The Brass Neck of It. CF

[Nayyercheekyfeckers]

So, I volunteer for a local football team for kids. Last night the leader asked if anyone could pick up a new boy who was joining the club. He lives a short walk (less than ten mins) from the pitch. It's a few minutes out of my way, but apparently his mother is heavily pregnant and therefore unable to take him. I've never met him or his family before. I foolishly make the assumption that she is very heavily pregnant, doesn't drive and that she either lives alone or her husband works away. I have some sympathy because my husband works abroad so I am currently doing all the childcare, as well as working and volunteering. As a grass roots local club, inclusion is important, so I agree.

I am slightly surprised to show up at a large house with 2 cars on the drive. She confirms that I am ok to drop him back home again and I agree as I can see that she is pregnant, so I assume struggling. Upon enquiring she says that she is due in November, so not for another 2-3 months.
So imagine my surprise, upon returning their son, to find his dad stood on the drive polishing his top of the range Ferrari, having just unloaded his golf clubs!!
The mother answers the door, thanks me but says that she just wants to confirm that I will be continuing to do the lifts from now on.
I declined the offer to be their free taxi service. She was disappointed but said that she would have to contact the leader to see what he could do!

Honestly, I just don't understand. What goes on in some people's heads?? Why would anyone be happy for their young child to go off with someone they had never met before? Why couldn't she walk him there and her husband pick him up? Why couldn't she drive him there? Why couldn't her husband do the lifts? Why couldn't she arrange a lift share? There are a few other boys from the same school and class who attend and live in the same village close by. Why not pay for some wrap around care if you can afford multiple top of the range cars? Why arrange for your child to join a club, sign them up and buy new kit, without knowing how they are going to get there? The mind boggles at this level of cheeky fuckery! The more that I've thought about it, the more audacious it seems and I just needed to vent!

Come share your stories of cheeky fuckery with me.

Had the same thing at exactly the same sort of school

The pta where begging parents to help and I thought id give it a go

Never again-they had their own little groups and it as made clear I wasn't mc/lentil weavy enough for them

I was left to stand in a corner while they laughed at all their little in jokes and did very little work

I refused to help out again but did notice it was their kids that got to meet santa/got the lead parts in plays/got the top jobs in class etc while the parents got the front seats at plays/where up the heads arse

Never again

This is very much still the case. Not sure what the coach was thinking.

I need to do a 500 mile round trip three times a year for work. I can claim expenses for this at 45p a mile. I have been giving a colleague a lift as they live near me, I’m going there anyway and I get reimbursed for petrol. It does cost me a little more in petrol as this person weighs about 25 stone. I have never requested petrol money as I can claim it back, the colleague has never bought me a coffee en route or anything.
Imagine my fury when they emailed to ask whether I’d got my petrol expenses yet as they hadn’t. When I enquired what they meant, it turned out that they’d also put in a claim for the 500 miles and had done so for the past few years!

This is so true. I think those that doubt such a thing happened have clearly never been a volunteer with a kids club. There's probably a good chance that they are the sort of parent that would act like this, if they are finding it hard to believe.

I'm a cub leader, and was the home contact for our other cub pack when they went on camp. Unfortunately one of the cubs fell and broke their collar bone, and had to be taken to hospital. I called the parents (who were also the emergency contact for the child) , and told them to go to the hospital, then didn't think much more of it.

But talking to the leaders after the event, it transpired that the parents refused to go and pick up their child as they were working, and the poor girl had to spend the day in hospital, the night in a tent with a broken collar bone, and the parents finally came to pick her up at midday the next day, just an hour before camp finished anyway. Absolutely appalling behaviour, and the leaders refused to take her on camp or day trips after that. The parents were really angry about this, and couldn't see that they had done anything wrong.

