Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think that some parents just don't care?

162 replies

SarahAJ · 23/10/2013 19:06

Firstly, I know it sounds bad to judge other parents but just as a GENERAL impression of what other parents reckon.The situation is thus.....My DD (reception) is due to start the Read, Write, Inc programme at school. As such, the teachers arranged a great meeting/presentation to help the parents understand the system and show how they can help their children learn to read/write/spell. It was only 45 minutes, starting after drop-off. Out of 50 pupils, less than twenty parents turned up. Its not the first meeting that hardly anyone has attended (we have been to them ALL)and I find it disrespectful to the teachers and quite disgusted that some parents just don't bother.Before anyone mentions the "some parents have to work..... " stuff at me, I fully understand this as both myself and DP work but isn't your childs education important enough to get half a morning off?! My biggest priority right now is my DD's early education. Rant over. Don't get your knickers in a twist too much. Its just a general thing I was wondering. Ta muchly.

OP posts:
mumandboys123 · 23/10/2013 21:13

I care about my children's education very, very much. But I'm on my own, my ex is next to useless, and I work full time as a teacher. I can't always be there. In fact, it often feels to me that other people's children are more important than my own. My head would not consider me leaving early to attend such an 'event', however supportive he tries to be of his staff's personal circumstances. I speak with my children's teachers regularly, but I do it when I'm picking them up, usually between 5pm - 6pm, from afterschool club. I also e-mail them if I'm concerned about anything. Perhaps they should display a list of the contact every parent has had with them to stop parents like you make judgments about us?

Perhaps you would prefer that I fulfill the lone parent stereotype, get myself sacked, go on benefits and then not bother with my children? would that make you more comfortable? My job is important to me - I love the kids I work with and the people around me, my children depend on me working for the roof over their heads, food on the table....I can't just 'book an afternoon' off to please people like you.

maddening · 23/10/2013 21:14

If it is so important then the school should run two sessions one in the evening and one in a morning - not everyone can get time off and that should be accounted for.

Hulababy · 23/10/2013 21:15

20/50 is pretty good going ime of these kind of things. We run ours after school, about 7pm for an hour. Out of 90 pupils it is common for only get 20/30. Rarely the ones you actually want to get. In school time turn out is often even worse.

However, I do understand how hard it is for working parents to do such things esp in school hours. I work in a school. I can't take half a morning off, regardless of what the talk is on. I need to save up any grace for the odd morning/afternoon off for things like nativity, school assembly or sports dy - the times when it is really important to DD that I attend.

MissBetseyTrotwood · 23/10/2013 21:19

YABU - very. I'm a teacher - should I take time off from teaching someone else's children to attend workshops? Don't think their parents would like that much.

I have an older child who has learned to read recently. I know how it was done.

Hope the judgeypants weren't too uncomfortable as you sat through the meeting.

LynetteScavo · 23/10/2013 21:24

YABU.

I work school hours term time only, and are therefor not able to take holidays whenever I like.

There is NO WAY my boss would OK time off for this. I would do my best to make sure DH could attend (which, in all honesty, unless we had LOTS of notice would be unlikely), and then resign myself to not going and have a little weep to myself.

Grandparents can be deployed to nativity plays and class assemblies, but not to meetings like these.

I get school to re-arrange IEP meetings to my convenience, and am grateful reading/phonics/maths evening have always been in the evenings when I could attend. I haven't thought single parents who can't get a baby sitter so they could go to the meetings don't care about their DC education. Hmm

Again, YABU.

friday16 · 23/10/2013 21:30

Don't you just hate the smug perfect parent....

When my children were of a similar age, I had a job where casually taking a morning off was very easy, so I started going to these sorts of events. The school had a sequence of workshops through Y1, as I recall. I stopped going, because they were full of a mixture of sanctimonious show-offs and obnoxious bullies.

There were the people who were primary teachers but had gone part-time since having children, who took the opportunity to point out that they were professionals, don'cha'know, and as teachers knew far more about whatever the topic of the presentation was than anyone else, including the people giving it. They'd engage in obscure debates about the nature of phonemes, desperate to catch the teacher out (there's a thread over in Primary at the moment about whether or not "so" is a sight word, which has a bunch of primary teachers desperately trying to top each other) but also to show off to the other parents that they Knew, while other parents Did Not Know.

There were the aggressively aspirational parents who were secondary teachers and university lecturers, similarly gone part time, who wanted their children to be reading at three and viewed primary teaching as all a bit trivial, really. They would ask questions like "I'm concerned that you aren't teaching my son about negative numbers in year 1, because it seems so important to understand that the number line stretches in both directions" and look around them to check we all realised how how clever they were. The father who did this the most frequently, an alcoholic secondary teacher, appeared completely indifferent to the fact that his children were struggling desperately with the syllabus as it stood.

There were the slightly dippy mothers who regarded spending money on a haircut as an extravagance, a waste of money that could be better spent on their children. They would say things like "this is all very well, but don't you think it's more important that the children should be happy and playing?", a premise I'd be very inclined to support if it didn't mean that they'd then start talking to me about fucking homeopathy afterwards. A subset of those were Very Religious, and would always take the chance to make sure that the books being used that year didn't include The Books That Cannot Be Named. Yes, this was a school where, thankfully to mass derision, a couple of religious whackjob parents got up a petition about Harry Potter, who they wanted banned for various incoherent reasons but not because the books are baggy, badly written and dull.

