This is *exactly* how it feels.

An example: One time I set up a homeschool museum tour for 12 families, even getting a grant to cover admission, and 11 of the families cancelled in the day or two before the tour. (The 12th family was mine.)

I don’t blame those who were sick or otherwise incapacitated at all — but if they had been the only ones who cancelled, we still would’ve had plenty of people for a tour. NO ONE kept their commitment, and I was left calling the museum to apologize profusely.

I no longer organize things like this. Now I only make this kind of plan — where mass cancellations would ruin things — with families whom I know to be reliable. When I do organize more open events like hikes or park days, I do so very carefully so that I am not reliant on anybody else at all coming in order for my family to still have fun. And I always frame it to my kids as “some friends might come, or we might just go ourselves.”

People definitely should cancel when sick or in some other extenuating circumstance. But the problem is more about people committing without really committing.