Weird parent at school

[Summerwood1]

I was friends with a Chinese lady at my daughters school. The Chinese lady's daughter fell out with another child at school, who's mum i also spoke to. Because I talked to the other mum,the Chinese lady now won't speak to me! My daughter and the Chinese lady's daughter are still friends at school and play together at school,but if we walk past the little girl whist she is with her mother,the child turns away and looks at the grass so she doesn't have to say hello! Yet play together every day at school. My daughter asked if she wanted to come and play,she replied 'I can't my mum doesn't know I play with you' . Our only sin was to walk with the other mum she had fallen out with,bizarre behaviour!!!

[HECTheHeraldAngelsSing]

I disagree with that and I think that what someone chooses to say reveals the core of them. How you choose to describe someone when no description is required ( that you choose to) says a lot about you.

Why did we need to know the ethnicity of the woman once, let alone 4 times in a short post? We don't know her. It did not aid us in our understanding of her. There was no requirement to describe her to us in an identifying way. So why did the OP choose to place so much importance on the woman's ethnicity?

It may be your experience that it is natural to describe someone by what distinguishes them from what is 'usual', but it is not mine, nor is it, I suspect, the experience of many others on this thread. And certainly not as part of an anonymous post on the internet. A description has no identifying value and is therefore irrelevant.

People communicate those things that are meaningful to them, that are relevant to them, that they believe will have meaning for others. What someone chooses to say, says more than they intend it to.

Comparing a post on a forum to a real life situation where someone is attempting to describe someone makes no sense. Nobody is trying to identify this woman to us. she isn't being picked out of a group of other women. It exists purely as a post on a forum where ethnicity was mentioned 4 times for no purpose. No identifying need, nothing. OP put it because it was meaningful to them. Not because it would help us to identify the woman in some way.

[WhereIsMyHat]

The woman's ethnicity is completely irrelevant to the story. There's absolutely no reason to mention it unless you want to insinuate the woman's ethnicity a part of the issue.

Why is she not a lady? Why do you have to add Chinese?

[Kewcumber]

Suggest people revive that thread if they want to argue about it. no thanks I'd like my opinion aired every time I see it.

I speak as a parent whose child is constantly refered to by his race when it is patently obviously not necessary and when no-one else is described by how they look.

If one person on this thread goes away and thinks about the reality of how they would feel aged 2 or 6 or 10 or 16 to be constantly categorised as "the chinese boy" and therefore different and not belonging with the other children in the playground and stops doing it unless its necessary then I'll be happy.

I will continue to make an issue of it because its an issue for my child. If you choose not to make an issue of it for your non-white/non NT/non physically disabled children thats your call.

[Kewcumber]

How is leaving out the word Chinese in the OP "jumping though hoops"?

It's four words less - it would have been quicker.

[Kewcumber]

to be fair he is equally often referred to as "japanese boy" which upsets him just as much.

I on the other hand have taught him to ask peoples names when he's playing with them. How radical.

[HECTheHeraldAngelsSing]

Ive thought of a clearer way to say what i was trying to say.
I am in a pub talking to someone. They ask me who i came with
i say "my husband"
I dont say "my black husband" how odd would that be?
They say oh where is he?
Hes at the bar.
If he is alone no further description needed.
If there is a crowd and hes the only black person id say hes the black bloke.
That is a situation where there is a need for description and frankly its no big deal
i dont refer to him on threads as My Black Husband
i went shopping with My Black Husband...
The only time i would mention his colour or mine for that matter or ny kids is if it was relevant.

[Huitre]

I disagree with you, Fraidy. Rewrite the OP with dark-haired or blue-eyed instead of Chinese and you would immediately think 'why on earth does she keep telling us the woman has dark hair/blue eyes' because it adds NOTHING to the story. The reason some people may think it's giving us extra information is that even though this 'Chinese' woman was more than likely born and brought up in the UK some people seem to think that someone who looks Chinese must behave differently from 'real' English people. Ditto someone who looks Indian or whatever. Oddly enough, that often isn't the case. See the thing I posted about about racial microaggression. That is what this is.

[HECTheHeraldAngelsSing]

Actually, i normally say "that bald bloke" but myexample is for illustrative purposes.

[ZingChoirsOfAngels]

Hec

you are a baldist!


(only kidding!)

[blahblahblah2014]

Is anyone actually going to give an opinion on the OP question? Are you lot so stupid/racist that you can't bear to hear the word Chinese? Is being Chinese offensive to you? Can't stand sillyness like this!

"The blonde girl"

"The tall guy"

"The Chinese lady"

Since when is describing someone accurately something that causes 7 pages of waffle?

