Parent being cruel about my child

[Lala9]

Hi

I am writing as I have recently found out from my cleaner, which I recommended and referred to the other mums from the NCT group, that one of the mums (who I have always suspected doesn't like me much) said she wouldn't know what to do if she had a child like mine, as she is "too much" to handle and too active. Basically, she said that my child is a hands full.

Whilst my child is very active indeed; eg: she learnt to crawl at 4 months and she is 8 months and almost walking! I found this remark unecessary, incredibly rude and, frankly, just hurtful.

In the past few weeks there has been a situation in which I felt very uncomfortable during one of the play dates. Two of the three mums from the NCT seemed to be laughing at me, I caught them out, confronted them there and then and decided I would stop meeting with them. Soon after they realised I wouldn't be meeting them anymore they reached out (separately) and denied anything being wrong, they are now being INCREDIBLY polite with me, to the point of being fake. I am very intuitive and I know they are not being honest but, yet, decided I would try to keep things polite and continue to do my best to keep on seeing them, mainly, because our children are growing up together, at times I have found it useful to have other parents to talk to as I don't know many people in the country, and I don't like to have issues with people.

Given what has recently happened I am struggling to find a way to bring this up, as I don't want to be perceived as too sensitive or too problematic, although I don't want it to go unaddressed and would like to bring to the surface that this person who portrays herself as being such a nice mum is, in fact, a cruel human being who talks bad about other people's children.

We have a WhatsApp group and are meeting again in the new year. I dont want to bring this up in WhatsApp as I don't want people to give the chance to hide behind a screen.

Any ideas?

GingerbreadMa - I don't think I will ever tell that to another person about their children. I did not chose my daughter to be an early walker and active child. It is challenging and at times it had been daunting, but I love her as she is. However, I don't expect or appreciate her being used as an example as to why it is so great that other babies are not like her.

Perhaps I am being silly for thinking like that.

Oh dear me are you always this determined to miss the point and be offended!

Im TRYING to suggest that its probably not your daughter being used as an example of what kind if child not to want, but more likely the opposite: your child being used as an example of what het child cant do. And she responded reasonably.

Why dont you like that scenario unless youre a bit of a drama llama?

GingerbreadMa - Hey, no need to be offensive! I understand your view point, but I believe that saying "thank goodness I did not get that" cannot possibly mean "oh I wish my child was like that".

I take your comment, but I disagree with your perspective. There is no one absolute truth and that applies to yours and mine comment. Each to their own, just NO need for name calling (drama llama) and personal remarks. Thanks,.

You’re being dramatic. It’s not a bad comment. My 2nd was a nightmare child and I was constantly pitied. I was the Mum at the school gates every day with a screaming baby in a pram 😫 comments like ‘I don’t think I could handle a baby like him’ was daily and I agreed

Yup. Think you are determined to chose to see the worst case scenario rather than give her the benefit of the doubt. No wonder youre seeing malevolence in every quiet word and giggle. Good luck with that then...

I am struggling to find a way to bring this up
That's easy just mention it in passing to your cleaner and she'll pass it on.

That's easy just mention it in passing to your cleaner and she'll pass it on.

Hi - I agree with other posters and think you may be being over sensitive, it’s not exactly the same but I have (4 month old twins) and I get told most days by people I know or just random people who stop me in the street that they would hate to have twins or couldn’t think of anything worse, which is because having two babies is certainly more of a challenge than having one. Although their comments are in my opinion rude as I adore my little twins I don’t get upset because I know it’s not that they don’t like my children, it’s just that they would not like the additional work that comes with them. I think this lady was probably saying that she wouldn’t like a child to be so active as she would find it to challenging. Xx

But it is undisputably harder work having a mobile baby than a non mobile, especially when early because they have less of danger etc.

You're obviously managing just fine, but it's not a criticism of the baby, it's a comment about how she would manage.

Don't take it to heart.

I can’t see anything wrong with that. My daughter NEVER slept and it nearly killed me. I expect most people said they were glad their baby wasn’t like mine. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to be upset by that. She was a nightmare! Relax a bit- so what if your baby is hard work

OP, don't forget that very soon your baby will be old enough to start learning from you how to react to other people and minor upsets.

It is your responsibility whether she learns to look for offence or learns to assume that if other people offended it was probably unintentional.

It is to a great extent up to you whether she will go through life constantly feeling hurt because she has learnt to look for a slight in everything that happens, or resilient because she knows minor slights don't really matter that much in the scheme of things.

What kind of life do you want for her? One where she gets hurt a lot or one where she is able to let things run off her back?

I've said this about a very close friend's child before. But I really love her child! She is my DD's best friend and is actually a very good influence on my DD because she is much more polite and is great at sharing for example. All I meant by it was that I truly admire how my friend copes with the amount of energy it must take to look after her DD. I also suspect her DD is very bright. So it's possible that you have taken this the wrong way. (I also wonder now if I've inadvertently offended my friend....???!)

On the other hand, if she's been laughing at you and generally doesn't make you feel great then find some friends who do.

Never believe anything you hear second hand.