TBH, I could fight it, but I don't see the point. To continue in my role, I would need to continue to deal with these people all the time and have them in my home, and it isn't worth it. I don't need it and my children don't need it. So moving away from it all is a much better idea. Plus, as I said before, I don't want to give them the satisfaction that they got to me.
Oh GeoMamma -
This is so disappointing. Of course at some point your are going to need to walk away - but - since you love your position, I would suggest a few wild ideas to try first, so that you can get what you need to get out of the situation first.
The first thing I would try is to start bragging about your child. Let the other mom know every little thing - not in a mean way, aim for genuine, but err on the side of 'blowing her out of the water.' That will shift things and doesn't cost you anything.
Second thing is to try to strengthen your inner self. You can use prayer, journaling, venting, meditation. I'm reading/listening to this book now
http://www.energizeyourheart.com/Buy.htmlTheir approach for us sensitive-hearted people is to protect ourselves by learning how to super-nurture ourselves - welcoming this sort of stress so we can use it as inspiration to grow our 'self-nurturing' ability stronger and stronger.
I think it would look like this: You get an email asking to change something. You skim it, just to check, meanwhile self-talking and deep breathing that you affirm your own ability to lead well. Then you ask yourself for any intuition about how to respond. You may find that you can learn to see beyond the surface of the email.
Or you can just respond: Thanks for the email. Things are very good the way they are and we aren't making that change. Thanks for all the work you do on this project.
Short and sweet. You can end with - Please excuse me, but my child wants to read 'Horton hears a Who' to me now.
At some point we can always walk away, but our children will be in school situations where they may not be able to walk away so easily. So it's a useful sensitizing experience. Dealing with a certain level of low level nastiness is a good life skill. ((Humor Alert))How else would we stay married?
I hope this helps,
Grinity