I have two dog cfs

My friend asked if id have her dog for a week and I agreed
Did it-all fine
Ditto the following year-no money exchanged and I bought his food,gave him baths (as he stank) and rearranged my life around him
The following year she admired ds's dogs new harness and lead (same breed)
I didn't give it a thought-picked up dog,dropped him off a week later and she was really funny with me-she snatched the dog from me and marched off
I left it and it got back to me that she thought I should have bought her dog the same as ds's dog-hed spent over £100 on this harness and lead!!
Fuck that,he'd cost me a fortune as it was!

The other is my brother and the woman he married (I've never met her and I'm nc with him)
They had two jack russels (I'm guessing he bred mum and kept a pup)
Anyway,mum started growing a lump and they took her to the vet
Sadly,it's cancer and she's not going to last much longer,it's best she's put down
They refused this advice and dragged her to two more vets,who both say the same thing
Dog is finally put down
But they've racked up 6k of vet bills,and who should pay this?
Me of course! (It's all my fault about the cancer apparently)
I've never owned a dog,never met either of these dogs but they claimed id mistreated them and they'd taken them from me for 'their safety' (utter bollocks)
I'm still waiting for the court summons but they have been slagging me off to anyone who will listen for years over this bill (I've taken some serious crap from animal lovers over this)
The bill I don't bloody owe for a dog ive never met!

Aside from the appalling CF behaviour, you shouldn’t from a safeguarding point. I am a welfare officer for a sports club and this is covered in training. You can use that as a good reason not to.

You know what I had to read twice,check I was actually getting it
Dad available to drop off & collect but deigns not to do so. Delegating it to you
Totally wide

When dd3 was 15 she had gone on her own to Lancaster for a rock climbing course (with army cadets). She had to get the train to London then another to Lancaster which was great. There was a 2 day train strike on the way back and it was a nightmare getting her home due to safeguarding issues. Eventually some white lies were told and she was given a lift to Northampton, about an hour from us and we picked her up from there.

Cheeky entitled stuck up cow, she thought you were gonna be the lucky! Well done you gor seeing this straight away and saying no!!

CF of the highest level. My child is 10 and goes to clubs 4 days a week...in all the time he has been at primary I've asked if someone could take and collect him once as my car was in the garage and training was approx a 20 min drive from our home! Im a single parent you don't sign your kid up to stuff if you are not available or have a plan to get them there

People like you make me want to stand up and cheer!!!!!

Oh I absolutely LOVE a CF thread. This has not disappointed. Thanks OP.

Maybe they are drug dealers and that is their busy time?
Joking apart I would have been so embarrassed if I, for example, was ill while pregnant and had to ask for help. If my husband had unexpectedly appeared he would have been straight down to do pick up and be offering you lifts for future weeks. I am so glad you declined to be taxi mum as once the baby comes there will be more demands!.

OMG, thats a very painful injury and to be away from home. That's pure neglect from the parents.

i totally believe this!! I do lots of voluntary work with a youth organisation. Recently, a parent brought his children to a residential event over two hours early and just dumped them - waved, and shouted they had had a difficult week and went before I got to them. Their kit wasn't packed - it was loose on the car park and thy didn't have several vital items ...... I later saw posts from one of parents on Facebook saying they were having a "lazy week, going out all the time, while the kids were off their hands"

What is there for her to clarify? She just volunteered to help someone out. God knows why you think everyone should have understanding and training in the ins and outs of safeguarding, it certainly wasn't part of the curriculum when I was at school.

