to not carry my mobile phone with me everywhere I go?

[freddiefrog]

Nipped round to one of my neighbours yesterday to return something I had borrowed, ended up having a bit of a chat and was gone for about 15/20 minutes.

Came back to a message on my house answer phone and a message on my mobile voicemail from school asking me to call them back urgently.

Rang back in a panic, they wanted to give me a message about after school clubs last night.

Drop the kids off this morning and get a massive lecture about taking my mobile phone with me everywhere I go.

I take my phone if I'm going out-out, but not to nip round the neighbours/pop to the shop/run to the post box, etc.

I'm not always contactable straight away anyway even when I do have it with me, I can't be the only one who doesn't glue their mobile phone to them every time they leave the house

[Durab]

I work in a school office. If I need to contact someone about something non-urgent (like a club) I'd leave a message saying don't worry, nothing urgent, please call me when you can, or leave the actual message I needed to relay!! I know from experience how your heart stops when you get a call from school, so seem to start most of my conversations, with "nothing to worry about"

If a child is ill, I call all the numbers we've got and then wait. Most people, like OP, will call back within 20 mins or so and I'd consider that absolutely fine. It is frustrating though when you just can't get in touch and the poor child is sat there suffering for hours - which happens much more often than "normal" parents would expect. Even in that case though, whilst I might ask the parent (when they eventually turn up) if there is a better number to get them on for next time, I wouldn't dream of telling them off

OTOH, last week, a child had a nasty fall in the playground, lots of blood and an injury to mouth, very distressed. I wasn't able to look properly, because child wouldn't let me (and you don't force any child to be touched if they don't want to be!) I left messages on all the numbers we had for mum. After an hour I called step dad (not on this child's list, but we have his child in school). Step dad got in touch with mum and she turned up with in 20 mins, ranting that it had taken over an hour for us to "bother" to call her. No, actually, you never checked your messages!! You can't win

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

I had a situation where ds2's school were trying to contact me because he had fallen in the playground and they thought he'd broken his wrist. They tried both my home and mobile numbers with no result, and so rang dh. Luckily he was on his way home for a gp appointment anyway, so cancelled that, went to the school and took ds2 to A&E.

He later bollocked me for not answering my phone - but I was in the swimming pool at the gym.

OP YANBU - there are plenty of places where one might have one's phone switched off or on silent, and it is not unreasonable to leave your phone at home if you are nipping out briefly - I do it all the time.