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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Big row. Festival or GCSE results? Is DS BU or me?

131 replies

slambang · 18/03/2013 21:26

The scenario: Ds (16) is going to a festival with friends in August. (Borrowing money from me and paying me back from his paper round.) He's sensible, hard working, aiming high.

The issue: Festival proper starts Thursday but friends (also yr 11) are buying early bird tickets to get to festival on Wednesday (best camping spots, unsigned acts playing). Ds wants to go early too. But the Thursday is GCSE results day.

I say DS should go to festival on Thursday after picking up his results. He can meet friends there. I will take him if there's no lift to share. He should be keen to find out his results.

Ds says his results are not going to change if he doesn't collect them until the next week. He doesn't need to know them immediately. He wants to go on the Wednesday.

(This is the polite version and I'm trying to be fair to both sides. Swear words were used. Wink)

Jury please!

OP posts:
Remotecontrolduck · 18/03/2013 21:50

Only insist he picks them up if he feels he may have under performed. If he needs certain grades to get into college or to get onto an A Level course and misses them, it needs to be sorted out quickly.

Otherwise YABU, it really doesn't matter, the results won't change. He is grown up enough to manage his own priorities.

SwedishEdith · 18/03/2013 21:52

Can you imagine if he picks up his results and they're awful! (I know they won't be) It'd ruin his weekend.

Anyway, you know YABU now Smile

kim147 · 18/03/2013 21:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Talkinpeace · 18/03/2013 21:53

I was away for my A level results.
they were still crap when I got back to the UK.

OP
Let him go.

ShipwreckedAndComatose · 18/03/2013 21:55

Let him go! He's bloody earned it with the studying and will be back studying again in the sixth form...so he deserves a summer!

Original poster
slambang · 18/03/2013 21:56

Yes Mystery (nice to have a single voice of agreement, thanks!). That's what I'd imagined. Smile

OP posts:
IncognitoIsMyFavouriteWord · 18/03/2013 21:56

He should go Wednesday. They'll post them out to him and he can read them when gets back.

Let him have fun. you're only young once.

Original poster
slambang · 18/03/2013 21:58

We'll see....

OP posts:
Milliways · 18/03/2013 22:02

Is he going to Reading/Leeds? We live in Reading and at the school on results day it is full of festival goers in wellies collecting results. Some set up camp on Wednesday and go home to return on Friday, some get friends to put their tents up to reserve them a space, but the rest just get the bus to school from the town. The local paper usually has photos of festival goers with results.

This year DS collects his A level results just before heading off to V festival.

I agree with collecting them yourself if possible and then opening them with him on the phone at an agreed time.

QueenOfIndecision · 18/03/2013 22:02

i rang for my GCSE results from a festival. i had left on the thursday morning but i seem to recall they weren't out till lunchtime.

they were fine and even if they weren't i don't think i'd've been able to do much that day anyway.
mind you it is now, um coming up 23 years later. the whole procedure didn't stop me going on to do a levels and 3 degrees including a doctorate.
on the basis of my experience i'd let him go.

BarredfromhavingStella · 18/03/2013 22:04

YABVU, but you already know that Wink
Let him go on the Wednesday, results will be there & the same when he gets back.

Original poster
slambang · 18/03/2013 22:10

Yes Milliways and we're not far away. Coming back to pick up the results is an option if ds is able to wake up

OP posts:
Original poster
slambang · 18/03/2013 22:13

Oh, not a V stella ! I don't deserve a V, do I?

OP posts:
70isaLimitNotaTarget · 18/03/2013 22:14

Aww slambag

go-wan go-wan go-wan (Mrs Doyle voice)

You're relenting aren't ya? Wink

birdofthenorth · 18/03/2013 22:21

When my finals results came through I was at work all day and to my mum's utter frustration I did not phone through for them until 4:30pmish (they were available from early morning). Tbh it was probably psychological rather than practical barriers delaying me. But the fact that my parents were having kittens annoyed me and piled on the pressure. I remember this acutely and it was a decade ago!

As a parent now I can appreciated your total frustration with this diary clash but unless he is on the borderline between being able to pursue his chosen next steps or not (& therefore ability to act on the results quickly has real consequences), I would be inclined to agree with the posters who say it's his call.

ubik · 18/03/2013 22:22

OFGS

Let the kid go to the festival with his pals. Get the results when he comes back.

quoteunquote · 18/03/2013 22:22

Let him go, it will not change a thing.

livinginwonderland · 18/03/2013 22:24

i was on holiday when my gcse results came out and it was better for me. i wasn't stressed or worrying, unlike when i got my a-levels where i was sat at home feeling sick with worry (admittedly, a-levels are more important but it was still nicer not sitting around worrying!

like your son said, his results won't change if he waits a few days. let him go.

mummymeister · 18/03/2013 22:25

I was away (think it was reading festival but was a long time ago). made no difference to the results and actually being with friends and having something else to look forward to made me worry less about them in the weeks leading up to them. there is no need to be at school and indulge in the mass hysteria that the tv loves. I actually think your DC is being very grown up by deciding to be away and live his life rather than waiting to be herded like sheep into mass hysteria city that is results day. good on him and let him go.

poppypebble · 18/03/2013 22:27

When does he have to sort his sixth form place out? Our kids go straight from results in the hall up to the sixth form to enrol there and then.

Cherriesarelovely · 18/03/2013 22:36

I agree with your DS. I know it will be tantalising for you but good on him. He will have done all the hard work by then and should be able to make up his own mind about which day he goes to the festival.

Cherriesarelovely · 18/03/2013 22:36

Sorry, I didn't mean "good on him" for making it hard for you!!

Original poster
slambang · 18/03/2013 22:37

Thanks all. I'm going to sleep on it now but you've neeeearly persuaded me but I'll let ds sweat on it for a little longer.

Genuinely thanks to you all. I feel right but I guess with an almost unanimous response that maybe, just maybe, ds is the one NBU.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 18/03/2013 22:42

Kee-riste, I thought I was a tough nut to crack Wink

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 18/03/2013 22:42

slambang if you'd posted "my 16yo DS wants to go to a festival and he's got an exam the next day/week" then everyone would be tutt tut no way can he do that.

But if you givee this your OK then it'll incenticise (Is that a word?) to work hard knowing that he's got want he really wants?

Maybe??