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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Bad mother for staying/going/having gone in the first place? Camping story...

32 replies

solidgoldbrass · 15/07/2012 00:26

So we went for a weekend away, camping at a folk festival. The idea was that we would do all the dancing and stuff today and then I would take DS on the steam train tomorrow. And as we were camping, we went down there yesterday evening, with a new tent.

And the new tent fucking leaks. Which probably serves me right for buying it from Pounstretchers instead of Milletts anyway, but it leaks quite a lot. I thought I had managed to block and mop up the worst last night, and the sleeping bags were dry enough when we got into them, but this morning they were thoroughly damp all over (DS: Mummy, my bed's wet but I didn't wet it...')
Then it rained all day today, so I said to DS we will come back another time and ride on the steam train, we are going home tonight, we are not sleeping in wet sleeping bags in a small lake again.

So am I a horrible irresponsible mother for letting him sleep in a wet tent? I know this isn't an Elinor Brent Dyer novel and we won't get consumpton or rheumatic fever and die from one wet night... Or am I a big wuss mother for not being prepared to sleep another night underwater myself?

OP posts:
WorraLiberty · 15/07/2012 00:30

Why in God's name would anyone want to sleep in a wet tent...let alone make a child do it?

YABU and fuck that for a laugh.

TandB · 15/07/2012 00:30

As long as he isn't "still, pale and, to all appearances, dead" you are probably okay. But you should make sure that he isn't subjected to any sort of stress as that is well-known, in E B-D world, to bring on a sudden case of TB and a rapid decline.

And don't get pregnant - you might have 3 sets of twins. All at once.

My great-aunts used to live next to E B-D. [random claim to fame emoticon]

timetosmile · 15/07/2012 00:30

Go home, have a nice warm shower and a cup of tea made with water boiled in your electric kettle, and snuggle down in your bissfully warm, dry beds.

Are you close enough to go back again for the day tomorrow?

If not, you're right, there's always another time.

WorraLiberty · 15/07/2012 00:31

YANBU even!

LadyBeagleEyes · 15/07/2012 00:31

Wuss but I would have done exactly the same.
It was supposed to be fun and a break, sleeping in a leaky tent with wet sleeping bags is neither.
I'm sure there will be other chances.

ChippingInNeedsCoffee · 15/07/2012 00:32

SGB - don't be bloody daft Grin You are neither a horrible irresponsible mother nor a wuss. Sadly you are just 'normal' - not something you aspire to I know Grin

Bloody shame though that you've had to go home - I hope you go into poundstretches and get your money back & some compensation!!

missmakesstuff · 15/07/2012 00:32

Don't beat yourself up about it, camping is MISERABLE when wet...

I should know, we are camping next weekend and then the following two weekends, in Ireland...

Just get yourself a lovely bell tent...plus a heater, an electric hook up, and a nice aerobed, then it is like being at home and marginally worth it.

justaboutisnowakiwi · 15/07/2012 00:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

maras2 · 15/07/2012 00:35

I'm sure that you're a very lovely mother SGB.However why in the name all's holy did you even go to this gig when you should have stayed home and taught the kids to build an ark.Sod the steam train.It's a learning curve :)

pictish · 15/07/2012 00:35

Once you're wet, that's it. It's over. If it's raining, nothing will ever dry. You did what you had to.
Save up and invest more in a tent.

OldLadyKnowsNothing · 15/07/2012 00:36

I was most irritated when I found that our brand new tent had not had the seams waterproofed. Had to buy stuff and paint it all over the stitch holes. Wonder if this is the same thing?

Original poster
solidgoldbrass · 15/07/2012 00:42

We're home now, and at least two hours ago DS had a hot bath, a mug of hot chocolate, and is tucked up in his own nice dry bed (before anyone calls the police...) I suppose I feel most guilty about knowing the tent was a bit leaky when we bedded down in it - but by that time it was too late to go home and/or do anything but make the best of it.

