agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

The other day my child and I looked through the second grade photo feed, and I asked why there were no photos of her playing with Olivia, whose name comes up a lot at home. My child casually responded, “Because her mother doesn’t like me, so she knows to move away to play with another kid when the teacher gets the camera out.” So my question is: What level of rage is appropriate? On a scale of 1 (“let it go, maybe the kid misheard”) to 10 (“shame them on social media and carve mean things in their lawn”), where should my reaction fall? I think I started at a 7 (quiet seething) and am trying to get myself down to about a 5. My daughter is sociable, has many friends, and I am not aware of any behavior that would make GROWNUPS tell their child to avoid her. (I talked to her a bit about this, and she said, “Honestly, I’m glad Olivia told me the truth. We are still friends, and my feelings would be hurt if I thought she was leaving me for no reason.”)

—Mom in a Rage

Dear MiaR,

Honestly, it sounds like your daughter has this under control. She doesn’t seem to be distressed that there is an adult who dislikes her—she doesn’t even seem to wonder why!—and since learning to live with the brutal fact that sometimes other people won’t like us (for reasons we can’t understand or control) is important and very hard (many full grown adults can’t make peace with this, and spend an inordinate amount of energy trying to make everyone like them, which is futile), she is ahead of the game.

I understand completely, though, why this enrages you. It would infuriate me too. (Hey, my daughter is nearly 29, and I sincerely believe that if there were anyone who disliked her—but could there really be such a person?—they would by definition be a very bad person.) And taking a dislike to a 7-year-old is flat-out bonkers. Who knows why Olivia’s mother feels the way she does? But really—what difference does it make? Let it go. Chalk it up to Some People Are Awful (some people really are). Your daughter and Olivia seem to have worked this out on their own. I do give you permission, however, to indulge in my favorite nineteenth-century social convention, the “cut”: If you ever run into the woman, feel free to ignore her. If she speaks to you, pretend you don’t hear. She’ll likely think you are the crazy one, but it may make you feel a little better. For moral support and practical instructions in this effective method of making your disapproval clear without saying a word about it, read the novels of Jane Austen.

—Michelle

https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/05/end-all-ties-family-advice.html

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It's Olivia I'm worried about here. Not liking some random seven or eight year old child... okay, as noted this is bizarre, but whatever. You can't like all people, even children.

Disliking them to the point that your daughter knows to pretend they aren't even friends? WTF is going on in that household? Unless there is something really uniquely terrible about Daughter that LW is not disclosing, but honestly, it's hard to imagine what could be that bad. Again: these kids are in the second grade.

Edited 2022-06-04 16:37 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm wondering if LW's daughter

- is a person of colour
- has two mums/two dads
- is Disabled
- is not dressed in expensive clothes

because this REEKS of Olivia's mother being prejudiced...

Word.

I am impressed with Lw's daughter's chill. I don't have that much chill about being disliked.

*see icon*

I am impressed with Lw's daughter's chill. I don't have that much chill about being disliked

Same. I think I was in my late 30s/early 40s before I was like

"Ok, some people will never like me, and as long as they don't hassle me or harrass me, that's okay"

yeah, but if it were any of those things, I think LW would have said, because there's no way this LW wouldn't have been hyperaware of something like that.

I suppose we could have an undiagnosed invisible disability. Given that lots of people think "that's just how my family is" rather than "oh, yeah, it's this" that's possible.

Religious prejudice, possibly? Does Olivia's mother go to an intolerant church and think LW and her family are going to hell?

That was my first thought - there's something about Olivia's family's beliefs - religious, political, social, not being vegan, whatever - that Olivia's mother thinks will contaminate her daughter. It could even be that Olivia's mom doesn't like LW, LW does possibly seem slightly exhausting to deal with, so she might have offended Olivia's mom somehow without even realizing she did it, and Olivia's mom is also obviously extremely exhausting to deal with, so she escalated in an incredibly pointless way, etc.

(I also don't think that LW would necessarily have parsed "there is something about my daughter's family that Olivia's mother wants her daughter to stay away from" via her daughter saying "Olivia's mother doesn't like me", if she wasn't from a group where that sort of thing happens a lot.)

Totally read this as you have described above. Olivia's mother is prejudiced about something. (or many somethings) and at least the kids have figured out ways around it. Poor Olivia has a long life of not telling her mother things to smooth things over.

I feel ya, LW.

This actually happened to my second grader because she voted for Biden in their school's mock election. One of her friends started being terribly cruel to her and then told her they couldn't be friends anymore because she voted for Biden and her mom didn't like her and said she's a bad person.

So glad third grade this year that girl was not in my kid's class.

Oh, hi childhood.

I'm so sorry you had similar experiences. :(

I immediately figured this was almost certainly about perceived class or race, and my mother also had preferences about my friends depending on whether she thought they were as clever as me (from a very young age). I don't see what else it could be, with a kid; unless the kid's been over to that mother's house and behaved badly or something?

Edited 2022-06-05 10:36 (UTC)