Do you think I was insulting and disrespectful?

[Anonymous]

Your friend sounds strange, and the situation sounds strange. As you wrote it, I don't think you did anything wrong.

BTW, I don't know anyone who homeschools (we do not btw) who doesn't take their kids studying seriously, but the homeschoolers I know are liberal types who actually think they can educate their kids better than the schools (and in DC they are probably onto something) rather than "don't talk about evolution to my kids" types or the "school is a scam" types.

[Anonymous]

My reply to her email:

"I'm sorry you feel that way Suzy. Janie was welcome to play in our playroom. My girls value their privacy, therefore, we don't allow other people in their rooms without their permission. When we were leaving for the mall your daughter expressed disappointment in going, so I thought it was best that we reschedule for a day when we can both be child free. I had a great day with you and look forward to going out with you again."

[Anonymous]

Your friend is being lame. She was wrong to bring her dd with her. She should have made her stay home or reschedule with you. Her dd sounds like a brat.

[Anonymous]

You were perfectly fine. People set boundaries for a reason. If you don't, they'd walk all over you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want to defend the homeschooling issue - I homeschool and we go until mid-June and start after Labor Day. Also, we see nothing wrong with doing all our schooling from 7-11am some days or 4-8pm other days. There's nothing wrong with what the OP's friend did in terms of taking her DD somewhere during traditional school hours.

OT but may I ask your reason for homeschooling? Honestly curious.

It's just the right decision for our family at this time. If we see it not working, we'll re-evaluate and are not at all against putting the kids in regular school. To address the typical stereotypes/misconceptions: we're not religious, DH and I both have post-grad degrees, the kids socialize normally with other kids every day, and they can take instruction from other adults besides us.

[Anonymous]

WTF? She asks you when you are "kid fee" and them shows up with her kid? And then lets her kid run the show?

Get new friends.

PS, homeschoolers are weird. Yeah, I said it.

[Anonymous]

I would apologize and let her know that it wasn't your intention to seem come across as annoyed or gruff. Let her know that her bringing her DD caught you by surprise because you thought it was going to be child free. Explain that you didn't want her DD playing in your girls rooms because they aren't comfortable with it and that you did offer the playroom. I would also let her know that you were looking forward to doing something child free and it wasn't how it worked out.

I think it's great that your friend was comfortable enough to be honest with you. She should have spoken to you about over the phone, but that's ok, she addressed the issue she had. I would be equally as honest with her. If you are friends then your friendship can take it.

I had a friend with family that was always offering to take her kids for days at a time. She would ask me to go places while her kids were away and I explained that I had no one to leave mine with so they would need to come with. They were 4&5 at the time and high maintenance (one's special needs). My friend finally told me she loved my kids but she couldn't do stuff with them because she wants to enjoy the time when her kids were away. She was the one that was calling to see if I could go to the mall and she knew I would have to bring the kids. She tried to deal with the kids because she wanted to spend time with me. I stepped back to gain perspective. I really wanted to be offended and defend my children, and myself, but I couldn't do that. My kids were total pains in the asses that summer and I was doing the best I could. I respected my friend for feeling close enough with me to bring up a sensitive issue. We came to the conclusion that we wouldn't go places during the day like that again until the kids were older or I found a sitter. Five years later and we are still only do things during week days if there are no children involved.

[Anonymous]

She is a nutso homeschooler why do you give a f***?

[Anonymous]

Obviously not, on the surface.

But how was your tone and demeanor? Your guest could have felt unwelcome because of non-verbal cues you unwittingly expressed.

Even if she did feel something like that, I think she is extremely rude to send you this email.

I would not apologize.
I would express dismay that she felt that way, reiterate that her initial proposal was without kids and would NOT offer to reschedule at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why I find the entire concept of homeschooling phony. Instead of being in class with other kids, that 3rd grader was hanging around in someone else's house, demanding to play in someone else's rooms and then giving you the attitude about not wanting to 'go shopping'. WTF??

I don't think you did anything wrong, OP. Homeschooling issues aside, if your friend said the three of you were going shopping, the three of you should have done just so, right from the start.

OP, my apologies for going off on a small tangent, but after so many slams against homeschooling, I feel compelled to point out a couple of fallacies:

Several PPs have cited your friend's daughter's bad behavior as somehow linked to her homeschooling. I would just like to point out that her bad behavior is independent of the method of schooling, and seems to be more related to lax discipline, and perhaps a certain temperament. After all, the kind of indulgent, rude, entitled, and rather obnoxious behavior you've described has been detailed on DCUM regarding publicly and privately schooled children many times, with the schools escaping blame.

I hope my home schooled kids are weird, relative to their peers. I revel in it. Now, I would never tolerate such poor manners as those from your story. But manners, sadly, do not always correlate with intelligence or academic commitment.

The fact that so few people can think outside the box long enough to realize that education outside an institution does not need to look like education inside an institution is depressing...at least as depressing as the poor parenting on display in OP's story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WTF? She asks you when you are "kid fee" and them shows up with her kid? And then lets her kid run the show? Get new friends.

PS, homeschoolers are weird. Yeah, I said it.

Lol, it's okay. I thought they were all weird too, and never in a million years thought I'd become a parent who homeschools. When I started doing it, I explored those homeschooling groups and totally DID run into some of the really weird ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She is a nutso homeschooler why do you give a f***?

You are clearly so much more cultured and sophisticated than those dreadful homeschoolers, such as Thomas Edison and Theodore Roosevelt!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTF? She asks you when you are "kid fee" and them shows up with her kid? And then lets her kid run the show? Get new friends.

PS, homeschoolers are weird. Yeah, I said it.

Lol, it's okay. I thought they were all weird too, and never in a million years thought I'd become a parent who homeschools. When I started doing it, I explored those homeschooling groups and totally DID run into some of the really weird ones.

I confess, we have a lot of fun talking about the weirdest of the weird homeschoolers we see, both at conventions and at co-ops. Especially this one family we see every year, that's dressed like the Trapp Family Singers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want to defend the homeschooling issue - I homeschool and we go until mid-June and start after Labor Day. Also, we see nothing wrong with doing all our schooling from 7-11am some days or 4-8pm other days. There's nothing wrong with what the OP's friend did in terms of taking her DD somewhere during traditional school hours.

OT but may I ask your reason for homeschooling? Honestly curious.

It's just the right decision for our family at this time. If we see it not working, we'll re-evaluate and are not at all against putting the kids in regular school. To address the typical stereotypes/misconceptions: we're not religious, DH and I both have post-grad degrees, the kids socialize normally with other kids every day, and they can take instruction from other adults besides us.

Thanks for sharing PP.

[Anonymous]

your friend's dd sounds like a brat. i would also not have welcomed other children to play in my kids' rooms when they weren't home. the playroom was fine. your friend is oversensitive and may be raising a brat...