OP posts:
maras2 · 15/07/2012 00:52

So glad that you're all nice ,warm and snuggly.I flipping well hate being cold and damp and am sick of this bastard weather.I can see us swimming to the Cropredy festival in August.

bogeyface · 15/07/2012 00:53

If you had stayed I would have said YABU, but bringing him home rather than put him through that again is a good thing. I fail to see what you could have done last thing last night about it other than make the best of a bad situation.

In my dim and distant past I used to take my young DS (now 21...shit, when did I get old?!) to small festivals and got called "a boring fucking cunt", infront of him, because I was taking him and me back to our tent for sleep after the main stage finished. My "friends" were going back, with their young DCs, to another friends tent to smoke dope all night. Which they did. And then were vile to their kids to next day as the kids were tired and teary and the adults were tired and hungover. I was told that one fell asleep on the wet ground and it was sooooo funny Hmm. THAT is bad parenting.

Oh, and take the tent back!

MardyBra · 15/07/2012 00:55

Why would anyone want to sleep in a tent? Let alone a wet one? Wink

YANBU. It could have been a very long night.

bogeyface · 15/07/2012 00:55

It always rains at Cropredy Maras, its traditional :o

maras2 · 15/07/2012 01:03

Bogey,you're right.It's the law.See you there?

bogeyface · 15/07/2012 01:17

Last time I went was about ooh....10 years ago? I have too many kids to cope with festivals these days!

My best photo ever is of DD (now 10) as a butt naked 6 month old lying on her tummy in a field being guarded by half a dozen hairy arsed bikers, whilst surrounded by beer cans!

It is nowhere near as bad as it sounds, but the photo looks like she is rocking out all on her own :o

Original poster
solidgoldbrass · 15/07/2012 01:20

MardyBra: a decent tent is fine in the rain. It's actually quite cosy and nice to lie in your tent, all snug and watertight, and listen to the rain pelting on the outside of it. Well, up to the point when you realise that you actually want a wee...

OP posts:
bogeyface · 15/07/2012 01:31

up to the point where you remember that it wont be so romantic in the morning.... :o

I like wet tenting too, if only someone would lay concrete from my tent to, well, pretty much everywhere! A Portapotty is your friend SGB, I would trade my kids rather than give that up when tenting, and there is no way on earth I would go to a festival without one. The first time we went to a festival I said "no solids" on the portapotty. After my first visit to the "loos" I said that anything goes in there, cos atleast it was our poo I was dealing with and not one hundred random strangers poo!

BetsyBoop · 15/07/2012 08:07

YABU buying a tent from pound stretchers it's probably only 2000HH which is effectively "showerproof" (you need at least 3000HH)

Otherwise YANBU Grin

ToothbrushThief · 15/07/2012 08:16

I have camped twice when the tent leaked and numerous other times when I thought it would collapse in awful weather. Leaks are horrible and not to be endured. Fear is fun (in hindsight)

Shame you had to leave early but I would have done exactly the same

FredFredGeorge · 15/07/2012 08:28

You're a big wuss for using your DS as your excuse for heading home - especially as it was after you'd done all the things you wanted to do and were only not doing the steam train that he did...

But being wet all night is pretty miserable even if harmless so I can't blame you.

CamperWidow · 15/07/2012 22:22

Here's hoping it all clears up for the Cambridge and Shrewsbury Folk Fests..... taking a 2.10 DD and a 9mnth DD so I could really do with some dry!!!! Having said that, DD1 would love to live in her wellies and Peppa waterproof suit!!!! ;)

CelstialNavigation · 15/07/2012 23:10

"As long as he isn't "still, pale and, to all appearances, dead" you are probably okay"

Excellent!

Anyway OP, if it was an Elinor Brent-Dyer scenario, one wouldn't need to camp out. Standing briefly at an open door in winter was enough to give one bronchitis. Camping involved fishing up suspected dead bodies, falling into pits and actual plagues of locus from what I recall.