Hello Imperfect Mums. I need some advice on how I approach this and I guess what I can do.
I feel like ending a friendship purely based on the health of said friends children. She’s an excellent friend in most aspects, we talk daily and we did see each other almost daily.. however her kids are ALWAYS sick. We aren’t talking just a cold, one week it’s HFM, the next gastro, chicken pox, the flu, infections galore.. they go to childcare once a week only but just seem to catch anything and everything.
Every time we catch up our whole family is becoming sick, so I started asking her to just ensure her kids aren’t contagious with anything before we see one another. But it’s constantly happening and we are dealing with a bout of HFM with a 6 week old baby in the household.
Last week when we caught up she assured me her kids had no germs however that night she put a post on her Instagram about how sick the kids have been with HFM and she was over it and needed to catch a break. So when I saw her that day she obviously knew her kids had a very contagious illness.
To say I’m over it and infuriated is an understatement, but I don’t know how to navigate things further.
Part of me wants to end the relationship purely for my family’s health.. but she’s amazing in other aspects.
5 Replies
Pretty shitty of her to not have told you that? If it happens all the time I would be avoiding her. I mean we all have times where we don't actually know our kids have something contagious and unknowingly expose other kids but most of us would feel pretty crappy about that and let the other parents know. She sounds like she knows her kids are sick and exposing other kids anyway, I wouldn't want to be around her anymore.
This is something I find really frustrating because sickness doesn't just have an immediate impact on the child or parent but there are days of work, cost of health care etc consequences as well. I think it is highly disrespectful to knowingly expose others to infection even minor ones although as a parent that has children in daycare/kindy/school I have resigned myself to the fact that a cold every couple of weeks is inevitable. Your 'friend' however is crossing a line! If she truly is a friend I would be politely telling her that you wont be able to catch up as often due to the many illnesses her kids seem to catch and pass on - maybe suggest catch ups without the kids or at outdoor venues eg. Parks/playgrounds etc so that the children aren't in such close contact. I get that she may not be able to control when she her kids are getting sick but she needs to be more considerate of others.
I would've addressed it as soon as I saw the insta post, like "Yo, we just hung out today. Why didn't you tell me your kids had HFM? We've talked about this before, I'm starting to feel like you just don't care".
But that's just me, this is one of those selfish behaviours I really can't stand!
If you don't want to be that blunt, suggest kid free catch ups.
In fairness, you're more contagious before getting sick generally so she can't guarantee anything and either can you. It sounds like she needs support, not a 'friend' that ditches her because her kid's immunity is still building. Also.... if the kids had been sick and she was exhausted, perhaps the doctor had told her that they were beyond the contagious period and she posted about how exhausting it had been. I think you should clarify before jumping to conclusions.
That's not entirely accurate. You can be contagious before you start showing symptoms which obviously can't be helped unless you have a crystal ball but you're not "more contagious" before you are visibly unwell. You are contagious before, during and depending on the virus, up to 5 days after symptoms cease (particularly in the case of gastro, you're still highly contagious until 48 hours after the last vomit/runny poo and the HFM virus is most contagious the week after sypotoms appear and can remain contagious for up to a week afterwards).
This is obviously an ongoing issue, OP is not being unreasonable by prioritising her family's health so if she needs to limit contact to do that, it's quite unfair to suggest she's ditching a friend who needs support when she's just trying to do right by her own family!
I've been in the friend's position too where my kids have had months of back to back viruses, I agree, it's relentless, draining, isolating and quite lonely but that's absolutely no excuse if she is knowingly exposing other children to her child's illness.