Friends taking our children to school?

[SprinkleOfSunak]

My Husband and I will both be teaching full time from September (I currently do 4 days), and he will also be continuing to work some evenings and weekends in a second role - all this extra work purely to pay our mortgage thanks to it increasing rapidly. We are struggling to make ends meet.

My parents currently do the school runs 4 days per week (I do the remaining day), coming over at 7am and getting our 2 young children ready for school and feeding them, dropping them off, then picking them up at the end of the school day and looking after them until one of us arrives home. They live a 10 minute drive away, and my Dad has to drive towards us to work (Mum is retired).

They have refused to do the school run 5 days a week, saying my Mum needs a break. I can understand this, but they are also aware of our dire financial situation. We will lose our home if I don’t go full time.

The breakfast/after school club is fully booked with a long waiting list, and even if it were available, it’d cost £35 per day for both my children, so £140 per month for the 4 days per month, and opens at 7.30 which is too late for us.

My parents are telling us to drop off my 2 girls at one of their friends’ houses once a week, and that my Mum will reluctantly pick them up from school on that day.

Is this acceptable/normal to ask a friend to do this? It’d be every once every single week, dropping them off at 7am. The 2 sets of parents I’d trust my children with also have 2 children, and work full time (some from home), but don’t start work until 9 or 9.30, and so they do the school run.

I feel so cheeky and upset to ask a friend this. I’m in tears writing this, as I feel so desperate.

My parents do so much for us, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful, or like I expect them to be available to me 4 days a week, I just feel exhausted and broken.

None of this is sustainable long term.

One of you needs to leave teaching and get a different job. Can still be FT, but less rigid hours during term time at least.

Sounds drastic, but the reality of you have another 10-12 YEARS of this. Your parents will start to need help, not provide it. Your kids need their parents around at least some of the time midweek.

Agree with you @Fatat40

Hi it won’t hurt to ask your friend, but I would make sure they have breakfast and all ready for school and it is only 1 day a week term time , you have great parents who are willing to help you so much as it is and an extra day is a lot to ask.

I have done this when asked by a friend, after her mother who used to have them died suddenly. She made arrangements for other days (don't think she worked every day) and I took the 8 year old to school and the 2 year old to playschool. I also picked them up ( elder one went to same school as my then 2). They used to arrive before 7am which was a bit of a pain but it was only one day a week and dad picked them up about 1730. I think having your friend's kids for a week in the summer holidays would be very much welcomed.

I only had 2 dc when I agreed to do this one day a week and they were very jealous of the children I looked after. Apparently I gave them all my attention - well they were 7 and 8 and one of the children was 2!! I did it for a couple of years and when my job went from 2 and a half days a week to 4 days a week I even arranged I wouldn't work the day the friend needed me. It would have been easier if my 2 hadn't been so awkward on that day!

I would help my dd with her ds but if she needed me at 7am I'd be stopping over or having him at mine!

I would help my dd with her ds but if she needed me at 7am I'd be stopping over or having him at mine!

You would have to sleep there five nights a week for forty weeks of the year then. Or the children would be living with you five night a week forty weeks a year.

Why are some people so nasty in their replies? This lady is desperate and looking for advice.

People saying no way would I do that, sort childcare like everyone else. This is what grandparents done back in the day, there was no alternative childcare for working parents, the grandparents were the childcare and done it willingly. The op doesn't have the cash to pay for the breakfast club never mind a childminder, I think some of you don't read properly and I worry about the future grandparents that are clearly not willing to help their kids/grandkids.

OP, I can see that you are desperate but I understand that it's too much for your mum to take on, if it was a temp arrangement it wouldn't be so bad but it sounds like long term.

I would reach out to those friends. Send a text explaining the situation and if they could help one day a week in return for a weeks childcare plus sleepovers during the holidays but you need to be prepared for situations that pop up like the friends own child being ill. If they agree you should have the kids ready, fed and get dad to drop them at 7.30 when he's on his way to work.

Is it possible to keep to the 4 days at the school but take on a job in a bar 1 night per week or some other type of night work? Could you join an agency for carers and do carework as and when required?

I think this arrangement started well.However People often have fond memories of happy days with their own DC back in the day.As they get older the reality is that they get tired more easily ,and often have sore knees/Backs and so on .This lady is working hard and needs some help.I dont think people here are being fair on her . Obviously a different type of plan needs to be worked on .If Mortgage rates were not pretty much triple what they were ,she could have stuck to her plan of 4 days a week term time and that would have been fine .

This! I see loads of grandparents doing the daily school run, it’s not that crazy! Some love it and they have obviously agreed to it! People are so mean and obviously don’t have supportive parents if the idea is so alien to them! My grandmother did it for me and my mum has done it for her grandkids as she wants to, if it gets too much I’m sure they can say

I think many GPs are happy to do the school run, and maybe the DGran here might be as well, but actually what she is being expected to do is get to the house before 7, wake the DCs up, dressed, feed them, presumably make sure they have everything they need in their school bags and then do the school run, both ways. It's a lot and the bits prior to the school run should have been done by one of their DPs.

if it gets too much I’m sure they can say

Emmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm they did say but Op says she understands why they don't want to do 5 days but she thinks they should be aware of her "dire financial situation". Her mother also said she would do a 5th day pick up RELUCTANTLY.

