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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To just want people to stop nagging us about not having a landline!?

85 replies

Cookethenook · 18/10/2013 13:09

This is probably the most boring subject ever, but i'm getting so annoyed with the more senior members of our family insisting that we have a landline and that emails and voicemails get answered the second we get them.

We both have mobile phones, which we are contactable on most of the time. We have a landline for the internet, but no landline phone as we had issues with not being able to make outgoing calls and the last time we tried to sort it out, it cost us £8 SODDING POUNDS in phone bills. Also both of us have more than enough minutes and texts on our phones to be able to call. I do understand it's more expensive to call a mobile from a BT landline, so i've said it's fine to call/ text and say 'can you call me back?' in order to save our family the bill.

But every time i speak to my parents, or aunts and uncles, i'm constantly nagged about how difficult it is for them to get in contact with us, how expensive it is and how we don't call them back straight away. We often get icy phone calls saying 'i left a message yesterday, why haven't you called us back?' It is driving me UP THE WALL! We are guilty of not calling back straight away, as we have children (1 small baby, so i don't pick up the phone during his nap time) and are busy a lot of the time as we pack a lot into our weekends, but we do call back straight away if it's urgent and at least get back to them during the next day or two. I've even been 'told off' about not commenting on one of their facebook comments on my posts! It's bloody ridiculous!

It is really starting to cause me stress, but i don't want to sound rude or like i don't want to speak to them (because i do!). Should i just give in and get the landline fixed or stand my ground? ARGH!

OP posts:

hiddenhome · 18/10/2013 13:12

YANBU

A lot of people don't even use their landline these days due to all the scam calls you receive and the fact that mobiles are usually with us all the time. I don't bother answering our landline. If they want me, they have my mobile number.

Funghoul · 18/10/2013 13:16

Stand your ground! We don't have a landline because of minutes on mobile and noone has complained. People also know that if we don't answer, it's because we have a 5 month old baby! It's not always practical to answer the phone. In an emergency, and we had one earlier this week, people text and we call back ASAP. Getting a landline doesn't mean you'll answer the phone or return messages straight away, because you'll still have the same constraints on your time.

imnotwhoyouthinkiam · 18/10/2013 13:17

My nanny often tells.me that if I can only afford one phone it should be a landline not sure how only being contactable on the rare occasion I'm at home is useful!

DidoTheDodo · 18/10/2013 13:24

I can see this from both sides. Of course it is annoying for you - and if you have free minutes on a mobile, of course you'd use them. But I am one of those people who still has, and uses, a landline and actually prefer it. My mobile is pay as you go, so no free minutes there.

And yes, it costs so much to ring mobiles from it I refuse to do so!

But your parents etc must feel as though they can't speak to you when it is convenient for them (it will always be your choice of time to call them) and maybe they feel rather sidelined?

chicaguapa · 18/10/2013 13:27

I might not have RTFT properly but it seems like you're saying either:

(a) phone me on a mobile at a more expensive rate so you can speak to me immediately or
(b) text me and ask me to call you back, which I will do at a time that's convenient for me within a day or two unless it's urgent.

Which is all fair enough - it's your choice. But you can see why people might feel it was difficult or irksome getting in contact with you. Because it sounds like it is.

At least if they left a message on your home phone you can pretend you were out.

friday16 · 18/10/2013 13:27

We do have a landline, and I think not having one is a new world of social etiquette which will take a few years to settle down.

The reason we have one is that it implements what I think (two adults, two teenage children) is a pretty useful set of properties: "if anyone's at home, could you answer, otherwise I'll leave a message for whoever gets back first". It's ringing the house, not ringing an individual. "Your (whatever) is ready for collection". "Could someone put the oven on". "I'm going to nip over with a box of apples off the tree, will anyone be in". Those sort of things. Mobiles are rubbish for that, because you end up speaking to someone who's not around, but tells you who is. I got a phone call recently on my mobile to tell me my daughter's glasses were ready for collection, which given I was in Argentina at the time (a) cost me a quid and (b) wasn't terribly useful.

There is, also, the problem of cost. Sure, if the person who's calling you has a mobile, and thinks first, it's in their bundled minutes. But most people over about forty reach first for the landline if they're at home, and make calls on that. And your elderly relatives, if they have mobiles at all, will probably have PAYG and therefore not have "bundled minutes". Mobiles are also usually shit for sound quality, so I would much rather make a landline-to-landline call than have one of the parties as a mobile, and as I get older and deafer that becomes more true.

This will all sort itself out. It's not long ago that phones lived on the table in the hall because it was common to have one in the sitting room. Things are changing. But the generation who have had mobiles most of their adult life (probably those aged thirty-ish) would do well to remember that if you're fifty, and had a mobile phone by the time you were thirty, you were an early adopter. Landlines are buried very deep in our cultural psyche, and I don't think it's quite as easy as just saying "get a grip!".

My parents and my in-laws always phone the landline, even though they all have mobiles, because what they want to do is speak to one of us if we're at home (and therefore by implication neither at work nor driving nor in a cinema), otherwise maybe leave a message, maybe not. Short of having a spare mobile in the house on permanent charge (I've thought of that), it's not easy to replicate those properties with personal mobiles.

