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Family Forum / Parenting / Mothers / August 2007I lost it
yup. i did loose it. i had planned my words, thought i was ready to address the issue reasonably, but the first words out of her mouth were along the lines of 'i hope it didn't inconvenience you any.' HA! Leave your kid with hubby at noon so you can go to the next town over grocery shopping and then reappear to pick him up at nearly 7 pm without phoning or anything? We had evening plans, we had no idea what had happened, and we couldn't contact them because apparently they didn't take their cell with them. And, this is not the first time they've gone somewhere for a short while only to reappear hours later with us wondering where they are and if they are ok. So, I feel cruddy for telling them off. Believe me, venting did not help my mood in the least. And the next trick is to get an apology in for my approach without them loosing the point of the whole thing: if they want to leave their kid with us they need to be up front about how long they intend to be gone, and phone if plans change. That's all I ask. I told them, though, I'd not be inclined to agree to take the boy in [he's DS' best friend] if we might have plans of any sort later in the day. The point is valid, my delivery was way off. Sigh. So now I'll go develop the apology. Aula, not asking for pity, just frustrated > yup. i did loose it. i had planned my words, thought i was ready to > address the issue reasonably, but the first words out of her mouth were [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > So, I feel cruddy for telling them off. Believe me, venting did not help my > mood in the least. > Sigh. So now I'll go develop the apology. > > Aula, not asking for pity, just frustrated Why on earth are you apologizing? "I hope I didn't inconvenience you"? She doesn't really care whether she did or not. She gets babysitting for as long as she chose to stay away, without any timelines. I had a friend who used to do that to me frequently, and many times she'd drop off her son when he was sick. It was infuriating and she never reciprocated. She felt entitled. Ugh. Good luck. gloria p > Aula, not asking for pity, just frustrated I'd pause before apologising and look at why you are apologising. Don't apologise just to make yourself feel better. It is quite alright to lose it if you are taken advantage of like that. It really isn't on. Give the lady time to reflect on the fact that 'boy if I made Aula lose it, then really perhaps I wasn't reasonable' {{{Aula}}} we all lose it. If it makes you feel any better I had a very rare argument with dh this week. I was so cross with him that when I was putting his T-shirts away, instead of folding them nicely I screwed them into teeny tiny balls and crammed them in. I do feel little rueful now that he is going round looking rather crumpled. [] If it makes you feel any better I had a very rare > argument with dh this week. I was so cross with him that when I was > putting his T-shirts away, instead of folding them nicely I screwed them > into teeny tiny balls and crammed them in. I do feel little rueful now > that he is going round looking rather crumpled. Bwa-HaHa!!! Oh Sarah .... I'm sorry you and dh had words - but I have such a funny vision of you crumpling his tshirts and mashing them into tiny balls - ha-ha! thanks for the laugh this morning! Teri > Bwa-HaHa!!! Oh Sarah .... I'm sorry you and dh had words - but I have such a > funny vision of you crumpling his tshirts and mashing them into tiny balls - > ha-ha! thanks for the laugh this morning! > Teri You're welcome!! I did find it highly therapeutic at the time :) Sarah > I'd pause before apologising and look at why you are apologising. Don't > apologise just to make yourself feel better. It is quite alright to lose [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > tiny balls and crammed them in. I do feel little rueful now that he is > going round looking rather crumpled. Oh dear! That must have been some disagreement! The mental pic I get of you balling up the shirts, though, is amusing. I hope you two have kissed and made up ;-) Aula > Oh dear! That must have been some disagreement! The mental pic I get of > you balling up the shirts, though, is amusing. I hope you two have kissed > and made up ;-) > > Aula :) we don't argue for long. bless him - he didn't say anything about the state of his drawer. Hes a wise man! Sarah Aula, she's abusing your friendship. If anyone should be appologising its her. Leaving your kid with someone for an hour or so is one thing, but seven hours? Thats just taking the piss. As you said, they've gone off to do a little shopping, and disappeared for the best part of a day, with no way for you to contact them. Strikes me as bad parenting full stop. Would you go off for that length of time without having some way of them being get hold of you in case something happens to your kids? Question: Other than their son being best friends with your lad, do you actually know them, I mean do you all go out as a group at all or anything? Only appologising you should be doing is to yourself, for not telling them before, and being so damned nice :) -- scrum > Aula, she's abusing your friendship. If anyone should be appologising its > her. Leaving your kid with someone for an hour or so is one thing, but [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Only appologising you should be doing is to yourself, for not telling them > before, and