to expect the guest I invited over not to send the nanny as a substitute?

[sabretoothtiger]

I hate posting in this category but am genuinely interested in whether my reaction is unreasonable.

DD1 is friends with a girl at school. DS is also friends with her brother. They all get on well but we haven't yet had any occasion to invite them over to play. I know the parents to chat to if I bumped into them but again not particularly well.

DD1 has been asking for the friend to come and play and so I sent a text asking if the mother would like to bring both children over to play and for tea and said that we could have a chinwag over coffee whilst they were playing and get to know each other better.

So the response has come back that the mother is busy but the nanny would love to come over for a chat and coffee. I was quite shocked and thought this very cheeky since the invitation was clearly directed at the mother too.

AIBU to expect either the mother to come or else to suggest an alternative date if she is busy rather than send the nanny (who I've never even met) - or is this normal?

Second text was definitely rude.

First text was probably rude, but I think it would have been worth giving the benefit of the doubt. I work full time and have a nanny, so would not be able to accept an invitation like this (except during holiday and weekend when i would be reluctant unless it was someone i was very sure i could be firiends with). I would not, however, want my kids to miss out on playdates. Hence, I would probably have replied apologising that I could not make it and explaining why, and raising the possibility or the nanny either dropping the kids off or staying, but saying i would understnad if you preferred to do something different at another time. if i thought we might get on, I might have gone on to suggest a coffee while the kids are ballet one day.
How would you have felt if you had got that kind of repsonse? Woudl you have gone ahead with the playdate?
Luckily I live in an area where there are lots of working mums and nannies and everyone understands. These days kids are old enough that most people drop and run (all the kids at school live locally). My DC play as much with kids with SAHMs as with kids with nannies. Before school however (when the DC were not in a position to choose their own friends) it is true that nannies pretty much socialised with nannies and SAHMs with SAHMs. Our nanny did once try to befriend the SAHM across the road with similar aged DC and was snubbed (although did not stop the SAHM asking our nanny for fthe odd favour like lifts or a bit of childcare)

I guess thinking about it I would never just assume it was OK to send my nanny instead of me. I'd always ask. And my eldest doesn't need to be accompanied on playdates anyway. DD2 has a whole social life that I know nothing about organised by our nanny involving both other nannies and mums.

I haven't read all the responses so far but is this playdate about your dcs or you ? Yes, it is a bit of a blow for her to suggest you meet with the nanny but I wouldn't cancel on this basis as then your children will miss out. I would go ahead with the play date and then try to arrange somethng in the evening/weekend if you want to specifically get to know her. I may have missed this in the thread but if she's got a nanny she may not be around during the day or did you suggest the weekend?

Surely if the children are friends, that's what's important? It would be a shame to spoil things for them.

Kids make their own friendships; their parents don't have to be bosom buddies.

OK, seen she's p/t but maybe she prefers to spend her days off with her dcs alone? Perhaps she has other commitments on these days.

DS is a bit young for playdates - we tend to look at other babies rather than interact - but when he has friends of his own choosing and we invite them over I'll be happy for him to have a playmate.

If I want to socialise with mothers I make arrangements with them, rather than using DS as an excuse. There may or may not be children involved and said children may be of differing ages, but that's socialising time for me not him.

I suppose the difference is in how it's presented - is the invite fir the children along with their mother or for the mother and the children are included?

Let's get the children together and we can have coffee is different to let's have coffee and the children can play.

I found, having a larger than usual family in the area where I lived, that most of the women I felt I had much in common with also had larger families, and if parent/child playdates had been the norm (they weren't) instead of one child to play with DS (my second DC) when he was 4, I would have had a house with my three oldest, plus DS's friend, plus friend's mother, plus probably all of the friend's siblings, because who looks after the others while the mother is off gabbing with me in the afternoon? Not a recipe for a relaxing afternoon for anyone. All of the women I socialised with preferred to get away from their large families to drink chat.

Way back in the mists of time, the OP was asking whether she was alone in thinking that the manners of the other mother were rank, given that the OP had very specifically invited the other mother (whose mobile phone number she had, and whose children the OP had picked up from dance classes) to have a coffee and a chat for social purposes, and other mother had said she'd be sending a subsitute. No pleases, no thank yous, no attempts to reschedule. Just hiding behind the nanny with a big Fuck You face on.

This has nothing to do with children's play opportunities or nannies per se.

What LineRunner said.

OP needs to say Fuck You Back. In my opinion.

DD1 has been asking for the friend to come and play

I would infer from this that the event was entirely initiated by the children involved. If I were the other mother, I would see any accompanying invitation to myself as secondary to the main purpose, which was an opportunity for the children to play together. Maybe she was busy, but if she isn't keen on getting more friendly with the OP, that's her privilege.

As for the abrupt texts, one of my best friends always sends very brusque text messages (to everyone, not just me!). I think she takes the 'short' in SMS literally! Yes, it comes over as rude but I know her too well to take it that way. My texts tend to be quite short and to the point as well, I find it a fiddly business and would rather send an email if I have more to say. I do put 'please' 'thanks' etc in texts, but my friend doesn't bother.

