Friend can never be happy for my child

[Snowballing1]

I have a friend whose dd is in the same class as mine. This woman is very successful in her field & has always had very high expectations for her dd. From a very young age she would compare hers with mine & hers would always be superior.
However as the years went on my dd became very competent at her sport & is now competing nationally . She is also chosen for a lot of things at school & has been given recognition for her sporting achievements.
Many parents in the class have text or had a kind word to say but zero from this friend & she's been like that for a number of years.
She just cannot bring herself to say anything nice about my child.
If we meet I never mention dds achievements, I'm don't put posts on social media (but the school have posted quite a bit over the years of dd but said woman has never liked or commented)
Aibu to be a bit flummoxed?

What an incredible stupid post, she's giving context, why woukd anyone care she's reading Harry Potter, you actually sound jealous of a child you don't know 🤣

Do you really need to be bothered? Your daughter is fine, doing fine. No comment from her is all about her not about your daughter. Stop fretting over such a non issue. Enjoy your daughters success.

How can you be jealous of a child you don’t know? This might not even be real. None of this might be real. It’s the internet!

That's what I said??

Spot on. It really is a very ugly trait.

But that doesn’t really explain why you care so much. Personally seems rather silly to care so much. Is she actually a friend of yours or a mum a school/nursery, a playground friend?! I would never congratulate a child on a parent school WhatsApp group, nor would I expect someone to do the same regardless of my child’s achievement, especially for a sport. But then I suppose im not a ‘sports,’ kinda mum. I would however acknowledge the individual child for an act of kindness that may be mentioned.

i don’t see it as jealousy or malicious. I see it that rightly so your child is your world and you are obviously very proud but your child and their achievements whether locally or nationally isn’t important to them and that’s not a crime, nor does it make them rude or nasty. It doesn’t sound from your post that you are close friends so not sure why her acknowledgment is important to you. You did say they were extremely competitive when the children were younger and you didn’t bite into it, maybe she’s grown up a little and realised how annoying it is?! You do sound rather silly, who actually has time to be bothered about something so daft. Every child has its own achievements why is it so important to you for other to acknowledge them, and take umbridge with those who don’t or haven’t. I’m sorry but it’s extremely annoying and self righteous Xx

8i don’t see it as jealousy or malicious. I see it that rightly so your child is your world and you are obviously very proud but your child and their achievements whether locally or nationally isn’t important to them and that’s not a crime, nor does it make them rude or nasty. It doesn’t sound from your post that you are close friends so not sure why her acknowledgment is important to you. You did say they were extremely competitive when the children were younger and you didn’t bite into it, maybe she’s grown up a little and realised how annoying it is?! You do sound rather silly, who actually has time to be bothered about something so daft. Every child has its own achievements why is it so important to you for other to acknowledge them, and take umbridge with those who don’t or haven’t. I’m sorry but it’s extremely annoying and self righteous Xx*

100% this.

Op is setting herself up to be disappointed by holding unreasonable demands.

It sounds like your DD gets plenty of recognition from plenty of people. Why can’t that be enough?

Am I the only one who is profoundly puzzled by the idea that other people "must be" jealous of parents who have a high-achieving-in-their-chosen-extra-curricular child?

Whenever I hear of cases like this, I have to say that I find myself privately thinking "Poor bastards."

I know a couple of families like this. It costs an absolute fortune and takes over the family schedule, with the financial burden and time requirements getting more extreme as time goes on. Other siblings in the family get shafted - they either get pressured into taking up the same activity (at a lower level) and feeling like a pale imitation of their sibling, or spend a lot of their life being carted around to an activity they have no active role in. Inevitably, one parent starts wanting to drop or scale back the activity after a while, but the other parent insists that the family has to keep going, partly I think because of the sunk-cost issue - so much money has been chucked into this activity so far that it becomes harder and harder to throw in the towel. Family arguments.

Then half the kids lose interest in their teens and drop the activity anyway.

Yes I agree with you. My daughter got into competitive swimming for a while and although she was successful it was a nightmare for us! I was relieved when she decided to stop!
However, in this case, it does seem odd that the friend never mentions anything about OP's child. You think she'd say "Oh wow, well done!" even if she couldn't care less about it. The silence does seem to hint at jealousy.

Absolutely agree @GreenTeaLikesMe

In fact, a friend of mine says and I quote 'thank goodness for my low achieving children.'
They live a very happy simple life. No expensive tutors, no getting up at 4am to drive across the country, no arguments about whose turn it is to do the mental load of organising, no declining party invitations. You see them about on long family walks, they have dinner together every day, stress free medium paying jobs which finish on time etc

Obviously didn't read her replies where she said she is friends with this person before the kids came along

I did read her replies!

The trouble is that the OP is clearly holding expectations of her 'friend' that her friend is not meeting (for whatever reason).

At some point this becomes unreasonable, in the sense that you can't force anyone to behave in the way you wish them to.

So, she is setting her self up for disappointment.

I have a child at a high level sport. Some of my friends are interested others aren't and never mention it. I don't place expectations on my friends to validate my children. I know people who do that and without exception it makes them unhappy.

The reason I put the word 'friend' in inverted commas is clearly there is a degree of competitive back story here with the tale of the sports day and the comment about being surprised the child was good at sport because mother is not. It seems to me that this is where the unreasonable expectation comes from.

Each to their own but we can't force anyone to do what we want them to do. Getting het up about it is only upsetting OP.

Life really has taught me not to give energy to people like this. She clearly has no interest in your daughter doing well or she is just jealous and can't bare to see anyone doing well. You shouldn't concern yourself over it anymore, you should surround yourself with good people who genuinely want your daughter to do well. She won't change so don't waste your time...

Your friend always thought her child would out perform yours and it's a hard pill for her to swallow that yours has taken the spotlight. It's her problem, not yours. She is really struggling with this but don't let it bother you or your daughter. Keep up the good work.

It seems strange that you keep an eye on who likes what. Your daughter's achievement is hers, it isn't more or less special depending on which of your friends press the 'like' button.

She’s jeolous and competitive and comparing her child to your child has brought out a not very nice side of her! It’s difficult to be friends with someone like that tbh

I had this throughout my dd’s prep school. When it came to year 8 there were only 4 girls left so they were split over the two classes. One was the scholarship class and my dd was put in the other class as she was friends with the other girl in the non-scholarship class. My dd was the only child in the year to gain a scholarship and none of the other girls mums congratulated her. She had never been awarded so much as a book token all the way through. It was irritating, but I had the last laugh and an academic scholarship which reduced her school fees by 25%.