being so damned nice :) The thing about this one is that we adults hardly know each other, although the boys are back and forth daily. They probably know me least of all because I am away at work so much. These folks are about 80, she's confined to motorized chair and tethered to an oxygen canister, being treated for cancer, and they are raising their 12 year old great grand son. The times that we've interacted sort of socially they are clearly awkward. I've had to call her on things like this before, though, and I'm never sure if they get it. One June Friday evening DS got all upset and worried because he couldn't remember if this was the weekend he was to watch their dogs, and they'd not told him for sure, but no one was home, and the dogs were bouncing around inside [he could see them[ and something was not the way the usually have things if they intend to be back shortly. Up to that point I'd had no idea they'd asked DS to care for their animals, although apparently he'd mentioned it to husband. Long story short, it was not the weekend, they'd gone out for diner or something. We asked DS to get the date from them so we could get it on the calendar and not have another alarm like that. When DS asked they said something that made it sound like it could be either the weekend before the fourth of July or the weekend after. Suspecting DS had not retained the info well, I phoned and got her. She said they had changed their plans and didn't know exactly when but they'd let DS know before they left, implying they'd just pick any old weekend and tell DS nearly as they walked out the door. I told her that we needed them to plan ahead more and they should communicate with us as well because we had plans for some weekends this summer and we could not simply say, yeah, take any weekend. They've not gone anywhere since but I got the impression from her reaction that they had never considered that we might actually not be available. There have been other occasions, too, where they've gone somewhere and left their DGGS with us, telling us they'd be back in a few hours and not arriving until after diner [or the diner hour], leaving us trying to figure out what to do about feeding how many, wondering if she'd been rehospitalized for something, and trying to keep from DS' friend that there were issues. I guess they are clueless but I could have delivered my message in a more polite form. Husband, who was on the front porch when I spoke with them [they drove up and I went to their car] said they looked rather shocked. Maybe this whole thing will work out well, but I am not happy with myself. Aula > yup. i did loose it. i had planned my words, thought i was ready to > address the issue reasonably, but the first words out of her mouth were [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > Aula, not asking for pity, just frustrated I wouldn't apologize, Aula. I would be very cordial the next time you speak and be very specific "thank you for inviting X over to play - we will pick him up at two" and when inviting her son over to play you need to say things like "OK - so you'll pick him up at 1p, right? That's important, because we need to leave the house by 1:30p". This woman sounds thick enough that if you apoligize for your delivery - she'll assume the apology is for the message, iykwim. Good luck - i don't blame you for being frustrated one bit!! Teri > I wouldn't apologize, Aula. I would be very cordial the next time you > speak and be very specific "thank you for inviting X over to play - we [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > apology is for the message, iykwim. Good luck - i don't blame you for > being frustrated one bit!! I've worried about them taking an apology for approach as an apology for everything, but I've hoped that saying something like, "I am calling to apologizing for loosing my temper with you, but you need to understand that it is not ok for you to tell us you will be gone for a short while and not turn up for hours and hours without phoning. We like T and the boys like being together. We don't have a problem having T over, but we need to know when you will be back and have a way to contact you while you are out." I don't know, maybe that will go over her head. She seems to miss a lot, and I wonder how much of that is oxygen problems [she's on continuous oxygen and people who need that often have memory problems, among other things]. I'll chew on things a while longer. It's too early in the day to be phoning anyone yet as it is. Aula > I've worried about them taking an apology for approach as an apology for > everything, but I've hoped that saying something like, "I am calling to [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > being together. We don't have a problem having T over, but we need to know > when you will be back and have a way to contact you while you are out." PERFECT!! > I don't know, maybe that will go over her head. She seems to miss a lot, > and I wonder how much of that is oxygen problems [she's on continuous oxygen [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Aula What the hell! Call now. I'm a believer that if someone keeps me up all night because of something they did, I don't need to think about stuff like "it's too early to call them." "-)  Signature-Barb, Mother Superior, HOSSSPoJ http://jamlady.eboard.com > What the hell! Call now. I'm a believer that if someone keeps me up > all night because of something they did, I don't need to think about > stuff