The children's awareness of each other stems at least partly from the OP's considerable goodwill in picking the other mother's children up from dance classes and going well out of her way to drop them off.

OP is asking if the other mother is, effectively, taking the piss, by wanting the OP's services but not wanting to get her know her any better (even though the other mother's children will be in the OP's care quite a bit).

I met lots of lovely mums while I was on mat leave, but now I'm back at work, I checked w them in advance whether when they send meet-up invites my nanny would be welcome instead so that my dts don't miss out. They were all fine with that. I guess the difference is that I checked out tha land lay in advance.

The play date thing hasn't featured large in our lives so far for my dd because she's been in nursery/with a cm. But if she gets invited to a friend's house, it is v unlikely that I would be able to go and would offer up my nanny in my place so that the children could get together, which must be the main point. I think the main element that was missing from the texts was graciousness - it wouldn't have hurt her to expand on her text eg got a lot on at work for next few wks, difficult to rearrange, if we want the children to meet up then nanny can bring mine round, hope thats ok, da da da.... It's too much to assume that another mum gets how your life operates without doing her the basic courtesy of explaining.

Playftseforme Indeed, there is lack of basic courtesy on the other mother's part. You are bang on.

The hiring of a nanny does not come with an automatic manners-ectomy.

i don't think you are being unreasonable i think i would feel very cross. i think your plan is a good one.

She should have made it clear the nanny was an option not being foisted on the family. You'd have to pay me a fortune to go on most "playdates" (awful word I never use) as the parents are usually awful and it's as dull as ditchwater. I'd far rather be in the City working and usually don't want to meet the mothers. Not everyone wants to spend their spare time at the houses of their children's friends. I am sure our nanny did lots of drop offs over the years but tended to stay if it were a group of nannies rather than parents.

Now more interesting is why is the original poster her only interested ni knownig the mother and not the nanny. Is it because (a) the nanny is a different class (b) a different age (c) a lower IQ (if that be so) or what?

I really don't think the OP has a problem with the nanny per se! The issue seems to be quite simply that the OP was extending the hand of friendship e.g. 'while our kids play, we could get to know each other better as well' and was bitchslapped down by the other woman, who didn't have the guts to explain that she wasn't after friendship.

The second text just proves that the other woman is a user who just wants someone to ferry her kids to and fro.

Xenia This about manners.

And the verb in that post should have been "is"!

I find that some people have very bizzare ideas about nannies, cleaners etc and people who employ them. It is not like in the movies or in victorian times.
First of all many nannies-maybe even most-have a degree. Many have better background (parents's 'class') than their employers. Mine does. Cleaners are also respected proffesionals who work as SE. Ditto gardeners (many have a degree), window cleaners etc.

The families who employ them are not millionaires or up their arse. Nannies? If you go to work you need childcare and if you have more than 2 dcs this is actually the cheapest option. Cleaners? You can have one for only 3 hours and it doesn't even have to be weekly, thats £30, the price of a take away. Gardeners? i had one for one off session - £50 once in 2 years, the price of a cinema trip. It doesn't make you 'middle class' or whatever. And i think they take home more than some of us do.

But why want to get to know the mother and not the nanny? That was the interesting part. if the nanny is likely to be the one around most of the time and available to stay and chat why would it not be preferable to make friends with her (particularly as we learn on this thread the nanny might well have a degree and be a fascinating person to talk to)?

Also why would housewives assume working mothers in working hours would want to take half a day off work to talk to them?

It's not a question of whether the nanny is educated or how much she makes vs how much the mother takes home. It's a question of whether the nanny and the person inviting the children over can be expected to hit it off enough to spend three hours in each other's company chatting because they are complete strangers. The other mother thought it was fine to expect both her nanny and the OP to chat for a few hours together. That was presumptuous on her part. She should not expect her nanny to do her socialising for her, and she should not expect the OP to have to chat with a complete stranger for three hours.

In general, as far as I have experienced, if I were to have a nanny over for coffee I would be spending time chatting with someone the same age as my oldest DD and I think I could safely assume that both of us would find the experience akin to having a root canal.

I was wondering whether you'd like to bring dd and ds over to play one day in the holidays. Maybe Friday if that works for you? We can have a chinwag over coffee and get to know each other better whilst they play.

The children playing together is put first, we can have a chinwag over coffee is secondary and subsidiary to whilst they play. It reads like rye children are getting together. If it had been 'let's have coffee over the holidays, DD and DS can play with x and y while we chat' then the invitation would have been clearer.

She's still rude and lacking basic courtesy but I can see why the offering up nanny as a substitute came from. It all depends on the angle you take on it because it can be read 2 ways. This woman doesn't know you so why would she assume it was a get together for the two of you when the DCs clearly know each other and presumably get on? Entirely different if you were already quite established friends or you were getting a group of mothers together.