being avoided by friends

[influenceofchoc]

For the last few years I have had a group of friends who are all mummies. I thought, although we are all quite different, that we had something special. we had meets up's with and without the kids. It was always a supportive and happy group.obviously over the years we have become comfortable with those in the group we are more similar to and see them more on a one to one or in a smaller group more often.
A few weeks ago we had a get together for the summer in the park. It had been arranged well in advance. just before we left DD2 was sick. This is nothing unusual as reflux is involved. But in the car it happened again (still regular thing, all smiles and happy still) So after some deliberation to be on the safe side, we left DD2 at home with mil and took DD1 to the meet up.
Fast forward to when we get home and DD1 becomes ill and then throws up . I immediately let all the other families know and apologised, told them we had no idea there was a bug and hope no one caught it. Over the next 48hours two set of siblings came down with mild versions of said bug. thankfully it was short lived. The resulting comments from these mums was quite hurtful, and angry that I had gone to the meet up at all. I suppose I should say other kids have been ill and its only become apparent after the meet ups over the years. Nothing has been said other than not yo worry it happens.
Sadly since then I seem to have been outcast by several members of the group. Pretending they don't get my messages when there is a group meet up, so im left out. Normal chatter through usual communications has pretty much stopped unless I instigate it. I understand the kids got sick and I apologised massively to them all, I felt awful and wouldn't have even considered going if I suspected illness. I have even gone ott on keeping kids away now if there is a possibility of anything starting to look like illness. which has resulted in lots of unnecessary time at home lately. I'm starting to feel like this one mistake has cost me my friendship with people I thought a lot of. It's really getting me down. I suppose what I would like to know is, have I done something so bad that anyone would react the way my friends have, and i deserve to be given the cold shoulder. Or have I misjudged how close we actually are?
bravely puts hat on waiting for a flaming

[Tortington]

kids get sick, your 'friends' are belly button gazing arseholes.

get some real friends

[fifi669]

They're a bunch of tossers. Kids love sharing germs. Sounds like you should upgrade your friendship group

[MariaLuna]

Yea, not nice mums.

Not your fault! Bugs go around all the time.

Maybe just an organic change, as life goes on.

Don't blame yourself!

[ArtemisFowl]

Bugs go round. Find nicer people to be friends with.

I worked with a bitch person that considered other children being around her messiah with a sniffle as a crime against humanity. Didn't stop her dumping him at the creche with measles when she had a hot lunch date though. After all it's best to get these things over with in childhood .

[somanyfake]

Dont even think like that
It was not your foult and apart from that in case other children went ill they must already catched virus before coming in contact with your child
The usal thime is approximately is a few days anyway

And like somebody already said go and get real friends

[sussexmum38]

Kids spread things. What shallow people. Move on from them. Over time the chances are that there kids will pass on something.

[Chottie]

How very unkind. It smacks to me of the school playground and 'you're not my best friend anymore'. TBH I do not understand their attitude and behaviour at all.

Do you think this behaviour is coming from just one person leading it? Kids get ill - end of.

[WinkyWinkola]

Silly mares. You are very well rid of them. They sound awful.

[TheUnicornsGoHawaiian]

OP, these ladies sound delightful, as do the other members of the group who are allowing them to behave like this.

Moving forward I think I'd have been inclined to distance myself anyway from the ladies that are isolating you if they had behaved like this to me. You can bet that they will get worse as the years go on and if they are going to fall out with the parents of all germy children...well they wont have many friends left.

Leave them to it, its a shame because you were all so close but lifes hard enough, your friends are supposed to make life nicer.

[QueenofWhispers]

Generally, I would say it's no big deal. I really would.

On the other hand, in the past 5 years of being a mother (in my experience) there are 3 women whose kids are constantly ill. I've never seen their kids without some sort of sniffle, dribble, cough or worse...and yet they still insist on play dates.

I really (I know how this sounds) am a genuinely nice person. So when these women became more and more desperate for frequent play dates, If I had the time I would ALWAYS say yes. My son would ALWAYS get sick...and then I started getting sick too.

Other Mum asks for play date, my DS says 'No mommy, I don't want to' I make him go anyway.

Her child throws up, she has to turn around and go back home; I thought this was the end of it. I decide to continue to hang out with my family in the park. She comes back, her youngest vomits another 3 times; her other children are full of snot and coughing and sneezing. My DH see's this and decides to entertain the sick children to keep them from me. We get home and the whole family is vomiting and have the worst stomach bug+snotty+sneezy disease of our lives. Takes us 3 weeks to recover. In this time the mother doesn't take the hint that we're ill and can't schedule another play date. She gets pretty offended; I don't even mention that we caught an illness from them.

After some time (said 3 weeks) this woman demands another play date. DS implicitly says "NO NO NO!" DH says "No!" And I say "people get sick, they do--they still can't be sick after all these weeks". So play date happens, she brings her kids and ALL of them have a wet and chronic cough that once it starts wont stop till their mother hits them on the back...and even then it leaves the youngest two blue in the face because they can't manage to breathe.

I fall ill, go to GP he says "looks like bacterial pneumonia" he tests for it, comes back positive. Other mum calls to ask if we'd like another play dateDoctor tells me I need to be admitted to the hospital because there is too much mucus in my lungs. I tell this woman, look...I've got Bacterial PneumoniaI don't know where I've got it from but I'm seriously ill. I'll get in touch when I'm better. She instantly sends long winded messages about how I don't even hug her children so I couldn't have got anything from them...and that they aren't sick. She texts the next following days saying "I went to GP, my kids don't have bacterial pneumonia. So I don't know where you got it from, it wasn't us."

