The art of declining gracefully
I suck at this.
A friendly mom with a daughter Amelia's age approached me at Fiona's school and asked if I'd be interested in joining the mom's group that she participates in. "Sure!" I said, "That sounds nice." I had heard good things about the local PEPS group programs and had always been too lazy to look one up when I was home with Fiona when she was a baby, so it was nice to have an actual invitation to the group and a friendly face I could seek out. Except, this was not a PEPS meeting, this was a similarly-named-but-definitely-not-PEPS meeting. I seem to have been a little confused about which moms group was which. They have the same concept, but see if you can catch the subtle difference in their mission statements:
PEPS - PEPS' mission is to provide community-based programs that enable parents of infants and young children to meet the challenges of parenting through mutual support and shared information.
NOT PEPS - We’re here to encourage, equip, and develop you as a mother of a preschooler to realize you’re [sic] potential as a woman, mother and leader in the name of Jesus Christ.
I'm sure that there are plenty of very lovely women who attend this group and that, if I continued to attend, I would certainly make some friends. I am just really uncomfortable with any group that wants to develop me as a woman in the name of Jesus Christ. I don't want to offend anyone who enjoys this group (which is why I didn't put the name in the post), it's just that as a non-churchgoer, it's not for me.
I'm so bad at declining gracefully that I almost want to just keep going and just fake it when the topic turns to being a Christian mom. I don't think it would be fair to the women who enjoy the group and find support there for me to be there thinking snide thoughts when the topic turned to things I don't agree with.
I need to just say, "Thank you so much for the invitation. I appreciate you thinking of me, but I just don't think that the group is going to be a good fit for me. How about we schedule a play date and get the kids together some time after school?" That would be nice, right? Why is it so hard to be honest and nice? I think my honest and nice skills might be broken.
A friendly mom with a daughter Amelia's age approached me at Fiona's school and asked if I'd be interested in joining the mom's group that she participates in. "Sure!" I said, "That sounds nice." I had heard good things about the local PEPS group programs and had always been too lazy to look one up when I was home with Fiona when she was a baby, so it was nice to have an actual invitation to the group and a friendly face I could seek out. Except, this was not a PEPS meeting, this was a similarly-named-but-definitely-not-PEPS meeting. I seem to have been a little confused about which moms group was which. They have the same concept, but see if you can catch the subtle difference in their mission statements:
PEPS - PEPS' mission is to provide community-based programs that enable parents of infants and young children to meet the challenges of parenting through mutual support and shared information.
NOT PEPS - We’re here to encourage, equip, and develop you as a mother of a preschooler to realize you’re [sic] potential as a woman, mother and leader in the name of Jesus Christ.
I'm sure that there are plenty of very lovely women who attend this group and that, if I continued to attend, I would certainly make some friends. I am just really uncomfortable with any group that wants to develop me as a woman in the name of Jesus Christ. I don't want to offend anyone who enjoys this group (which is why I didn't put the name in the post), it's just that as a non-churchgoer, it's not for me.
I'm so bad at declining gracefully that I almost want to just keep going and just fake it when the topic turns to being a Christian mom. I don't think it would be fair to the women who enjoy the group and find support there for me to be there thinking snide thoughts when the topic turned to things I don't agree with.
I need to just say, "Thank you so much for the invitation. I appreciate you thinking of me, but I just don't think that the group is going to be a good fit for me. How about we schedule a play date and get the kids together some time after school?" That would be nice, right? Why is it so hard to be honest and nice? I think my honest and nice skills might be broken.
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