Am I being an ass?

[Inspired by Reggio]

I am late to the party so to speak ... but just wanted to say I share the advice of the ladies!

I would not begrudge the CHILDREN any experience as part of my program and would hold my normal graduation send off and festivities during work hours.

However no way in hell would I invite someone who treated me like that to anything EXTRA after hours that I was doing above and beyond my program ... they have forfeited an invite to that.

Unfortunately as is said so many times on provider threads when clients ask for individual consideration or service it is only special to the PROVIDER it is the clients NORMAL and they do not think anything of it and come to expect it and get down right pissy if you stand up to stop providing it anymore ... they do not see it as they got special for X months and should be grateful they see it as they are loosing out on their sweet deal ... which is why I do not do SPECIAL unless it is something that will make things easier for ME in some manner or MY KARMA aka the person never ASKED for the special but I want to do it because I think the family is in need / deserving in that moment and do it than with absolutely no expectations in return out of the goodness of my heart... IME those are the people who truly appreciate it ~ the ones who would not have asked for the help in the first place!

IME when we do things because we assume that sometime in the future if the tables were turned they would do the same thing for us it NEVER seems to end well. I have made that mistake in my life going above and beyond in kindness for people assuming they would have my back if the need arose only to have it used against me ... not cool!

Heck my own family plead poverty to affording childcare for my nephew while my brother was suppose to be looking for work and how could he look for work with a kid in tow and so forth and stupid me I offered to take him for FREE to help them out and well during that time when my brother is not working but still sending my nephew they turned around and spend $10,000 renovating their kitchen with the money they saved while I sat here forgoing the income of $8000 I could have had if I had not helped them out ... sorry but if you can AFFORD to renovate your kitchen without one spouse working you can AFFORD childcare and than they had the audacity cause she got laid off and so the 'reason' for me to provide free care was mute she was home to babysit her own kid while her spouse looked for work and than she got MAD cause I filled the space with a fee paying client cause I could not sit around with an 'empty' space waiting on them any longer ... and yup I was apparently the greedy one in that scenario

Try not to let this family suck the wind out of your sails Bright ... take the learning lesson with a grain of salt to learn to spot manipulative people like that for next time ... those ones who will say what they think they need to get 'special' from people but than will bolt the second something 'cheaper' or someone easier for them to manipulate comes along!