like "it's too early to call them." "-) Thanks. So far I've done a marvelous job of avoiding making the phone call by doing house and yard work. -Aula > > What the hell! Call now. I'm a believer that if someone keeps me up > > all night because of something they did, I don't need to think about [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > -Aula Good choice. I posted before I read the part about their ages and The Big Picture. I do think that merits some consideration. It doesn't absolve them, but it helps color the picture. Signature-Barb, Mother Superior, HOSSSPoJ http://jamlady.eboard.com http://web.mac.com/barbschaller - blahblahblog - Orange Honey Garlic Chicken, 3-29-2007 http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/amytaylor >> I wouldn't apologize, Aula. I would be very cordial the next time you >> speak and be very specific "thank you for inviting X over to play - we [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > Aula Then talk to her husband, not her. Let him know that you didn't mean to loose your temper but after her near brush with death, you were all very worried that something had happened and had no way of finding out. Lay it on thick and make them feel guilty as hell while assuring them you love watching T as long as you know when they can be expected home or will call if they are going to be late. Angela <snip> "Aula" > yup. i did loose it. i had planned my words, thought i was ready to > address the issue reasonably, but the first words out of her mouth were > along the lines of 'i hope it didn't inconvenience you any.' yes, right, > HA! Leave your kid with hubby at noon so you can go to the next town over > grocery shopping and then reappear to pick him up at nearly 7 pm without [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > somewhere for a short while only to reappear hours later with us wondering > where they are and if they are ok. lovely people those :-/ > So, I feel cruddy for telling them off. Believe me, venting did not help > my mood in the least. And the next trick is to get an apology in for my [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > best friend] if we might have plans of any sort later in the day. The > point is valid, my delivery was way off. Perhaps, but if it is a repeated thing, I wouldn't apologise. As Teri (IIRC) said, if it is going to confuse the message, don't apologise. And it sounds like these people are quite happy to only hear what they want to. oops nothing like judging those you've never met, sorry. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Marc > yup. i did loose it. i had planned my words, thought i was ready to > address the issue reasonably, but the first words out of her mouth were [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > Aula, not asking for pity, just frustrated you sound like a vey reasonable person aula, i reckon you will be able to handle it well & make them see reason. chris So, I bit the bullet mid-morning as DS was getting ready to go over to their house to play with T. I phoned, she answered. I apologized for loosing my temper and then discussed how much we enjoy T and don't have any issues with hosting him at our house, but we need to know time frames and have a way to contact them. She apologized, stating her hubby had told her something to the effect it was her responsibility to tell us when they'd be back [even though he'd been the one to call and ask this time] and it soon became apparent to me that they'd not been seeing eye to eye on this for some time. It was also pretty clear she had no idea what time they'd rolled into our dooryard. She promised to be clearer on the arrangements ehnceforth, but I suspect we will have to be very firm in asking specific questions and not letting them off until we have the answers. And, even then, I suspect there will be repeats of the no call/late show event. Ah well. I tried. -Aula > dooryard. She promised to be clearer on the arrangements ehnceforth, but I > suspect we will have to be very firm in asking specific questions and not [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > -Aula That'll be interesting. I wonder how it will go for you. Seems like you can continue to be available to them and hope for the best. If the best is not to come then you have to establish your level of tolerance for their behavior. If your tolerance is low, Dreikurs' theory of logical consequences would, I think, have you not taking care of the kid if they don't hold up their end of the deal. If it were me, I'd probably bitch about being used and continue to do it because they need help, pure and simple, and you're the closest lifeline. Interesting situation. Good luck with it. Signature-Barb, Mother Superior, HOSSSPoJ http://jamlady.eboard.com http://web.mac.com/barbschaller - blahblahblog - Orange Honey Garlic Chicken, 3-29-2007 http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/amytaylor > That'll be interesting. I wonder how it will go for you. Seems like > you can continue to be available to them and hope for the best. If the [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Interesting situation. Good luck with it. Since we are relatively easy going I suspect that there will be future recurrences. I'm also giving more thought to how their aging might be effecting mental processes, but I'm not going too far into that yet. I've got enough on my plate with my own parents' issues as it is. Aula |
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