Ending friendships over this comment

[AristoMat]

Hi, I’m feeling really disgusted about this so thought I’d get some opinions.
I have 4 very close friends, tbh I don’t fully fit in but they sr generally lovely people. They are all very slim attractive women (with at least 2 children each), all able to work part time and send their children to private school. I work full time, as does my DH and we live in a nice area but definitely no private schools.
I WFH on a Wednesday and decided to meet them all for a coffee on my early lunch, most of their children are now on summer holidays as the local Indy schools tend to wrap up very early. So all the kids except mine and one others were there and could hear the conversation.
1 friend has 2 little girls and her life is like a Pinterest board, she’s quite aesthetic focused, she is also a teacher at an all girls private school. They were talking about who the kids teachers will be next year and this friend said “A has Mrs X next year and I’m so glad as the other teacher for her year is so fat” she went on to say she doesn’t think “fat” people should be allowed to work with children as it sets a bad example and we wouldn’t let addicts or alcoholics work with children!!!
Now to say I was flabbergasted is an understatement. This friend is a perfect size 6 of course but I’d attribute that mainly to the Pilates classes and weekly tennis matched with portion sizes that wouldn’t fill my 6 year old!!
I said I disagreed but the other 3 seemed to just agree!
Now I’m not skinny, I’m a 12-14 and tbh it felt quite offensive!
I know lots of lovely teachers of all shapes and sizes, and she is of course a teacher herself - imagine thinking this about your colleagues??!

AIBU to end the friendship over this, not just with her but all of them since they seemed to agree?

Bryony Gordon used to be bulimic and alcoholic with a textbook’s worth of psychiatric diagnoses. This absolutely does not make her a bad role model, but a good example of someone overcoming serious challenges. Everyone knows that obesity is not just caused by lack of control around food, but can be exacerbated by lifestyles that lock out physical activity, medications, genetics, endocrine disorders, stress etc, not all of which are within individual control.

Your ‘friend’ is a knob OP.

YABU to end the friendship but YANBU to find her comment offensive.

However how is anyone to learn or grow in their views of the world if their friends just decide to never see them again rather than challenge them? You should speak up to her. If done kindly she might appreciate it and you friendship may improve. I've certainly been guilty of extreme opinions on things like sleep training for example when I was myself very sleep deprived. It has been good for me to subsequently see friends do things differently to me and understand why, even if it still isn't a choice I'd make myself.

In your opinion though? Lots of people vote for Trump so it's hardly as she has murdered someone.

I know enough people who voted labour. Different values on many things but doesn't stop me being friends with them.

I'm not intent on just surrounding my self with people of similar views and ousting all " others"

I can't imagine a size 6

I hope the friend has already put her DCs names down for an eating disorder clinic, because they are going to need one, most likely, or they will become obese once away from Mummy's continual restriction of their diets. Unlikely they will have a healthy relationship with food if their primary influence doesn't.

This has got nothing to do with private school, and everything to do with your friend having some kind of weird hang up about weight. I'm very petite, but after three children, even I'm no longer a size six!

Let's hope her family never have to go into A&E or NHS hospital for any treatment.
Maybe private hospitals only employ whippet thin nurses? 🤔

People with EDs tend to hate themselves and feel envy for those around them, and are very unlikely to be so very vocal in the way OP describes. They tend not to want to draw attention to their ED as they feel great shame.

The number of people who are racist, or anti semitic, or homophobic , is huge. The number of people who have awful political beliefs does not signify that they have a point. Lots of people are absolutely awful. Trump voters are a subset of shitty people but the vast majority chose him because they are bad people and they want his horrible policies.

The last person children should have as a teacher is someone who at the very least has disordered thinking around food and they're open and proud about that. I wouldn't want my kids around her ever. EDs can kill and there's enough risk of that without a teacher using weight as a meaure of worth. As for the friends depends if its more agreeing for a quite life or believing that too. My kids have had some amazing teachers, more overweight athan not. They were also lovely women who would go the extra mile for your child and do everything in their power to get them the support they needed. I want my kids to have supportive, kind teachers, I don't GAF what their weight is because weight tells you nothing about a person.

