I am a little hesitant to start this as a) it is not my story, and b) I tried to start a thread on it earlier, which disappeared, and I don't know why (I haven't had a msg from mn saying it's been pulled, well, not yet). Anyway, am trying again as it is bothering me.
I have a friend, well, I know this woman through a ms group. She doesn't live near me, I don't see her socially and she is reliant on her dh to drive her to the group which he doesn't always do, and sometimes she's not fit enough to come anyway. So I know her a bit; the group is quite close knit and I feel very comfortable and supported there. It's been going on long enough that most of us have a kind of 'connection' or understanding with the others. This woman and I have that sort of relationship; there are a lot of parallels in our circumstances and lives (beyond ms), so we have an affinity.
Anyway, their ds started at secondary this year (like my dd!). He is not going to the nearest school, is crossing the border into a new county in fact and has a pretty bloody awful journey there and back, a very long day, he is constantly tired and is getting run down. So my friend says. She also says that her dh flatly refuses to drive him to school or pick him up. Her dh (the boy's father, in case that's not clear) is officially her carer and so doesn't have a 'job' (please don't get waylaid into whether being a carer is a job or not, I know it is). She doesn't drive. The dh has taken the boy to school a couple of times, very begrudgingly, when he's missed the train, and it's taken him all of 45mins for the round trip. The train+buses trip takes 1.5hrs each way, and they all have to get up at some ungodly hour in order that the boy can be ready to walk down to the station to catch his train.
The school was first choice for all 3 of them, so it's not that there was a disagreement about it and her dh is sulking.
The dh complains incessantly about how tired he is, grumbles at the boy as if it's his fault they all have to get up so early and, from what she said, has generally made the first weeks of secondary school a bit of a nightmare.
The school was first choice for all 3 of them, so it's not that there was a disagreement about it and he's sulking.
She has finally given up trying to persuade her dh that it is simply normal to drive your child to school under these circumstances. She has now said that she will pay him to take their son to school. He has agreed, and started doing so this week. Everyone's a winner. The boy is happier, everyone gets more sleep.
Except, I think there's something very strange here. I'm interested in what you all think.