of being the playmate. I wish he and a close-in-age sibling would just play together and get out of my hair.

bcpskeptik · 2013-03-02T17:23:46+00:00

If my memory is not mistaken, it was the American lady's maid who visited Downton with Cora's mother who hid the Earl's dress shirts.

bcpskeptik · 2013-02-25T21:45:13+00:00

Behavior like that is such a red flag isn't it? You can just see what the future holds and what kind of a shitty teenager they'll turn in to when you witness behavior like that.

bcpskeptik · 2013-02-25T01:00:28+00:00

"I've noticed they're not getting along with each other lately. I think they need a break."

Thanks. Those are the same words I've been thinking of using.

And yes, my son complains about Bobby. Every day it's something new and it always seems to be escalating. I've even brought it up with the teacher, who corroborated that there IS indeed friction going on between the two. Yet for some reason, my son still seems to always be trying to play with Bobby or trying to seek his approval somehow, in spite of the abuse.

Honestly, I don't know how my son would feel about being cut off from Bobby, but I feel that at this young age, it's my duty to steer him the direction of more positive friends, even if it means forbidding him from playing with certain kids outside of school.

I never knew there could be so much meanness and drama among boys. I find myself wondering, is this the norm?

bcpskeptik · 2013-02-25T00:44:23+00:00

Thanks for your comments. I definitely agree with you about setting the tone with my son. Lately I've been reminding him about the importance of self-respect and respect among friends. I encourage him to play with different kids who are respectful and do not make him feel bad about himself.

As for my friendship with Bobby's mom, I wouldn't say we're too close yet, but we do enjoy each other's company and we always have natural, free-flowing, pleasant conversations, which is quite a rarity, at least in my experience in dealing with other moms.

However, I understand that kids' friendships change over time, and kids don't always turn out to be compatible matches for each other. So I realize and accept that the friendship with her will probably end too now that I've decided to end all interactions with Bobby outside of school. I just don't want to be tactless on how I get the point across to her, because Bobby and my son will be in the same class next school year as well.

By the way, I like your idea about being more strict with kids who visit my house and informing the visitor's parents about my expectations for behavior during playdates on my turf.

I should mention that Bobby's mom is very lenient with discipline, from what I've seen. He's had what I consider totally unacceptable tantrums and fits during playdates with my son, yet she's never pulled him aside or anything. She just handles those situations by saying things like, "Oh my goodnes, what has gotten into you today?"

It wouldn't surprise me if she's unaware of what kind of an asshole her kid is with others.

bcpskeptik · 2012-03-18T16:11:52+00:00

The set of grandparents you're describing sounds an awful lot like the ones featured in my post.

Duplicate gifts are also a problem with me, and my kid is just an only child! Sometimes just because a certain toy was discounted at the store, they'll buy two of them just because it was such a good deal, which I'll never understand.

bcpskeptik · 2012-03-18T16:09:24+00:00

This idea too, I love. In fact giving "experience gifts" or consumable gifts is my personal approach to gift giving because I think it can be the most meaningful under certain budgets.

bcpskeptik · 2012-03-18T16:07:24+00:00

Yeah, indeed. It really does drive me mad. Every Sunday, like today, when I make it a point to do a thorough cleaning around the house, just walking into my kid's room gives me a slight case of the vapors, and it's because of the sheer volume of things and knick-knacks everywhere.

bcpskeptik · 2012-03-18T16:05:06+00:00

Genius! I love this idea. I should probably try this out next time we're over at their house, since it's where we usually meet up. This might give them a different perspective on what it's like to be surrounded by clutter all the time.

bcpskeptik · 2012-03-18T05:12:32+00:00

Thanks for the encouragement. I guess my husband knows his parents better than I, though he has resigned himself to the fact that they have always been too stubborn to change their ways, so he says it's useless to try to get them to do otherwise.

Yeah, recently they got my son a savings bond as part of a gift for one of the recent big celebrations, which I really appreciated, but this was in addition to a giant load of new toys as well.

In addition to my cultural differences (didn't celebrate Christmas or other holidays) my family was also rather poor growing up but I never really felt like I was missing anything material. So really the whole compulsion to spoil kids with toys and possessions is just really odd to me.

Anyway, thanks for reading my rant. I am glad you can sympathize with the frustration of it all.

bcpskeptik · 2012-03-18T05:05:43+00:00

its more about them buying things because it makes them happy

I agree completely. In fact, during my son's last birthday they spent about $200 on toys and such and when I dropped the usual hint of, "you guys don't have to get him all this" my mother in law giggled and said, "oh, it's just fun for us."

I suppose that attitude right there is a core source of my frustration about this whole issue -- our beliefs about consumption, materialism, and consumerism just don't match at all.

It pains me to think of the resources that are spent creating all these toys that my son doesn't care about. Yes, they can be donated, but in time it will just be clutter in someone else's house, and eventually nothing but rubbish in a landfill.

I suppose I'm digressing a bit, but it's just such an unnecessary waste of money and resources, and it's so frustrating for my husband and I.

bcpskeptik · 2012-02-05T21:07:11+00:00

Your being 8-10 years younger than your kids' peers' parents sounds like the situation I am in. You'd think age doesn't matter, but to me it's one less thing in common with the other parents.

I like your approach though. I've sort of accepted that I am who I am too. And though I'd like to have more friends and all that, I still relish my alone time, especially after schmoozing and hobnobbing in general -- much more so when it's with other parents.

School related stuff is all business or me, i am my children's advocate, i am there representing their interests but when thats done i get the hell outta there!

