<p>Well, most parents at private schools do participate in those kinds of things, QM, or at least they provide a person to do so.</p>
<p>Look, GFG, you had a daughter who did very well and some jealous parents who said nasty things. Me? I deal with people like that by saying things like, “Really, Brad? Maybe you should tell your daughter to do more newsworthy things then.” So, nobody would say something like that to me. I’m not sure this is better or worse of me, it’s just the way I am.</p>
<p>Have you considered doing some volunteer work, or something besides this? To fulfill your need to affiliate with others in a more positive and less competitive way?</p>
<p>It’s still a choice. If I staffed a snack shack for an event, I wouldn’t be “interacting” with the other parents. I’d be getting their food and making change as was my task. I think theGFG is an extremely extroverted person and that’s what’s causing her to feel every interaction so personally.</p>
<p>Sorry, poetgrl, I have to comment on parents at private schools who “provide a person” to staff the snack shack: “Oh, Jeeves, would you run down to Accademie l’Exclusivite and assist at the Caviar Table? As a member of the Eton Fives team, Chomondley is supposed to provide a person to do that.”</p>
<p>So, Pizzagirl, what would you have said to “Brad”? Something in the Miss Manners line of, “Why would you say such a thing?” Or something else? Or just “Here’s your Coke.”</p>
<p>I don’t think badly of the women who have to work, especially those who cannot arrange for any flexibility in their schedules. I work outside my home. I am a woman.</p>
Good question. At 35 I would have let this slide … now not so much. As I’ve gotten older I’ve become (much) more tolerant of opposing viewpoints and (much) less tolerant of fools.</p>
<p>Thanks, flyaround, for pointing out that Brad’s comment might have been a backhanded joke. Yes, definitely, it might have been. With a comment like that, I think it’s all in the tone of voice and posture. So I took TheGFG’s reading of the situation as accurate.</p>
<p>Get real, PG. I wasn’t “interacting” with other parents because I chose to. My job was to take food orders from the customers, and that was the task I was doing. Brad was a customer. How pathetic would it be if I tried to manipulate the snack shack staffing assignments just so poor TheGFG could avoid mean people? And how would I do that anyway? The next time the nasty party could be the lady making the hot dogs when I’m the bun-opener. (And who’s to say there won’t be obnoxious parents at the volunteer opportunity? I’ve met some doozies at church functions.)</p>
<p>Oldfort, are you Asian by any chance? I haven’t experienced any open negativity from Asian parents, despite their obvious strong desire for their kids to succeed. They probe, but don’t insult. It seems the culture is more reserved and polite in public.</p>
<p>Can we please get the thread back to the topic? I’m uncomfortable with the analysis of my personality and whether or not I’m responsible for other people’s crap.</p>
<p>I probably would have just said, “Here’s your Coke,” coldly, but I would have wished that I would have had the presence of mind to have said the Miss Manners line or the line that poetgirl came up with. There’s a wonderful French expression, l’esprit de l’escalier, or “the spirit of the staircase,” which describes what you wish you would have said to someone in the moment, but you don’t come up with the right zinger until the evening when you’re going up your staircase to go to bed and mentally reliving the exchange.</p>
<p>But either way, Brad’s comment reflects poorly on him, not on me (or my kid), so I would work hard not to let Brad take up too much of my mental head space with his inanities.</p>
<p>TheGFG, no one said for me to “manipulate working at the snack shack.” We’re suggesting that you don’t have to pay attention to stupid, petty people who say stupid, petty things. You seem to take it for granted that you HAVE to take these things to heart. We’re suggesting that there’s another way to frame it so that you don’t have to.</p>
<p>I think here’s the core difference. I’d probably smile and say, “Yes, I am! It’s so rare for me to have quiet time to myself, that I really enjoy the chance while Pumpkin is playing tennis for me to indulge in my book / magazine / whatever.” And then I’d make another minute worth of small talk and go back to my book. If other people don’t like it – too darn bad. If they think I’m anti-social – well, then, I guess I am. But meanwhile, I’m enjoying my book / walking the track / getting my business reading done in an efficient manner, and I’m sure they’ll get over it. </p>
<p>I sense you are a real people-pleaser, theGFG. Which in many regards is a good thing, but it leaves you open to compromising who you are and what you want to be for fear of not being liked / accepted by others.</p>
<p>Hilarious! How funny would it be if one of you actually were one of my IRL mean people? After all, wouldn’t such parents be obsessed with college topics and therefore likely to post on CC? Hmm. Going to read a book in the corner. Stay away! And when I walk on the track to get away from you, don’t come alongside me in tight spandex to tell me I don’t look athletic and then ask how it is my kids are such good athletes? (That happened, honest.)</p>
<p>Opening up my bundle of anxieties and peering in, I have found another category: Fear of lacking the educational support materials that “normal” people can be assumed to have. A case in point: In third grade, for homework on density, QMP was supposed to observe whether about 20 different things floated or not. Through no fault of anyone’s (you’ll have to trust me on this), we first became aware of the need for a ping-pong ball and a cork at about 9:00 pm. We had neither. This started me off on the “Normal people have ping-pong balls, and we don’t!” line of thought, which has resulted in our house currently resembling the packed storage lockers on Storage Wars. This was not a good choice! But at the moment, we could supply about anything . . . except that QMP has graduated from college by now.</p>
<p>Actually, I have a business plan in mind, for a school supply store called “Oh, Crap!” When your child tells you in the evening that he/she needs supplies for some school project that is due the next day, “Oh, Crap!” delivers–e.g., clay in just the right color to make one of those Egyptian museum hippopotami, or an entire river full of them. Our motto: “When you need us, you’ve already said our name!”</p>
<p>If you can’t relate to this, your local schools are not like ours.</p>