And then there would be the relentlessly dim parents who would interrupt every presentation on maths to give their half-remembered accounts of being at school in 1976, the year in which (it would appear) arithmetical techniques reached their very zenith, since when all change has been decay (yes, the day they explained chunking was horrendous, since you ask, with the aforementioned alcoholic coming close to blows with the headmaster over long multiplication).

People outside these groups just cowered and let them get on with it, and as the year went by just didn't show up. The people that needed to know, or at least would have benefitted from being told, were driven away by a small hardcore of people whose every question screamed "I Am In The Room, You Know", and who either knew the answer already or were certain not to like it when they were told. It was, all told, a complete waste of everyone's time. I wanted to scream "shut the fuck up and listen" but, to my shame, just skulked away.

arethereanyleftatall · 23/10/2013 21:34

I didn't go. Like others dd can already read and write before reception. What have you being the past 4 years op. Do you not care?

tshirtsuntan · 23/10/2013 21:35

Exactly the same happened with me- same system, same time, the only reason I know we're not at the same school is that out of sixty potential parents six turned up!! ( including me) work, other commitments are not the only reason as when I went through the other hall where a coffee morning was taking place it was rammed..quite a lot of reception parents in the crowd. Make of that what you will Hmm

LynetteScavo · 23/10/2013 21:37

friday16 Grin]

You have made me how.

You are my new best friend. Grin

Phineyj · 23/10/2013 21:46

Friday what a fantastic sitcom that would make. Sorry you had to sit through it in real life though Grin

shallweshop · 23/10/2013 21:48

Friday - that is just one of the best accounts of a parent/teacher meeting I have read! I recognise all of the characters in my own DC's school.
OP - I think you are being very unreasonable to assume that parents don't turn up to these things because they don't care. Hopefully you can see that now.

morethanpotatoprints · 23/10/2013 21:56

OP when my eldest ds started school there was a similar thing, this is going back many many years. I had no baby sitter for ds2 who was a noisy tot and couldn't go.
I made a separate appointment, teacher happy to facilitate this.

Some parents don't care, but the majority will have been working or couldn't find baby sitters.

You would do well to stop concerning yourself with other parents caring capabilities and concontrating on being a good parent yourself, and less judgemental

Dawndonnaagain · 23/10/2013 21:56

My dh cannot go to the lavatory without me. If the care doesn't turn up, I don't get out. I care about my children,I care about dh, too.

ZangelbertBingeldac · 23/10/2013 21:57

AIBU to be enjoying the mauling you're getting? Blush

Sorry OP!

Katkins1 · 23/10/2013 22:00

YABU

Well done for going to them all, what a marvellous super parent you must be. The children will all be at pretty much the same level by the time that they finish reception anyway.

What if I just didn't want to go something like this, and that was my choice? Get over yourself.

ThePinkOcelot · 23/10/2013 22:02

Well, I had to take a day off last week for a teachers strike, so there is no way I could take time off this week to attend a meeting on reading.

Katkins1 · 23/10/2013 22:06

Why are people explaining themselves to the OP? You don't have to justify yourselves. You either went or didn't, or go to things like this or don't. Its none of her business either way.

Feminine · 23/10/2013 22:12

op has said sorry btw.

DuckToWater · 23/10/2013 22:22

Has anyone also pointed out that half the parents may already have children at the school and know how it is taught?

Also you don't really need to attend these sessions. All you need to do is read to and with your children, show them where maths and science crop up in every day life and encourage them with homework. It's not rocket science.

When I can see a reading record that hasn't been written in by a parent for months of a child who could really do with the reading practice then I might raise an eyebrow, but not attending these sessions does not equal not caring.

DuckToWater · 23/10/2013 22:29

And another thing. When DD1 started school the teacher put an explanation of the phonics scheme on the class website and I read it. Bob's your uncle.

Swimmyfishy · 23/10/2013 22:38

My children are my world ( sorry a bit slushy!). I have very little annual leave remaining and am not allowed time off without a months notice. Therefore if the school suddenly 'spring' an event or a meeting on us as they do i cant have time off. I managed to attend one evening to be told by the head teacher that " just by being here shows you care" thus implying those who werent dont! So yeah YABU, and this view makes my blood boil!

DesperatelySeekingSedatives · 23/10/2013 22:43

DP would be at work at that time of the morning and get any time off at say, less than 2-3 weeks notice, even if someone has died.

I don't work but only ever been to one of these types of meetings as toddler DS doesn't tolerate hanging about for them especially when hes raring to go for the day. Teachers have always offered me and other parents the chance to go through it all at a more convenient time.

YABU and sound a bit smug and patronising to assume other parents do not care as much as you do.

Fakebook · 23/10/2013 22:47

I have a small toddler and a DH who works away and long hours. I did attend quite a few of Dd's parent work shops in foundation but found that I actually have enough common sense to help aid Dd's learning at home without having to attend them with a fidgety toddler.

I do care about my Dd's education, that's why she's above average in all areas as I found out at parents evening. I do a lot with her at home.

FredFredGeorge · 23/10/2013 22:53

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't go to it, because it just sounds a really crap way to spend an hour when I could be playing with my DD to get the information I could get in 5 minutes (if I really needed to know it anyway, why do you need to know the techniques teachers are going to use?)

So yes, I wouldn't be there because I couldn't be arsed, judge me all you want, spending time with my kids would be more important than some education meeting...

ouryve · 23/10/2013 22:57

Some parents have to be at work at certain times, with little leeway. Others might have older kids and already know. Others might simply already know. Other may feel that they can find enough out in other ways.

Nice of you to judge, though, OP.