When we have a bad day or a bad parenting moment, many of us share it with our friends. We regale them in our worst moments to vent, get it off our chest and have someone tell us that it really isn’t that bad.
But we forget that those intimate details can linger in our friends minds long after the instance has passed. Take our friend Jackie, who was mortified when her daughter spit on a play date. She shared her angst with a friend on a regular walk, also venting about other challenges with her child. Months later when the same friend told her that she did not want to encourage a friendship between their daughters because of the spitting and other issues she had mentioned, she realized her mistake. “At the time, I was so frustrated that I needed to vent. In hindsight, I should be more careful about sharing my children’s shortcomings.”
Has this ever happened to you? Share your thoughts!
One Comment
My friend and I had a child-care arrangement–first Wednesday at my house, next Wednesday at hers. My daughter is a year and a half older than hers, and about a head-and-a-half taller. One day my girl pushed her girl down. It appalled me, so I intervened, redirected, and talked to mine privately. And I felt I had to tell my friend. Oops. No more child-care arrangement. I thought, hey, preschoolers are pushy, someday hers will push mine and that will be that. But no, it was a deal-breaker for her. The friendship survived, I’m happy to say, but it was a funny experience. I don’t know how I could have done any better by her or her daughter. It made me feel like she thought my child was a monster, which was hard to get over.