Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Wibu? Was he? Or is it just to be expected?

83 replies

EngineeringExcellence · 29/10/2013 18:22

U took my 2 DSs and a friend each swimming today. They swam for 2+ hours and we lleft just after 5pm. Journey home is less than 10min.

As we left one of the friends asked "are we going to McDs or somewhere? No I said we're going home. "can we have something from the cafe then?" and then the vending machine.

WIBU not to offer food? It wasn't part of the invite and I was taking them to their own homes for tea. I know youre hungry when you get out of the pool but he only had 10mins to wait..

11yo

OP posts:
fragola · 29/10/2013 19:23

YANBU, it is no hardship to wait for food until you get home, just 10 minutes after swimming!

AnotherStatistic21 · 29/10/2013 19:24

I think after two hours of swimming anyone would have been thirsty.
A little snack wouldn't of hurt.

newtonupontheheath · 29/10/2013 19:31

I always take a drink (carton or normal cup w/ spout) and a snack. I did used to take crisps but now I take a banana and ds has that or nothing and "proper" food when he gets home.

I refuse to get into the vending machine habit just yet. I say I've got no money with me Wink

Maybe the friend was used to long to mcdonalds after swimming as part of the treat with parents? We always used to go for chips afterwards. In saying that, I would have never asked somebody else's parents!!

MrsTerryPratchett · 29/10/2013 19:36

Another one here who always had a hot chocolate after swimming. Weird.

parakeet · 29/10/2013 19:46

There are some seriously misinformed posters on here, thinking an 11-year-old is going to get dehydrated simply because he has to wait 10 minutes for a drink after going swimming. Two hours of athletics on a baking hot day, maybe...

Anyway, he wasn't asking for a drink, he was asking for a MacDonalds. Your children will not expire if they go without food and drink for two hours and ten minutes! And yes, OP, I would hope my children would not be so cheeky as to give that performance too.

ForalltheSaints · 29/10/2013 19:52

You did not take them to McDonalds. Good on you.

elah11 · 29/10/2013 19:54

Wow I can't believe how many people would buy or bring drinks and snacks for children after swimming when they were only ten minutes away from home! It wouldn't even occur to me to buy stuff, I would just bring them home and if someone brought my child swimming I would never expect them to buy snacks after.

CoffeeTea103 · 29/10/2013 19:58

I could never say no to a child who asked for food. How do you even do that.

cory · 29/10/2013 20:05

But Coffee, they were on their way to have food. In 10 minutes.

Are you saying if you were heading home for a meal, you would feel obliged to stop at McDonald's instead because your 11yo was asking for food and you could never say no.

What do you expect his teacher to do if he asks for food in the middle of the maths lesson? Remind him that he has to wait 10 minutes or rush out to get him a burger?

puntasticusername · 29/10/2013 20:11

YA all BVU. Everyone knows you have Monster Munch from the vending machine after swimming.

fragola · 29/10/2013 20:15

Quite easily Coffee.

Mim78 · 29/10/2013 20:19

It's up to you if you wanted to take them for anything afterwards or not. If there was a water fountain then it wasn't doing them any harm not to get them anything, especially as they were 10 mins from home. I would probably have brought something with me for afterwards and usually have water, but I wouldn't have thought it was a big deal for someone not to, or to have forgotten. I think you were right to get them home asap. And their parents might have been annoyed if you'd given them snacks right before tea.

The McDs was cheeky though! And the cafe.

If they were thirsty they could have asked you politely for a drink.

They definitely didn't have a right to expect you to buy them stuff - I don't think I'd have been asking someone else's parents for things like that when I was 11!

Liara · 29/10/2013 20:21

Yanbu. At all. It would not cross my mind to offer food to an 11yo who is going to be home in 10 minutes.

And he was rude to ask too.

ChippingInNeedsANYFUCKER · 29/10/2013 20:23

We always had a drink and a snack after swimming - when kids have been in the pool for 2 hours they're starving. You say money wasn't an issue, so why not buy them all a drink and some crisps or a chocolate bar. After 2 hours in the pool that's not going to touch the sides, let alone put them off their dinner.

I think you were a bit po-faced about it actually.

Without being there, it's a bit hard to know if he was rude - or 'just asking' because it's what his family does & he was starving.

BeCoolFucker · 29/10/2013 20:26

Over 2 hours swimming? I think any child would be eating your arm off after a good swim like that. They would have been starving.

As it was just before dinner I'd have had a banana and drink ready for them minimum.

BeCoolFucker · 29/10/2013 20:28

Do you really specify if you will be offering a snack or not when you invite another child out?

Jan49 · 29/10/2013 20:29

If the arrangement was that they were going swimming and then going back to their own homes to eat, I wouldn't expect to offer them anything other than maybe a drink of water or other drink. It's good that they're starving after swimming if they're going home to eat straight after.

It seems to spoil the point of the exercise if your kids eat a load of junk food every time you go.

littlewhitebag · 29/10/2013 20:31

After 2 hours swimming my kids at that age would be almost passing out with hunger. I always got mine a small snack and it never stopped them eating tea. What happened to the notion of a chittery bite (ie a snack after swimming when you were chittering with cold and hunger)?

WilsonFrickett · 29/10/2013 20:35

Aw littlewhitebag you beat me to it, I was just about to say 'what about the chittery bite?'.

It sounds to me like the boy was hungry/or that his parent normally takes them to MacD's or the cafe after swimming. Or both. At 11 you don't always realise that just because your family does things one way it's not always the same everywhere else.

Alternatively, maybe his mum is a rubbish cook and he fancied something else? Grin

ginmakesitallok · 29/10/2013 20:36

Yabu. It is the law that after swimming children must be given a shivery bite.

WilsonFrickett · 29/10/2013 20:36

My chittery was always flat coke (from the weird machine you never saw anywhere else other than council buildings, which sort of stirred the concentrate with the fizzy water to make a flat drink) and sausage and tomato golden wonder crisps... them were the days.

Notmadeofrib · 29/10/2013 20:38

This is why so many people are fat. OP you are totally reasonable, eveyone is bloody snack and food obsessed!

Notmadeofrib · 29/10/2013 20:39

... water though!

amicissimma · 29/10/2013 20:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

kmc1111 · 29/10/2013 20:41

Gosh. 11yr old's should be perfectly capable of taking themselves to the water fountain if they are thirsty, but even if for some reason they aren't, they aren't going to die of dehydration after a couple of hours of exercise (especially when they've all likely swallowed a litre of pool water). Do people really pack snacks or get anxious because the DC haven't eaten in a couple of hours when they're that age? My eldest DC foraged for themselves well before then, if they'd wanted a snack after swimming when we were going straight home for lunch or dinner they'd have grabbed something beforehand from home or they'd have used part of their allowance to get themselves junk from the vending machine.