Being ignored by school mum

[Nicedayforawedding]

My ds has a best friend at school, they are very close and in year 1.Before lockdown I was friends with his mum and was often picking up and dropping off her ds, taken them out for the day everything was great.

Since lockdown I’ve messaged her and had no reply despite her reading the messages. After the first two I’ve stopped bothering but she has been on FB liking things on the school FB page (which is weird because she’d previously slagged some of these people off to me!). We are all on the same group so difficult not to notice!

I’d asked in my message if my ds could chat to her ds. my ds really misses him.

AIBU in feeling pissed off ive not heard from her in two months?

[Nicedayforawedding]

Possibly!

About the resources, another school mum in the PTA sent me a message from the class teacher who had apparently told her to ask me to forward this to my ds friend’s mum.

I felt I should send the information on.

[SweetMarmalade]

I do find this behaviour odd, it takes seconds to respond to a text. It’s very rude to not reply, especially as you’ve been great to her ds.

It’s a harsh lesson OP, I would and have felt the same in the past.

Some people are just so hard to figure out. Fair enough if you’d only had a brief friendship at the school gates but it sounds like, at least on your part, the friendship was deeper.

I’d send no more messages and try and steer your ds friendship towards others during this lockdown period.

[Viviennemary]

I don't think OP sounds paranoid or over invested. I'd be quite annoyed too. And wouldn't bother with her after this. Certainly no more school pick ups.

[lovepickledlimes]

@Viviennemary there can be any number of reasons why she has not replied and not all are out of malice or rudeness

[Viviennemary]

OP says she is on Facebook liking things and commenting. It doesnt sound as if some major tragedy has occurred. I'd be polite but wouldn't bother with her.

[TerrapinStation]

I don’t understand people who ignore messages. It’s something I just couldn’t do. It’s the equivalent of snubbing someone on the street that you know. So rude

It really isn't the same thing at all, I sometimes have messages from different people on different platforms and the oldest slip down the list and I simply forget. Doesn't mean I'm rude or a user or anything but an imperfect person who sometimes doesn't reply to a message.

No one expect the woman knows why she didnt reply, if you can take another knock back give her another chance, if not, leave it.

[Seaweed42]

I think you need to cut people some slack. You don't know what's going on with people. They can be having a hard time mentally but they won't say. It's all very well to like a Facebook post at at distance. That is very different to having an intimate one to one Whatsapp conversation.
It's hard not to take it personally but by this "but clearly I don’t even deserve that" you are jumping to conclusions that she is being 'hostile' to you. She is just not engaging, she's not actually abusing you. She may be finding messages (from a lot of people) intrusive and difficult to manage.
Some people avoid and don't answer but they don't explain as they don't/cannot manage the intimate contact.
You are needing her because you want your son to have chats. This means you have to chat to her first as well. She may not be able for that currently.

[lovepickledlimes]

@Viviennemary maybe she forgot or has not realised she had not replied

[Mrsjayy]

The op sent some school info and said hi she wasn't looking for deep and meaningfuls just an acknowledgement.

[Grandmi]

She is rude and ignorant....have come across a few like that over the years!!! People like that are really not worth taking up your headspace. Remember you are the better person 💐

[Devlesko]

Sounds like she was using you, and now she doesn't need you.
Yu'll come across a few of these as your dc goes through school.

[Zogtastic]

Personally I would try reframing this all in your head.

Why has she not contacted you? - you don’t know. If the fact she isn’t contacting you means the friendship no longer works for you then that’s fine. A friendship has to work both ways.

Impact of her not replying or contacting you - some of your child and your needs that you planned to met through her and her child aren’t being met. You need to find a way to met another way - sounds like you’ve already done this by contacting other parents.

• You are not sure you have the friendship you thought you had. This potentially requires re-evaluating the friendship in your head. If it is a convenient school based friendship - does that work for you still? Is it worth you putting yourself out a bit for the benefits your child gets? If yes, carry on. If no, stop.
  

• it’s affected your sense of self. Why am I not worth bothering with? Why am I not worth a reply? This is you allowing your feelings of self worth be impacted by behaviour of someone else - always outside of your control. If she no longer makes you feel good about yourself, then you’ll never be likely to view her as a friend, if it’s a useful school superficial friendship that’s worth something to you continue with that, if not, withdraw.
  

It is sad when you realise someone does not view a friendship the way you do.

Someone once talked me about thoughts that worry us fitting into three circles:

A larger outside one - area of concern
Inside a middle sized one - area of influence
Inside the middle one a smaller one - area of concern.

Your thoughts about her behaviour fit into the outer circle - it concerns you but you have no influence or control.

You son missing out is mostly within area of concern with some of it in area of influence as you can’t stop him missing out but you can find him other friends & their parents who will connect with him now.

The more you can minimise time thinking about areas of concern and influence and the more time you focus on problems within your control the easier it is to move on. So how you act next, what other ways you will support your son etc. These are what are in your control. You can’t help feeing sad about how you’ve been treated but how are you going to pick yourself up and move on is within your control.

