AIBU to think a twin parent should contribute per child?

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I'm a retired teacher and I'd have been horrified if parents of the children in my class had been dictated to about what they should give. And also horrified if they were judging each other.

I also would not want a gift that cost so much. It's ridiculous. A nice note from parents or a handmade card from a child was more than enough for me. Thank goodness that parental collections weren't a thing at my school.

This! She can put in what she wants, does it matter in the grand scheme of things? The teacher would be flattered with a present worth half as much, I’m sure, they are receiving a v generous gift. Id leave it, as its voluntary not compulsory

THIS

Plenty of parents in that class will be earning less than the teacher and it’s all well and good saying don’t contribute then but who’s kid wants to be left out. And if half contribute and half don’t - the teacher ends up with umpteen small gifts and half a collection - the worst of both worlds. Perhaps if it bugs you so much, you should stop running the collection and either someone else does it or you don’t have one.

It’s really a contribution from one set of parents to the teacher’s collection so unlike with, say, an activity where there is a cost per head I don’t think this is unreasonable at all. I imagine parenting twins is expensive enough without looking for unnecessary ways to spend double. There’s a stronger argument to be made that single parents should pay less than those with two parents, compared to the argument that a parent of twins should pay more. In reality though I’d look at it as a flat rate contribution per family (and I’m not even going to get into the obvious that all of this down to the amount should be voluntary).

Teacher here. Nobody "should" be paying anything. Absolutely bloody ridiculous. We do get a salary you know. Why tf would a supermarket checkout worker on min wage for example donate a tenner to a teacher? Who does a collection for them every July? It should be banned. It was in our catholic primary. Any collection was donated to charity/food bank. Quite right. And as for the twins bloody hell no. That sounds hard enough without some bloody alpha mother asking for a double donation.

Do you tell the teacher the amount every family has paid? Do you think they’d care? Would £10 more split between teacher, TA & office staff have made any difference? No one has had to pay more to cover the other child paying, all parents have contributed £10 - no one has been fiddled here.

What if she can’t afford it? Twins must be so expensive x

Maybe she only wanted to donate £5, £10 is double that. If I told you the contribution was set at 1k, would you give me 2k?

I have twins, but three other children as well- it's voluntary but soon adds up with other non-twins kids to contribute to as well.

Who is the poor woman taking the piss out of? If there was no group collection then it would be fine.

Well this is exactly the weird nit picking that fucks me right off about group collections. You are self appointed collectors for the group and now you are self appointed judge and jury too. Well done.

We always say contribution is completely voluntary. Some people give £5, some 50. Some don't contribute but might buy or make their own gift or card. Literally nothing at all to stress about. Why does it matter?

Ah that clears it up. You’re jealous

Two sets of twins here! I always doubled contributions like that. Shes taking the piss.

If you’re struggling financially you should stop contributing so much to a gift for teachers. They’re paid to do a job, they don’t need end of year charity to keep them going. I find it so weird that people get so in to arranging presents for someone who chose a career and earns a salary.

I also work for the local authority and we have really strict rules about accepting gifts. We’re not allowed to accept them, unless it would really cause offence due to cultural differences, even then if it’s over £5 we have to declare it to higher management. And the general rule is if someone insists and gives you a box of chocs/bunch of flowers we have to take them in to the office to share so that there’s no way conflict of interest

The mum who has raised a fuss about this is exactly the sort of parent that everyone gets warned about when their children start primary school. I bet they also set up the school whatsapp group and use the phrase ‘school community’ in every other sentence.

She shouldn’t even be tracking how much everyone has paid, let alone commenting on it and complaining. Nobody knows about another family’s finances, so saying ‘she clearly can’ afford it is nonsense.

She is generous in reality, she given £10.

And no ones a troll, just because you don't like the replies you've recieved.

My child’s in year 1. Last year the mum click dictated how much we should contribute to get a present. It was ridiculous. Teachers and the TA do not need a huge cash gift voucher. I work in a LA I would never be able to accept a gift like this. This year I won’t be joining the collection and will write my own card and get a small gift.

parents like you are like the school police!

This.

When you have these 'votes' or 'group agreements' its always very difficult to say no to the majority or embarassing to say "Actually that is too much for me".

I don't think there should be comments or auditing. Any voluntary contribution is much appreciated and it remembered it is a voluntary contribution. It should not be a dictate.

Another twin mum here, already skint and my boys aren't even in school yet to have all my money taken for collections!
I wouldn’t be giving twice as much. I have enough to pay out for. But I hate collections and, from when my older children were in primary, I really disliked the mums who did them. Apparently not much has changed…

I don’t think anyone should dictate how much anyone should contribute. That’s just cheeky fuckery.

I'd see it as cost per family rather than per child.

I have 2 with a 15 month gap of course it isn't the same as having.twins 🙄🙄🙄

Close-in-age siblings are absolutely not the same as twins.

Teacher collections that dictate an amount are fucking awful. If you absolutely insist on setting an amount, it should be per family.

As a high-earning twin parent, if you said something about it to me about how much I chose to contribute, I’d think you were ridiculous.

Pathetic.

I really don't see it as your business, Keep out of it.
It seems a little clique have it in for this woman so they don't find it hard to judge her. Is she braggy or are you jealous of her. Leave her alone.
I hate being told what to give and if I was approached I would not be best pleased. Leave it now.