Like I said, I'm super nice so I didn't accuse her of anything.

At this point, I'm done. It wasn't even the illness that put me off, it was the sheer bullying nature of the text messages.

I do think she's a nice woman, and I genuinely love her kids; but I love my kids more.


*but if it's only happened once, then it's no big deal. I feel like if someone is a repeat offender then some scrutinization needs to happen.

[influenceofchoc]

Thank you for the message of support. I thought I must have done something bad to warrant such a reaction. I am distancing myself as much as possible for a small place. There seems to be a head in the sand mentality from the rest of the group, so probably time for them to go too. I guess I wasn't much liked before this and it became a convenient excuse. That's a better thought than; I have joined and trusted very shallow group of people. Yes it does seem to stem from one person.

[influenceofchoc]

queen that sounds horrible. I def haven't done anything like that.

[DfanjoUnchained]

Some mothers are so fucking precious it's unreal.

I would be annoyed if your dc had made my dc sick but I wouldn't let on I was. And I certainly wouldn't cast you out, how awful and pathetic.

I think a honest email is needed to them all to make them feel like shit about how they've treated you.

[manitz]

I get annoyed with a parent when I'm at a toddler group and they have brought an older child who is off school sick. beside that it can be annoying when your kids are sick but not fault of parent. Have found that friends wax and wane. Perhaps this lot have done their time and now you need to move on. I made my best mum friends in the school playground as you can really choose who you talk to when you first get there. yurs seem younger than school age. plenty of time to make new friends - maybe even some of this group wen they have been culled?

[dreamingbohemian]

Ah, so it's basically one person acting like a jerk and everyone else just kind of going along with it? Probably, if it hadn't been this, it would have been something else eventually. Either she's in the mood for some drama or she hasn't liked you for a while and seized the first chance to isolate you.

Sad, sad little people. You're better off without them.

I don't look kindly on people who deliberately show up with really sick kids, but you didn't know, and anyway you left the sick kid at home. Siblings don't always catch every bug, it wasn't an automatic thing to happen.

[LadyClariceCannockMonty]

You definitely need new friends. Interesting that it seems to be coming from one person. Eventually they will get their come-uppance though. I've seen that happen many times.

[katehastried]

I had a friend who would often send her kids to playdates when they were sick etc. Similar to the story above! A couple of vomit bugs started with her and I'm afraid she was quite ostracised. TBH I think if you aren't stringent with hygiene then these things can become a problem.

I'm not a bitch and I see my friend as 'adults' but her lack of hygiene around the kids sickness made me avoid playdates.

[WinkyWinkola]

Stems from one person? You've been Wendied!

Obviously if you'd known the sick bug affected your older child, you'd've stayed away

Has this one person fairly new on that particular social scene? Have you never connected with her particularly?

[influenceofchoc]

We have all been friends for the same length of time. We met through the kids really. so I expected we would find more in common with certain members and not others. I have been avoided by another for a long time, but as we have nothing in common that's never bothered me and seemed common sense really. I guess they aren't the people I thought they were. I don't often make female friends or open up and join groups. So I think my bad choices are what's hardest to accept. That and my kids missing out on seeing their friends

[dreamingbohemian]

Oh how rotten for your kids. God I hate bitchy mums. I agree, you've been Wendied!

I know what you mean in that I don't usually join groups or have a lot of female friends either, and I haven't really changed in this since having DC (I have a few mum friends but we just hang out one on one, I don't really have a social group of mums). Part of my reluctance to change in this is really because of stories like yours, you just hear and read all the time about people getting cast out of groups for no real reason.

So I don't think you should feel like you've made bad choices, that is just blaming yourself, and I really don't think you've done anything so terrible to deserve all this. Try to think of it as, oh right, that's why I don't normally join groups. You took a risk, which was a great thing to do, and unfortunately this time it didn't pan out forever. But you had a good time for a couple years and eventually you will meet some nicer people. It will be okay. You don't need people like that in your life.

[influenceofchoc]

Your all right and I have made steps to move away from them today. As its such a small place I don't want my kids to bear the brunt of any animosity that I may create. So I have simply hidden them from my usual lines of communication.
Dreaming, your post is one that I will read when ever I have a wobble. It's very wise and true. Thank you to everyone who posted for making me feel better.

[Viviennemary]

I hate those large groups of people and never get involved with them. Because it's quite often bitchiness. A handful of good friends is much better.

[dreamingbohemian]

Oh I'm glad to hear that

Sounds like you're doing the right thing moving forward. Hope you can find some more reasonable people to hang out with!

[Rooners]

I think you sound genuine and that you didn't intend this to happen...in the light of that I think it's really sad that people are behaving this way.

I have a friend - well Ok, maybe she isn't - who is less than genuine, and one day when her child had been really sick, she brought him to school as though nothing had happened.

It wasn't that he was ill, it was the fact that she knew it was a really bad idea, and sought to pretend it hadn't happened and that he was fine.

It was the dishonesty, the putting everyone else at risk for her own selfish needs that made me dislike her.

It isn't the only time she's done it anyway - and a host of other things, similar sorts of things, and all involve an element of dishonesty and emotional manipulation - basically, she puts her wishes before everyone else's convenience.

THAT is enough for people to stop responding to her requests/messages/etc.

Your situation, where you had a misjudgment that was in no way deliberate, is not. Sorry x