to keep saying no? i dont think i am btw...

[sexypantsformum]

i work term time only. have 3 kids, and a husband who works random shifts.
this half term i have had 3 ''friends'' ask me to ''have their kids to play.''
but each one has said this in a conversation about child care.
things like, i couldn't get x into club for mon and thurs, but you're not working, you don't mind having him over to play for a few hours do you?
or
ive been swapped to the early on monday and i need some help with y youre not working this week are you? can he come to you?
i know paying for child care in holidays is a killer. i have had to do it, which is one of the reasons why i changed my job for a lower paying one that is only in term time.
these are also the people who thought i was mental to take the job, because it was less money etc.
the kicker was the text i had this morning.
A has come down with a bug over night, so i cant send him to club, can he come and spend the day with you instead?
i said no, i have plans with the kids, (and tbh i don't want someone else's ill child to look after)
she then tells me i'm not very supportive, she had mine to play after school last week. and do i not realise how hard it is to be a working mum?!
i got sarky back and said. yes i do realise whats its like to work. i do work and that i didn't know that her offering to have my child over when it suited her meant i owed her a debt, but i thought that having had her boy all day saturday so she could go to a wedding might have paid that back already....
i do have the kids friends over, after school, weekends and holidays. but when it suits me. not as unpaid child care becuase they didn't arrange anything for themselves.
so am i being U?

YANBU - I'm a dinner lady. It means I get to drop off and pick up and have the holidays off. The amount of people who have asked whether I could have their child 'for a few hours' is unbelievable.

The school has terrible parking and when term starts after these Easter holidays the head teacher has informed us that the school car park will be closed as there is too much dangerous double parking etc.

I live near school (10 min walk) and have had a few mums ask if they can drop their child off at my house for me to walk them into school or walk them home so their parents don't have to battle to find somewhere to park.

NO I am not a walking bus service. Also, I could imagine them calling me up in the afternoon to say they are just running late and will be there in half an hour etc, so I would be a free babysitter too.

Bugger that!

zipzap the parent was still home so I watched him go back home and she let him in. I have no idea what happened after that.

I've also had a call from the school telling me that one of my son's friends was ill.

When I asked why they were calling me, they said his parents had put me down as an emergency contact number

I ended up collecting the child and telling the school one of his parents needs to leave work and pick him up from my house.

They arrived 3 hours later (child was asleep on my couch) and I ripped seven shades of strips off the cheeky bastards!

DSis & BIL have 2DC, she works part time and he does shifts so normally they manage between themselves for holiday care etc.

About 4 years ago a kid from 'around the corner' started knocking to play. Age wise he's in between both DNephews so they all played happily together.

Anyway all was going fine, the little kid was nice and polite etc only knocked Tues & Thur, you see where this is going. . .

All came out when he fell bumped his knee and wanted his Mum.
She was at work, they'd been providing free childcare for nearly 2 summers, and 2half terms without knowing. . .

Sis/BIL were both gobsmacked/furious, worried (about what little lad had done on the tues & Thurs they'd been out),then furious again.

BIL confronted them, and they really couldn't see what they'd done wrong, after all he'd been no trouble. . . .and they'd never complained. BILs comeback of well we didn't know we were providing free childcare/ being responsible adults for him. And they didn't answer when he asked what had happened to the kid on the days they weren't in, sent him home.

BIL still gets very agitated when it's mentioned, lots of 'well if they'd asked we'd have done it' 'why didn't they just ask? '

Being the big softies they were when little lad didn't show the next Tue they worried where he was, found out later that he'd started calling on a different family, as DSis & Bil had 'banned' him according to new family. And worst told little lad that DNs didn't want to play with him anymore.

DS did put them straight though.

Wow Worra, I think your experiences have topped the cheeky stakes. I think it's happening way more often than it used to because so many more mums are working outside the home full-time and their parents/siblings/other relatives are too. When I'm working at home I can stick my kids in front of a computer if necessary and know they'll be ok - when it's somebody else's kid I feel there is more responsibility to actually be involved/watch them because if something happened, the parents would blame me. That's why they need to pay a babysitter/holiday camp because I definitely do not want to be perceived as a possible cheaper option when it's just as much work.

I once had a party for my son when he was four and invited a girl from his class he really liked. Party time came and a mum I know from another street turned up with THREE kids in tow that had knocked on her door looking for "the party" - the original invited kid, her 7 year old brother and their TWO year old sister in a buggy. Apparently they had been wandering about for a while :(

I took them all in even though I was seriously miffed. The two year old was sick and had a fever as well. At home time there was no sign of the mum - unsurprisingly really as she had earlier dumped them on the wrong street. She never turned up and eventually the 7 year old boy piped up that he'd take them all home, he'd done it before, it would be fine. They lived about a mile from us! Over several busy roads! I had family coming for a meal so another mum took them all home - their mum wasn't in and no-one was at home. She then took them to the police station. It was all very awkward at school after that - we were all in the wrong it seemed - and eventually the family moved away. The whole thing really upset me. Not so much that she saw a party invite as a babysitting opportunity for her whole family, but that she really didn't give a damn where and who her children were with.