[WhataSook]

Kewcumber I would feel exactly like you if people were making assumptions about my DC based on her looks.

But in this instance, the OP was friends with the lady and knew she was Chinese so no assumptions were made. I get asked a lot where's your accent from are you Kiwi/Aussie/South African and once they know I'm then happy to be referred to as the Australian lady...as I'm kind of a lady and Australian? Why would the Chinese lady mind being called Chinese?

It is however still a shit, confusing and unnessary OP for AIBU (or any other category).

[mrsjay]

I dont think you should get involved with petty fall outs chinese ladies or not you didnt say what ethnicity of the friend she had fallen out with ?

[JollySantersSelectionBox]

We are never going to meet the "weird parent" with the "bizarre behaviour" and we didn't need to identify her visually in a room or picture so there was absolutely no reason to bring up her ethnicity unless you wanted to polarize a point on it.

Mum A and Mum B would have sufficed.

[mrsjay]

well that too jolly

[WhataSook]

OK Huitre you're making the other assumption to me. I assume the lady is not British born and is in fact Chinese and that is why I say if she is, then being referred to as Chinese is not a problem is it?

[IDugUpADiamond]

If she's weird she's definitely Japanese
Don't worry OP, easy mistake to make...

[HECTheHeraldAngelsSing]

It is not describing someone accurately that is the issue.
it is describing someone unnecessarily.
the stupid / racist people are not those arguing that a pointless and irrelevant description of someone's ethnicity is suspect, they are those who think that any time a white person has contactwith a non white person, that person's ethnicity is meaningful or a description is required.

[mrsjay]

there is nothing wrong with saying that chinese woman when we can actually see who the person is talking about but it isn't relevant to any of the op situation a mum at school is acting weird because she is talking to another mum who she doesn't talk too, so the chinese lady is being a weirdo regardless

[WhereIsMyHat]

blahblahblah2014 really? The OP would have written, 'there's this blonde lady at school blah, blah. Spathe blonde lady isn't talking to me....'

Because it is completely and utterly irrelevant. Can you not see that?

[WhereIsMyHat]

Wouldn't not would.

[stealthsquiggle]

OP is gone for good. Kew makes her point very eloquently. One of the things that reassures me about the ethos of my DC's overwhelmingly white school (something which worried me slightly even though it is entirely reflective of the local population) is that I have never heard the one Asian (Korean, as it happens) child in the school referred to by anyone other than by his name.

[Huitre]

OK Huitre you're making the other assumption to me. I assume the lady is not British born and is in fact Chinese and that is why I say if she is, then being referred to as Chinese is not a problem is it?

I'm making that assumption due to literally decades of family members being referred to as Indian (and sometimes African, back in the 70s, which is even more inaccurate) when none of us has ever set foot in either of those places and we are of thoroughly mixed ancestry. Hell, even my great-grandparents have never been to India, though their ancestors some generations back did come from there (this is one side of the family - the other is more recently arrived on British soil, being Irish, but because they are white and don't sound Irish nobody notices).

[sykadelic15]

Assuming the OP wasn't just being racist and instead wondered if it could be cultural then:

• I don't know enough about Chinese culture (or how women there think) to know whether or not it's relevant.

• If you're not speaking about culture and just used it as a descriptor (which I'm sure you've now realised probably wasn't too P.C) then, I know a lot of people that would consider you continuing to be friends with someone she dislikes (i.e. taking the other woman's side) to mean the end of your friendship with them because they would be worried you telling the other woman stuff about her/her family etc. Telling her kid not to play with your kid is taking it pretty far but maybe you don't know the full story about the falling out.

Outside of talking to the mother about it (and failing to talk to her before now sort of implies you're on the other woman's side anyway) then there's nothing you can do. She feels how she feels.

[Kewcumber]

substitute "with one leg" for Chinese and see how irrelevant and bizarre it sounds then...

*I was friends with a lady with one leg at my daughters school. The lady with one leg's daughter fell out with another child at school, who's mum i also spoke to. Because I talked to the other mum,the lady with one leg now won't speak to me! My daughter and the lady with one leg's daughter are still friends at school.

Nothing wrong with that is there because it accurately describes her.

[BettyBotter]

Quite Kew.

Or substitute with something even more innocuous which is just a 'harmless descriptor' such as 'the lady with bushy eyebrows/ badly drawn butterfly tattoo on her ankle/ mole on her left nostril/ spinach on her teeth' etc

Whatever you put in that paragraph instead of Chinese needs to be relevant to the story or its repetition makes it just , well, weird .