Is this normal?

cazmcf

But I should have known the circumstances that weekend when I was in charge of the care and welfare of her daughter. There's no 2 ways about it, she should have told me / warned me that her daughter may have got upset. She should have told me when asking could my daughter go over there the next weekend that there may be upset in the house. How annoyed would I/you feel if y dd had have gone round there the following weekend and there was upset/greiving? My dd has never had anyone close in the family die and this mum should have warned me so I could have prepared my dd and help both girls cope that weekend if her dd had have got upset.

I think it was irresponsible of that mother that weekend to let both her kids have sleepovers with people that didnt know the circumstances. Her son went for a sleepover at a friends house in the new town they live in, so the mum would have known these people even less than me. Plus the mum stayed at a friends house that night in our town. So her son was 30 miles away, with no way of getting to him (she doesn't drive).

The more I think about it the more angry I am at the potential situation she put us in.

Dunroamin

You're acting totally over the top now, trying to justify your lack of empathy.

cazmcf

I do have empathy, but she is not my priority, my dd is.

Dunroamin

cazmcf wrote: »

I do have empathy, but she is not my priority, my dd is.

But there's nothing wrong with your daughter for her to be a priority!

MandM90

cazmcf wrote: »

But I should have known the circumstances that weekend when I was in charge of the care and welfare of her daughter. There's no 2 ways about it, she should have told me / warned me that her daughter may have got upset. She should have told me when asking could my daughter go over there the next weekend that there may be upset in the house. How annoyed would I/you feel if y dd had have gone round there the following weekend and there was upset/greiving? My dd has never had anyone close in the family die and this mum should have warned me so I could have prepared my dd and help both girls cope that weekend if her dd had have got upset.

I think it was irresponsible of that mother that weekend to let both her kids have sleepovers with people that didnt know the circumstances. Her son went for a sleepover at a friends house in the new town they live in, so the mum would have known these people even less than me. Plus the mum stayed at a friends house that night in our town. So her son was 30 miles away, with no way of getting to him (she doesn't drive).

The more I think about it the more angry I am at the potential situation she put us in.

I'm guessing that if I lost my OH and was dealing with the huge gap left in my life, trying to figure out what is best for my daughter and how we were going to survive both emotionally and financially, my first thought wouldn't be whether I was going to make my daughter's best friend's mother a bit uncomfortable.

If the same thing happened to a mother of a daughter in DDs class I'd be offering to have her round more...children often cope with things by playing through it and as much normality as possible can only be a good thing (and, no doubt, the mother probably has an awful lot on her plate right now). The girls dad has just died...for goodness sakes don't take her best friend away from her too!

poet123

Using words like irresponsible shows your lack of empathy. This woman had just lost her husband, do you understand what that may mean for her? Alone in an alien country? Maybe she should have told you, but the reality is she didn't, maybe she senses your lack of empathy? The fact is that if her daughter hadn't wanted to come to you she wouldn't have come, children are very resilient and compartmentalise their feelings. Nothing happened at your house to raise your suspicions that all was not well. so no harm done.

Just because you may behave differently doesn't make the way she behaved wrong, you may not be able to understand it but that does not give you the right to judge her for it. The old adage "until you walk in someones shoes" seems appropriate here.

Hopefully, you won't be in her shoes for a long time, but other posters have been and their posts speak eloquently to me of feelings I can't hope to understand (very thankfully) but I can see why they might feel like that, I can see why I might feel like that under similar circumstances, but I don't actually know how I would feel or behave.....nor do you.

Dunroamin

Sadly, this thread reminds me that we used to we used to suffer bereavement in this country in a restrained and dignified manner, rather than believing that, unless someone was having hysterics, they didn't feel anything.

I blame Princess Diana.

the_pink_panther_2

Dunroamin wrote: »

I don't know why you would assume that this family aren't devastated.

I'm not assuming they aren't devastated. No idea why you assumed that I did.

the_pink_panther_2

cazmcf wrote: »

But I should have known the circumstances that weekend when I was in charge of the care and welfare of her daughter. There's no 2 ways about it, she should have told me / warned me that her daughter may have got upset. She should have told me when asking could my daughter go over there the next weekend that there may be upset in the house. How annoyed would I/you feel if y dd had have gone round there the following weekend and there was upset/greiving? My dd has never had anyone close in the family die and this mum should have warned me so I could have prepared my dd and help both girls cope that weekend if her dd had have got upset.

I think it was irresponsible of that mother that weekend to let both her kids have sleepovers with people that didnt know the circumstances. Her son went for a sleepover at a friends house in the new town they live in, so the mum would have known these people even less than me. Plus the mum stayed at a friends house that night in our town. So her son was 30 miles away, with no way of getting to him (she doesn't drive).

The more I think about it the more angry I am at the potential situation she put us in.

This is harsh. The lady's husband had just died. She probably wasn't thinking straight. No offence but you are not her priority when her husband (and her child's father) has just died. How can you be angry? if your partner/parent had just died would you be acting totally rationally?

balletshoes

caz are you maybe feeling that if you let your DD go to sleepovers at her friend's home that you'll be talked about at the school gates and judged there too? You know, just like whats going on with that poor lady right now?

No offence meant to small town/village dwellers, and I know not everyone in small towns/villages caves to the pressure, but this is a big part of the reason I left my small town when I started full time work, and its a big part of the reason I never want to return. Folk think they know you, think they have the right to dissect your life and your family, and think its only gossip, it won't do any harm. But it can (my mum and sister, who still live in my old small town, are guilty of gossipmongering still).

Because this woman, who is not from your town and is from another country altogether, hasn't behaved in the way you would expect a neighbour to behave in a very specific and unusual set of circumstances, you have judged that her daughter isn't an acceptable sleepover mate for your daughter. Despite the fact that her daughter had no problems at your home when she slept over, and your daughter had no problems at her home when she played there just before the child's father died.