I am so angry about this I can't really see straight, and I am not sure what would be socially acceptable here.
My dc were friends with dc in another family for 3 years - all under 6 years - and I would meet up with the mother for playdates.
The mother and I were very different. She puts a lot of pressure on herself and has very hard and fast ideas and told me at one point that she wasn't stable. She thought slapping a child was fine as method of discipline. I don't.
I persevered because the children all seemed to get on well, enjoyed seeing each other mostly (not always) and I was always around so I could interpret things for my dc if they got upset about the discipline etc.
The mother decided six months ago that the play dates had to stop, and the reasons she gave were bizarre. I think I know the real reason why, and it is nothing to do with me or any of the children. She sent me this in an email and I responded asking her to please re-think as we live close by, the kids would see each other, and so on. As the kids got older they would want to decide themselves about play dates and I just saw it as storing up a lot of trouble for the future unnecessarily and asked if we could talk about it. I got a tirade of abuse in return. Totally unnecessary. Not had an apology for it.
My dc are fine about it unless they actually see the other kids and then they get upset and ask why. They are also upset that this woman acted as a friend for all this time and is now shutting them out.
How would you try to manage this, about what to say when we bump into them, and what to say to my dc afterwards about why the other children seem to like them but the mother won't allow play dates.
And the other thing is where I bump into this woman on our own, no children around. I just want her to leave me alone - I don't honestly care what she does or how she does it but I don't want to look at her, engage on any level, I just want to focus on what I am doing as though she wasn't there. She on the other hand wants to engage. She wants to say hello and wants me to say hello back nicely (she looks at me expectantly and so far I have just looked at her agog and then got on with my business). WWYD? What is socially acceptable here???!!!
And how do I deal with the kids getting older and chatting themselves if we bump into them and asking us both for play dates and the woman says no?
Thank you