WaitingForMe · 18/10/2013 13:32

Recognise that it is their problem not yours and when they complain, point out that you are not answerable to them.

DHs family used to have quite an entitled attitude but now only bitch to each other rather than to us that in our house 24 hours is the polite response time and not 24 minutes.

WorraLiberty · 18/10/2013 13:32

Why do you make them wait a couple of days before you bother ringing them back?

Original poster

Cookethenook · 18/10/2013 13:32

Just to be clear, if they call and ask us to phone them back, we will do so straight away. It's only with texts, voicemails and missed calls it might take a while for us to get back to them.

OP posts:

OHforDUCKScake · 18/10/2013 13:33

Im totally with you OP.

No one has my home phone number apart from my sons school and Im pretty sure they call my mobile phone anyway.

Ds is 2 now but when he was a baby and sleeping in the living room during the day in his basket or my arms, no way do I want a shrill phone waking him up. I cant turn my mobile on silent. Which it is 90% of the time.

I can see who is calling and whether I should get it or not. Of course I would answer to family, but if the house phone was to blare, who do I know who it is?

No. House phones are big ball ache.

SuperiorCat · 18/10/2013 13:33

YANBU I am trying to persuade DH to let go of the landline.

We would always call back anyone who rang us to save them the expense

Original poster

Cookethenook · 18/10/2013 13:34

Because we're doing other things worra .

OP posts:

Original poster

Cookethenook · 18/10/2013 13:35

Our situations sound very similar ohforduckscake !

OP posts:

chicaguapa · 18/10/2013 13:36

Good points friday. When MIL phones, she's hoping the GC will pick up but has to take pot luck.

livinginwonderland · 18/10/2013 13:39

We don't have a house phone. Well, we do, but the battery is dead and has been for about four months. No big deal, really. We both have minutes on our mobiles and on the rare occasionn the home phone rung, we generally ignored it anyway.

Phones are basically the equivalent of someone standing in front of you saying "speak to me now, speak to me now!". People are under no obligation to answer their phones or return your calls immediately if they don't want to.

givemeaboost · 18/10/2013 13:40

don't you find it hugely expensive to phone certain numbers from your mobile?? numbers like 0845/ 0745/ sky etc

my friend has a new contract with 1000 mins but has gone over his allowance this month just from ringing sky and being on the phone for 45 minutes - had I known he was planning to ring them I would of advised to ring off the house phone!!

JeanSeberg · 18/10/2013 13:41

I can also see both sides.

You have a mobile and are rarely at home so what's the point of having a landline.

But from your family's point of view it must seem like they have to make an appointment to speak to you.

Can you initiate more phone calls to them so that they don't need to ring you so often?

Caitlin17 · 18/10/2013 13:41

The only reason we have a landline is for internet access. We don't have or want cable TV so we can't get broad band that way.

I am thinking of getting rid of it and replacing it with 3's mobile WiFi which for internet only looks more expensive than BT but to get BT internet I have to pay for the landline as well and which is almost never used.

LeBearPolar · 18/10/2013 13:42

I still have a landline for the simple reason that if I call family, sometimes we can be chatting for 30 mins to an hour. And until the research into links between cordless/mobile phones and cancer is producing much more reassuring findings than it currently is, I'm sticking with my landline! Mobile phones for me are just for texts and quick two minute 'can you pick up some milk' calls.

friday16 · 18/10/2013 13:47

but if the house phone was to blare, who do I know who it is?

Because it's 2013, and you have caller display on your home phone just the same as you have it on your mobile?

3birthdaybunnies · 18/10/2013 13:47

Our house phone only rings 6 times before goes to virgin voicemail so is a PITA to get to. Plus there is no visible sign that there is a message so can be a few days before we pick it up and discover any messages. We used to have a physical answer phone but if the dc pulled the lead out we lost messages completely. Mobiles are much easier to manage messages on in my experience. Still use landline to ring out as cheaper for us but can see your perspective.

fluffyraggies · 18/10/2013 13:51

What i find baffling is that my mother clearly thinks it's rude for me to reply to a text message that comes in while i'm in her compnay from DH or whatever (and trust me - this is ONE message, sometimes - i'm not that popular :) )

... and yet expects a land line call to be answered come hell or high-water.

Surely it's no more rude to interrupt a conversation to answer the phone in your handbag as it is to answer the one in your lounge?

friday16 · 18/10/2013 13:52

Our house phone only rings 6 times before goes to virgin voicemail so is a PITA to get to.

You can change that to ten.

fluffyraggies · 18/10/2013 13:54

Friday - we've only just got caller display (literally 2 weeks ago) as the company we were with before didn't offer that service.

And don't start me on the messages on the answer phone from my mother going -

''hellooooooooooooooooo? Is there anybody theeeeeeeeeeeere? HUMPH ''

Mother - i have told you we cant hear the answer machine if we're not there. We cant hear the answer machine if we ARE there either - the main base is upstairs. Just leave a proper bloody message!

Original poster

Cookethenook · 18/10/2013 13:55

I call my parents twice a week, sometimes more, so they have no excuse! I SHOULD call my aunts and uncles more, so i will try to make more of an effort.

caitlin it drives me up the wall that you have to pay for a landline in order to get the internet. We thought about getting a dongle, but none had good coverage in our area.

OP posts:

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