Perfect role models can actually cause too much pressure for kids. The truth is no one is completely perfect and I don't want my kids striving for perfect in everything. They need to know someone can be a role model and a good person without being perfect. My kids don't need a slim teacher they need a good one who cares enough to support them in getting a good education.

Does miss size 6 think geography and maths should be taught by phys ed majors only? Has she ever carried her thoughts to their logical conclusion?

Top football managers are not necessarily lithe necessarily. Koeman has put a bit of weight on like a normal person since he stopped playing, in fact he reminds me slightly of DH.

Yeah true Maybe that I've got better things to do than be perpetually offended on someone else's vehalf

It's shallow, but she has a slight point, if you think teachers should be role models for children and you don't want being fat to be something to aspire to. She didn't actually say she was a bad teacher. Personally I don't think most children do think that teachers are role models, or aspire to be like them in looks or otherwise. Which would have been my response, and who knows what horrible non visible characteristics or opinions other teachers have that you wouldn't want your children to aspire to? Would have been an interesting discussion. I was purely terrified by most of my teachers.

And I agree I think she probably has a difficult relationship with food herself so her views are distorted by that on certain subjects.

Maybe because they don't think his policies are awful? That's your opinion not theirs. Personally I don't give a damn about American politics

Sure, fine. So in the context of Trump, you don't have any moral or ethical judgements to make on people who are fans of his. Fine. That's your choice.

For me, like @pikkumyy77 I have no interest in being friends with people who support Trump. Ethically, I do not consider people who think a man with 37 felony convictions and who knows how many other criminal acts for which he has not been convicted/charged, is someone who should be in charge of a paper bag, never mind the most powerful country in the world. I will absolutely judge people who think he is fit for office and I am very comfortable with not being friends with those people.

I'm also totally fine with those people not wanting to be friends with me because they think I am stupid and a "wooly headed liberal" or whatever.

I like friends with different view points but only so far.
I absolutely would not spend time with people who were racist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic, classist, disablist or into body shaming.
I have many, many friends and do not need to hold on to them all. I lead a very busy fun life so don't have time for bigots. This makes more time for people I love and new people. Sadly I have to cross paths with bigots etc through work and family so my echo chamber gets fucked up now and again! They bring nothing but negativity and small mindedness so don't want to add that to the people I actively choose to spend time with.

Yikes the amount of intolerance here is astounding.

Everyone needs friends who are outside their little thought bubbles to challenge their thinking. You've labelled people as bigots, but how do you know if you haven't actually met them?

Do you know how the Nazi's started?

What a weird post.

I label people as bigots if they are bigots. eg when they announce fat people shouldn't teach children.

I label people as stupid, and possibly bigots, if they are voting for a man who is actively working to try to incite hatred and division and who has been proven to LIE in every speech he makes, while is also a CONVICTED criminal.

I don't care how the nazis started. I care how they ended - by murdering millions of people because of their religion. So no, I'm not friends with anyone who thinks the nazis are okay.

If you know how it started, then you can stop history from repeating itself.

So.... a bigoted person should be talked to so that they can change their view? That's what you're saying?
Great, how's that working out for you? Or America for that matter?

Do you actually KNOW many Trump voters IRL though? You know actual people that you meet up with in person? Most people on this site are in the UK so wouldn't be eligible to vote in US elections. If you are also in the UK then I'd be surprised if you knew that many Trump voters

The Nazis started because Germany's economy was crippled by WW1 reparations payments and desperate people reached out to any apparent solution offered to them without understanding where it was going to end up. Also Kristallnacht. As the OP isn't proposing to empty this woman's fridge or smash her windows I think we're ok here without dragging the Nazis into it.

I would have found it hard to bite my tongue and not come back with "To be honest, I'd rather my kids had a fat teacher who taught them what they needed to know and set a good example for them in terms of being kind, considerate and polite than a thin teacher who makes discriminatory and judgemental comments and modelled being unpleasant about others based solely on their appearance. That's how bullying begins, surely?"

I'm with you OP I couldn't be friends with someone either revolting views like that.