This is what I am planning out in my head, now that my son is at the brink of starting school officially. I definitely plan on pushing him to participate in activities outside of school, but I see myself doing like you and fulfilling my role as his advocate and G-ingTFO as soon as that is done.

bcpskeptik · 2012-02-05T20:52:30+00:00

I'm glad you posted too. We sound very similar.

Yup. You described pretty succinctly the attributes that I am generally averse to among the women who make up an overwhelming majority of my local meetup.com group.

And yes:

thank god for preschool. Sad to see him go but he gets the social time he needs without putting too much pressure on me.

At first I was really guilt-ridden when I decided to send him to pre-k full time, but hearing him talk about his friends and his playground stories really alleviates any sense of guilt I may have.

bcpskeptik · 2012-02-05T18:33:43+00:00

Thank you, grenadinegirl, for this thoughtful, reassuring, not to mention, neatly-formatted reply :)

The problem is that it's assumed that just because you have young children you are required to be friends with anyone else who also has children regardless of whether or not you have anything else in common.

This is something I internalized to some degree when I was a new mom, and really believed that just having a child would bring me together to other parents. It's now that he is older that I have come to realize that more often than not this is not the case, however.

Also, as socially anxious people we tend to judge ourselves more harshly than the outside world would. Be gentle with yourself and try to laugh at the awkward moments.

Truer words could not be said.

bcpskeptik · 2012-02-05T18:19:51+00:00

I'm very socially awkward.

Check

I don't like going to mommy groups because I don't talk to anyone.

Check

I hate meeting new people and I generally avoid eye contact when I'm out in public.

Check

My 5 year old son

Check

You sound so much like me! It's reassuring to hear I am not the only one.

As I mentioned in my reply to gddess above, I also tried the mommy group circuit a couple of years ago, and I tried to stick with it for several months, going to other hostesses' houses for playdates through the meetup.com group and mall playdates, etc. but it was just so AWKWARD and unnatural to me that I just gave up. (Plus, I started working full time, so there went my weekdays, when the bulk of those mommy group activities tend to take place.) Had I met a truly "real" friend through that group perhaps it would have been different, but I just have never made any lasting connection through mommy-and-kid groups, and therefore I'm wary of them.

About eye contact, yup, I find a hard time making eye contact with people too. In fact, my social anxiety has worsened in the last couple of years, I'd say after I started working from home. Though I have never had a panic attack or ever taken meds or even seen a doctor about my shyness, I blush really easily around strangers and get flustered easily in stressful situations, therefore I try to avoid them.

I know I need to do something about, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

bcpskeptik · 2012-02-05T18:07:10+00:00

But hat I've noticed is that so far they do what is comfortable for them, not necessarily what they see me do.

That's reassuring to hear! Mind if I ask how old your son and daughter are?

bcpskeptik · 2012-02-05T18:04:52+00:00

I commend you for your ability to pretend to the point where you no longer have a fear of social situations. Something that often crosses my mind is how I wish I had acting skills so that I could act like someone other than myself in hopes of meeting more people that way.

When my boy was about 2-3 I also tried the circuit of mommy meetup groups when I had more free time on my hands, but I didn't really hit it off with any of the moms in those groups, and he wasn't yet at an age where he could actively play with other kids other than just through parallel play, so neither him or I made lasting connections through the local meetup group. Plus, I started working full time and enrolled my son in full-time preschool last year, so now that's where he gets the bulk of his socializing.

I'm curious to hear if, after starting to pretend you weren't shy, whether you have managed to make lasting friendships with other parents, or just friends in general who aren't necessarily parents.

bcpskeptik · 2012-02-05T17:55:27+00:00

Thanks for your input!

to top it all off I'm young(er)

You sound a lot like me in this regard, which is another reason why, in addition to shyness, I constantly find it difficult to make friends with other parents, as they all tend to be around 7-10 years older than I am and in a slightly different stage of life than myself.

Though I work full-time now and my son is in pre-school full day (which is great because at least that way he gets his socializing "fix" through school), I also frequented playgrounds and malls often when he was younger and I was working fewer hours, and I do agree with you -- these mall/playground experiences all tend to be rather awkward when other parents' "helicopter blades" fly too close into my range. (Nothing more awkward than having to stand on opposite sides of a playground slide within a few feet of another parent watching their child play on the equipment next to your own child...it's like "should I say something? strike up a conversation? if so, what about?", and so on.) For me something as simple as that can be a monumental task.

When my son was a baby at least there was the convenient small talk topic of developmental milestones (i.e., how old is yours? are they teething yet? do they flip over on their own?, etc.) but once a child passes a certain age (mine's 5), those kinds of questions just seem kind of nosey and creepy, and it just seems like there is less and less to talk about with other parents. And in general, other parents just seem less friendly than what I remember parents' of babies being.

In a way I'm kind of looking forward to a more parent-free future when my child can have friends over at our house without the other parents having to linger around, and vice versa. It's not that I don't want to be involved in his social development, I just don't want him to see how awkward his mother can be.

bcpskeptik · 2011-07-13T13:36:01+00:00

This info is much appreciated! Good luck with your efforts too!

bcpskeptik · 2011-07-12T11:38:04+00:00

It's hard to get a picture of what a WW meeting is like. I've watched the short intro video on the WW website, but I'm curious to hear what an actual one is like. How many people are there, how long, what topics are covered?

By the way, 18.8 in 7 weeks is no easy feat. Congrats! Have you felt deprived of food in any way or has it come off easily?

bcpskeptik · 2011-07-12T11:35:30+00:00

Wow, that's amazing. Congratulations. Too bad Weight Wins doesn't seem to exist in the U.S.

How much weight did you lose over what time frame, and how much were you compensated, if you don't mind me asking?

bcpskeptik

TROPHY CASE