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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think if you can deliver and collect your children from school...

115 replies

NoseyNooNoo · 11/10/2011 22:53

I have ended up class rep this year (how did that happen?) so I am now lumbered with trying to persuade parents to volunteer for about 50 sessions helping out at school this year. I fully appreciate that there are few mums who have no job and no children at home and to be honest it's no skin off my nose if the sessions aren't filled but what is getting my goat is the number of women who have said 'Don't you realise some of us work some full time?' in a some what patronising tone.

AIBU to be annoyed by this because a) I do actually have a job myself but as I am self-employed this in not necessarily evident and b) if they are there at 9am and 3pm it is unlikely that they work full-time either.

Thanks for letting me off load!

OP posts:

Joolyjoolyjoo · 12/10/2011 22:16

Hmm- I've been thinking about this thread and realised that no-one has ever come and asked me to help out with anything at the school

I'm now worried that I must be looked upon as unsuitable (unstable?) by both WOHPs and SAHPs alike! Sigh. I'm going to be paranoid now, OP, unless I get a nice note in a schoolbag. Soon. (although of course I would stammer, go red and apologise about not being able to take time off work...)

Oblomov · 13/10/2011 07:52

Why do we have to even help out at schools ? Why is it even seen as the done thing ? It never used to be. My parents were never asked. They might go to one annual event, christmas play etc.
But we are asked to go in all the time. And its not just for fund raising events. I am well aware that the Gov has cut grants, and that out PTA now has to make up quite a shortfall. o.k. there's a recession everywhere, we all know thta.
But we are asked to go in, to help out on walking to the church, walking to the museum, helping out on school trips, reading days, making a kite days.
I'm sure my parents weren't asked to go in for things like that.
Its as if it is now assumed that we want to be with our kids 24/7 and being involved with everyhting they do at school. Well actually I don't. And I think that many parents don't either. I drop him off. He's yours to look after. Thats what we pay you for. All I want to know is : is he happy, is he doing o.k.. Other than that I don't know why we have to be so involved.
So far this year we've already been invited in to 'meet the teacher', a school trip, reading days, IT help day.
Even if I had the time, I don't want to go into school every other week. Thats not a crime, you know. I know teachers are patient, well trained. Let them get on with what they are good at.
If you love being around kids and want to go to every 'make a .... day' then great. I don't want to. And before you ask, yes I am interested in what my son does, but I don't have to participate in it all. he goes to karate aswell you know. I don't. I don't go to Beaver camp either, funnily enough. Doesn't mean I'm not interested in him or what he gets up to.

Blueberties · 13/10/2011 08:08

It's great to help out but in the end I had a rule, reading rota only or fundraising.
Glueing and sticking they can naff off.

I used to run a major sports activity for hundreds of children, it was almost like a voluntary full time job. Apart from the weekly admin work the activity itself was three hours on a Friday night and parents would come to watch. Every other week we'd asked them to stand up and hold a tape measure, usher a team round the events etc.

I kid you not, if we were short handed some parents wouldn't even help when they were there watching anyway. They would sit there self-righteously saying it wasn't their turn while a bunch of other mums and dads were running themselves ragged giving their children an amazing sporting experience. Pathetic.

cory · 13/10/2011 09:26

The rudeness of these parents is deplorable. But it is quite likely they have felt pressurised in the past and feel guilty about their inability to commit. I always used to feel like that, that there was a suggestion that if you only cared enough about your children's education everything else would automatically give. Though I would not have been rude.

CurrySpice · 13/10/2011 13:34

So op there was nothing at all, anywhere at any time, to make this great number of snotty women think that you were assuming they didn't work. Yet that's how your op and your title comes across, and how all of these women, completely independently, all took it as well? Really?

Odd that they reacted the same isn't it?

But of course it must be all of them they had a problem, not you

Original poster

NoseyNooNoo · 13/10/2011 15:44

CurrySpice - you seem amazingly capable of misreading my OP on multiple points. I said 'a few mums' which would make them the minority. At no point did I say 'great number of women' but as it happens the great majority of mums have offered to help to such an extent that most are doing about a quarter of what they volunteered for.

You really make me laugh. When I see the rudest woman now I think of you. It makes me smile to myself. Thank you.

OP posts:

OhdearNigel · 13/10/2011 15:50

"b) if they are there at 9am and 3pm it is unlikely that they work full-time either."

Erm, it's called shift work

havinhoops1974 · 13/10/2011 16:59

YANBU

theres never any need to be patronising or rude if your asking politely, just comfort yourself that their clearly pretty unpleasant so not love lost there...

sheeesh · 13/10/2011 17:40

YABU I work full time and because there is no-one else to collect my DD, I drop DD1 at school, drop DD2 at nursely, start work at 09.30, then take my lunch hour at 3pm so that I can do the school run for DD1, pick up DD2 from nursely and drop both DD off at my mum's. Then I go back to work until 6pm

So your point, "AIBU to be annoyed by this because a) I do actually have a job myself but as I am self-employed this in not necessarily evident and b) if they are there at 9am and 3pm it is unlikely that they work full-time either."

is based on short sighted assumptions about people when you don't actually have a clue about their lives or responsibilities.

Fine to be annoyed but don't kid yourself that you're not speaking from a position of ignorance.

Oblomov · 13/10/2011 18:39

"Unlikely". Well Op, you have been proved wrong on that count, as this thread has shown.
I don't think you have come across very well on this thread. Maybe you didn't come across very well to the mums either.
I think you may need to work on this.

kittycatlove · 13/10/2011 19:26

Agree with Oblomov and frankly your last post to Curryspice make you seem a wee bit bonkers.
Lots of people do shifts and arrange their lives to fit around their DC.
You dont sound like you really want to do this or really have the sort of personality to deal with it.

Original poster

NoseyNooNoo · 13/10/2011 23:05

I have not made assumptions. I don't care whether they work. I don't care whether they volunteer and I have not directly asked anyone to do anything. If almost every parent has contacted me to offer to do a lot irrespective of their commitments then perhaps most people think my note asked suffiently nicely and in an unpressured way.

And as for Curryspice - well she has demonstrated to me how those mums may be thinking which is informative. I have learned from it and I know to avoid them now. If that makes me 'a wee bit bonkers' so be it and perhaps now they won't bother to approach me again so it's a positive outcome for me and a positive outcome for them.

OP posts:

kittycatlove · 13/10/2011 23:26

I think there is a bit of back peddling going on here !
BTW it was the bit about "It makes me smile to myself " that I thought odd .

So now lots of people have suddenly volunteered- so what was the thread about again

Original poster

NoseyNooNoo · 14/10/2011 10:18

I haven't back peddled at all. I have been consistent throughout. People have volunteered since I wrote the OP. I did not have the ability to look into the future when I wrote the OP.

Anyway, I'm think I'm done with it. I have received a range of responses which have helped in different ways.

Thank you.

OP posts:

redlac · 14/10/2011 11:00

hopefully they have helped in the way that you don't assume what other peoples work patterns are!

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