Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to be fed up of being the only one that remembers?

32 replies

VictoriaSponge987 · 17/09/2026 18:03

I’m so fed up of being the only person who proactively plans in my house. My DH will always pick the kids up, take them to school etc but it’s all very reactive. If I’m not home (at work or out) unless I tell my teen son and DH to remember X at X time, they inevitably forget. I feel as if I am the only person who plans - meals, holidays, clubs etc. if there is a form to fill in, it only happens if I do it or remind someone else several times to do it. For context, I work more than full time in a serious job plus running my own business so I’m not a stay at home mum with lots of spare time. I end up doing it because I don’t want the kids to miss out but I’m resentful and stressed. Today I was as at a conference all day. Despite putting teen’s sports club in the diary and texting him to remind him of time, he was late because both him and DH forgot. What can I do to stop me being the only one who remembers stuff?

OP posts:
wafflesmgee · 17/09/2026 19:37

Just stop reminding them

for example, when my eldest started secondary school I cycled the half hour to school with her the week before (which she hated), when we got home I said “Now you know what you can do if you ever miss your bus. I and your dad work full time, we will never be able to take you. Get up, ready and go on time or cycle in, up to you.”

she’s missed the bus once in four years and needless to say always sorts herself out independently each morning.

Repeat for each activity. This is training for adulthood, I am here for support but I am nobody’s PA. Yes we have a family calendar we all use, but if people forget to look then they miss out 🤷‍♀️

phoenix098 · 17/09/2026 19:47

Was your husband a loser when you married him?

Freshrain · 17/09/2026 23:45

Don't know which way to vote as YANBU to find it frustrating, but YABVU to be facilitating this apparent helplessness.

Suggestions include having a time each week when you, dh, and the dc all look at your calendars and talk through the week together. So, if there is somewhere your ds (not sure if there is more than one dc or not?) needs to be driven, you and dh agree who is taking him / them and who is fetching, or who is arranging to life share with other parents, and your ds has it made very clear to him what the arrangement is that week and what he needs to have packed the night before (boots and kit or trunks and towel etc).

Also that everyone takes responsibility for who is cooking dinner that evening (all part of the taking responsibility thing, and checking in calendars who is in / out / arriving late / going out early / can't eat or needs to eat early or late because of an activity).
As everyone has said above, STOP reminding them when you are at work.
Make your dc take responsibility by not answering all their questions but asking them what they think the answer is.
Let your dc make mistakes, and take the consequences of forgetting things. They need to learn all of that for life generally.

Createausername1970 · 17/09/2026 23:59

Stop doing it.

I now make a point of ensuring that things that matter to ME do happen.

I will remind DH or DS about other stuff, but unless I will be personally affected if something gets overlooked, I don't get involved.

PivotPivotmakingmargaritas · 18/09/2026 00:37

Take this as an opportunity to teach your son - you don’t want your teen son to end up like DH - expecting someone else- his partner to play mummy is not ok and not what real life is about. So from now on he can check the calendar- update his phone diary if he has one and work it out himself.

Also

  1. doing own washing
  2. organising logistics on how to get their etc etc

As for husband read the riot act - you are not his mummy - feeling like his mummy makes your vag clamp shut and he steps up

  • dashes are how I talk long before AI so it’s not AI generated
LauritaEvita · 18/09/2026 07:46

Well I certainly wouldn’t be reminding a teenager that he has a club for a start. How has he forgotten that? At that age, I would have been reminding my parents that I had the club so they didn’t make me tea and working out how to get the bus there. You don’t get to be a fully functional adult without having gone through a semi independent teen stage first.

TallagallaPenguin · 18/09/2026 08:47

CombatBarbie · 17/09/2026 19:29

Get a family calendar on your phones, the principal calendar is my Gmail one and they all have access via email invite. And ensure notifications are set to 1hr/30 mins prior.... we all have a different colour.

Or stop being a martyr and tell them to.set up their own calendars with their own commitments

This is what we have and it’s saved us so many times. We have it set so the next events coming up show on our phone screens. It helps a lot but it still needs people to remember it’s theirs to sort. But better than not having it. Kids got a lot better at putting their things on the calendar too.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page