Coaches wife, we have a child on our team, he’s brilliant, parents couldn’t give a rats. After helping to get him to and from training and a tournament all in one week due to parents not having the car, we were then subjected to ‘lift needed for Dougal 👍🏻’ messages every week. It worked out we were doing an additional 15 miles a month. I know it’s sad but Dougal is a looked after child and I know his carers get transport allowance which can be used for taxis, trains and covers fuel expenses. His football subs to the club are covered by social care which they told everyone about, not an issue. This aside, the issue would be Dougal missing out if we didn’t oblige and it broke my heart to think of this brilliant little lad missing out because his carers were so inept so we did it for him. After months of piss taking, messages to change drops off from home to a town 8 miles away, dropping off outside a pub (seriously) I said something. They don’t work weekends and only have one other child. They started getting him to all training and matches. The CF’s on presentation night sat there with faces like slapped backsides before approaching me to tell me they were leaving and could we drop Dougal off on our way home. DH is team coach so he had a few drinks, I wasn’t drinking but had a full car because our other son had come with his friend. No room. She got all huffy and said he wanted to stay and she blamed me for making Dougal upset then stormed off. As she left I told her firmly that she has a car, she gets transport expenses and in future she needs to get Dougal to and from anything football related as we weren’t going to do it again because we have had enough of being expected to run around after her. The messages stopped. Dougal still attends training and matches and she pays a lass she works with to run him about when the poor lass isn’t sorting her own kids out or working. The parents no longer talk to us!

As I grew up I realised my mother was probably the CF on multiple occasions across the holidays.

More than once she’d send us away on holidays and forget to tell the hosts (uncles, family friends, a couple occasions people I’d only met once………) that we were coming. I didn’t understand at the time because from our end it seemed normal, but as I’ve grown older every now and then I wonder what these people thought of these poor kids just… showing up?

When I was pregnant with all 3 of mine I wasn't allowed to drive or stand/walk for long at all from around 4.5 months, and was basically on bed rest from 6 months. So just because she was able to walk to the door doesn't mean she's being a CF.
And in my experience of helping run a rugby team - the coaches often said to people who were inquiring about joining "don't worry about getting x to taxing and matches one of the other mums will do it"

Agree, the same everywhere always the same people.
Then the same people get asked to do more and more.

such great advice please follow it up

They treat people like serfs because they are spoiled and entitled.

In their world people are there to do their bidding.

Well done for nipping it in the bud.

Mine was over 20 years ago.......
Boy's Brigade. Our son went from aged 4.
When he was about 8 a new neighbour moved in and was keen for her son to start. All good, she suggested we dropped off and she would pick up. It happened for 1 week then the excuses started - every single week.
Thought it odd but 🤷‍♀️ we were picking our son up anyway so just dropped her son off. After about 3 months of this my toddler had a nasty fall off a sofa about an hour before we usually left. Got toddler & son into the car and off to A&E. Phoned my dad and asked him to drop round to new neighbour and explain.
Get back from hospital at 11pm and neighbour's husband turns up, furious because their "date night" had been ruined by having to take his own child to Boys Brigade. Got told roundly to piss off and never darken our doorstep again !

When my kids where younger I was a skint single mum

One night my sister in law had popped round and I noticed we where out of milk and I needed some for breakfast the following morning

I asked if she'd mind keeping an eye on the kids while I nipped to the shop-it took 7 and a half minutes to get there get in and then back

She looked me dead in the eye and said she would,if I paid her a tenner

I ended up dragging the kids to the shop,in the freezing cold at almost bedtime

I broke my arm once and she ran me to a&e

I did offer petrol money but she told me '£50 will do' (the hospital was a 5 minute drive)

I gave her a fiver

I have a list as long as my arm of her cf ways but as soon as her pfb came along,I was handed a list with what she wanted me to buy (about 1k of baby stuff,im still laughing about it) and thought id be her on-call babysitter (for free)

She was very put out when I told her i'd charge her ten pounds for every 7 and a half minutes of babysitting and whinged to anyone who would listen

We were on holiday in Greece and DS (aged around 8) was playing on the beach with a new friend, about the same age. We called our son so we could go and have some lunch. New friend tells us that he doesn’t think he should come with us, we hadn’t invited him! We go off and return after about half an hour. DS and new friend start playing together again. About 10 minutes later a couple walk over and thank us for looking after their child whilst they went on a hike. We had no idea who these people were and that their child was on the beach on their own with us being expected to childmind.