[Bunnyfuller]

When at school you are useful to her. Under lockdown you are not. I would stop doing the favours when we do come out of lockdown,

[PumpkinP]

She hasn’t just not responded to one message though. She has ignored 3, once maybe a mistake and you missed it but not three times, come on!
Bet she responds and doesn’t miss messages when she needs the op for something though

[Cyllie33]

@lovepickledlimes repeatedly ‘forgetting’ to reply to people’s messages is rude and inconsiderate though.

• She hasn’t just not responded to one message though. She has ignored 3, once maybe a mistake and you missed it but not three times, come on!
  Bet she responds and doesn’t miss messages when she needs the op for something though*
  
  This

[Nicedayforawedding]

Thanks to everyone for your support, it does mean a lot. This situation has definitely made me see this mum in a different way, ds talks about his bestie all the time bless him.

[lovepickledlimes]

@Cyllie33 some people have as many as 5 messenger apps it is easy to lose track. Once lost my cousin mid conversation because she needed to let her cat out then my nephew wanted something so she completely forgot.

Now I can decidec to think she does not care about me how rude or I can take it as she told me that she forgot and did not realise till a month later.

It's easily done trust me

[ddl1]

Under normal circumstances, I would say YANBU. But the lockdown has affected people in strange ways. She may be exhausted and preoccupied with homeschooling (hence her going onto the FB school page) and perhaps combining it with working from home. She may be very worried about a vulnerable relative. She may have mental health issues associated with the pandemic and lockdown, or be preoccupied with a dh or dc who has such issues. I would cut her slack at this time. Or she may be someone who - like most people 30 years ago - finds it easiest to maintain friendships in person, and difficult to do so online (a few 'likes' on FB are not the same thing as maintaining a friendship). She may of course just be weird, rude or fickle, but I would not just assume it at this time.

[Mullikins]

I had the opposite issue with a school mum. When the kids were at school (back in the days of blessed normality) I text one of the school mums a number of times to 1) offer to look after her dd during a surprise last minute school closure because she'd mentioned she'd struggle to find someone and would have to take the day off work, 2) to organise a play date, and 3) to see if her dd would like to come round to play during the summer holidays. She ignored the first message (a family member offered to look after the dd), ignored the second message, and replied to the third message two weeks later after the kids had gone back to school. I was a bit annoyed but I also think she's generally a flaky person and she's always that person who never knows what's going at school because her dd doesn't apparently ever bring home letters and her phone doesn't receive the school texts either 😆

During lockdown however, I've text her a couple of times to sort out video calls for our DDs and every text is answered within 30 seconds. I've realised that this is because she's working from home and feels bad that she's not spending enough time with her dd (who is an only child). Her child is very lonely at home and so she is jumping at any chance that presents itself that keeps her dd busy for a while.

I think it's very easy to get too involved in the whole school mum pally pally thing and over-think situations- I say this as a massive over thinker. I've learnt over the few years that my dd has been at school that whilst some people will make lifelong friends with the school mums, most don't. It's a pretty cut throat environment anyway at times. Now throw in these weird Covid 19 times, where most people are even busier than normal, it can be hard to actually keep on top of who's texting/ringing, it's easy to get side tracked and forget to reply as well on top of working, teaching your child, housework, never ending preparation of snacks etc. Alternatively she may be a cow. We don't know. You don't know. You've tried to initiate contact. There's nothing else you can do. I feel sorry for your child because they really need that contact at the moment but if she's not going to reply then what can you do?

Could you try another child/parent instead? My dd has a few best friends but I've set up a few video calls with other kids and she's just as excited to speak to them as her closest friends.

[bigknickersbigknockers]

I just hope she has alternative help in place for when the schools reopen. Anyone can miss seeing a message or forget to reply to it later but this is just rude.

[Toothsil]

I know how you feel, OP. I have been friends with someone since our kids were babies, we used to message every single day. Then suddenly in December she stopped replying to me. I messaged to wish her happy birthday last month and asked how they all are, she replied "thanks. We are fine". Didn't ask how we were. I tried to initiate a conversation but she didn't reply. She's on fb all the time liking things and posting. God knows what I've done to her. It did bother me at first but I'm past caring now.

[Poptart4]

YANBU, if she has time to be on Facebook she has time to respond to your texts. A quick " nice to hear from you, I'm up to my eyes right now but will chat soon". . . Would do. I dont care what anyone says ignoring someone 3 times rude.

You considered her a friend, she see's you as a school mum acquaintance.

At least now you know where you stand with her, you can treat her accordingly when all of this is over.

[Kitcat47]

I think she is just rude! It takes 2 seconds to reply. I feel some people are just users! I fee for you OP as I am sensitive about situations like this xxx

[antipodalpizza]

My son (also Yr 1) is desperately missing his best friend, and being able to video chat has really helped.


Maybe video contact isn't what the other family want - it doesn't suit everybody.

[rayoflightboy]

Bet she's quick to message when she needs help when school reopens.
You where useful and now you're not simple as that.
I had a few people like that but you learn.I don't do any favours for them.