OP is taking the complete fucking piss. Free childcare for years on 2 good wages and she won't pay €140 a month for proper childcare for the day she needs but expects her mother to do it. She cannot even get her kids dressed and fed and delivered to her mothers, she expects the poor woman to get up at cockcrow and come to her house to get her kids out of bed and get them dressed and fed and then take a bus to the school in all weathers, get a bus back home, then get another bus back to the school to collect and another bus back to the OP's home where she looks after the kids till one of the parents come home. Then has to get home herself.

Fucking slavery. She has no life as a retired woman but OP keeps on taking and has the audacity to complain the the poor woman has ONE morning off a week, not a day...a MORNING.
DISGRACEFUL expectations.

She’s not just doing the school run though is she? I mean my parents do the school run for my brother once a week. But pick up not take.

This is getting up at around 6am - being at their house for 7. Getting 2 young Childers dressed and fed. Walking to the bus stop. Waiting for the bus. Getting the bus to school. Then I assume waiting for another bus to get her to her house then doing all that again at around 2.30pm and staying until her daughter returns (so I guess making tea homework/ supervision. ) 4 days a week! That’s not just a nice 10 min walk to school like most grandparents are doing!

What if they want to go on holiday god forbid?! The whole system breaks down.

People aren’t being mean by pointing out this is a fragile arrangement which is very hard on her Mum and she still has one day uncovered. She needs a new solution.

And we have to wonder why she hasn’t put her kids name on the waiting list for breakfast/after school club. That’s literally the first thing 2 working parents would do. Maybe her Mum could do one day a week. Or maybe just pick them up a couple of days to avoid the 6am starts. Must be miserable in Winter.

Why are some people so nasty in their replies? This lady is desperate and looking for advice.

Yes, and there has been much advice. Such as...

Get up earlier and get the children up, dressed and fed before work so grandma has an easier morning. Prepare meals the night before or use slow cooker.

Change PPA hours so OP and husband can do one drop off or pick up each.

Speak to school about breakfast club and after school club.

Look for a childminder.

Move to a cheaper home, closer to one parents work to reduce commute.

I have done this for a school mum I barely knew because I could see she was desperate (single mum, first child and first year of school, no help from family) and I empathised. To be totally honest I did start to resent it about half way through the year, but that was because she offered me one free session with her as a thank you (she’s was a sought after fitness specialist) and as soon as I thought she was doing the minimum she thought acceptable I felt taken advantage of.

My point is that it is not being a CF for ask for help, even if it’s a big ask, so long as you are acknowledging what a big ask it is and offering something equally significant in return, like holiday care. I think many people don’t mind putting themselves out for a friend, when it’s appreciated and reciprocated.

I also think some people hate saying no and get annoyed at being put on the spot so I would ask in an email or text and make it crystal clear that you understand if they can’t or won’t say yes.

I take in a friends daughter every morning for her to get to work. She's at no big deal.
I'd ask your friends. Don't feel cheeky
My friend takes my daughter for sleepovers and we just do this for each other

Does your friend’s daughter get dropped off at yours at 7 am, presumably for you to get ready and fed? Because that is what OP would be asking

I used to have a friends daughter 4 mornings a week, 7am until school time. She was my friend, her daughter was my children's friends, and I was lucky enough to only work evenings. She offered to pay me, but I knew that she couldn't afford it really, and I didn't feel it necessary, her daughter was a pretty good child, and I was going to the school anyway. She did used to pay for my whole family to go to panto at Christmas though, which we loved!

If you were my friend I would do it no problem

I would ask the friend, but make sure the kids had breakfast first. I'd offer to take one of their children to do an after school activity with yours, one night a week, so swimming or dance class etc. I think most parents would really appreciate not having to go out of an evening for the extra curriculars, I know it would make it worth it for me!

Op you haven't mentioned childminders? I would find a childminder. If you cant afford that you really need to save money elsewhere, there must be something you can cut back on? Or consider living in a cheaper area?

So your mum does afternoons too? WOW. You are both working in decent roles. Budget properly and stop leaning on your parents.

Or ask your friends who work to help and in return take their kids one day per week every school holidays in return.

But really who on earth wants to get an extra two kids out the door??? You’ll just have to pay like most other people do.

MIL helps me with the school run a few times a week.

The difference being they are up, dressed, teeth brushed and hair done, bags packed and ready to walk out of the door.

Theres no real excuse for you not to do this at the very least! I’m not surprised it’s too much for her.

I would have no problem with it if it didn’t involve your children turning up at 7am! My own children would have still been in bed at that time and I would be calling for them to get up as well as having only just got up myself. Having two other children appear would have meant them being plonked on the sofa with the tv and no one interacting with them for about 45 minutes. If you arrived later, I would be perfectly fine with it.

I would do this for a friend no questions asked. I do it occasionally for my sister in law and vice versa. I’m getting my kid up and out anyway so it’s not really a big deal is it? As a teacher you’re in a great position to offer them a few days child care in school holidays / weekends as repayment.