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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Lifeguard at a kids party?

76 replies

BioSuisse · 11/06/2014 17:26

So this is more Are They Being Unreasonable...

A friend of mine invited us to her DD's birthday party on the weekend.

This friend is ridiculously wealthy and has a new house, built to her exact specifications with an outdoor olympic sized swimming pool. The pool is infinity and set into the decking (don't know if you even call it decking, it isn't wood it is freaking marble) so not surrounded by a safety gate and quite seamless.

The party was in the garden and though not specifically a pool party, friend was aware that guests might fancy a dip, seeing as the pool is freaking massive and over the weekend it was 34 degrees.

So friend hired a lifeguard. Her thoughts were that she wanted to relax and not worry about anyone falling into the pool.

Just come back from a playdate where some of the party guests were there, they were mocking friend for having a lifeguard present.

Personally i thought it was a sensible move. They thought it was over the top, another show of her wealth and another way of highlighting her freaking massive pool, which they also feel she shouldn't have built. ATBU?

OP posts:
chrome100 · 12/06/2014 12:27

OLYMPIC SIZED POOL?!?!?!??

TravelledByVacuumTube · 12/06/2014 12:45

I think your friend sounds very sensible (and generous), and for other parents to complain that she has considered their safety is absolutely ridiculous of them.

He11y · 12/06/2014 12:59

Don't tell her what they said as that would be mean and will leave her feeling bad.

But, if you overhear stuff like that again, I think you should say something, if only 'well I'm glad she thought about the safety of our children and my child had a great time.'

I don't know why people feel the need to bitch - it's so unnecessary!

nipersvest · 12/06/2014 13:07

as other have said, the lifeguard was sheer genius!

since you say over the weekend it was over 34 degrees, i'm going to guess you are not in the uk? so large swimming pools may well be a bit more commonplace.

wtffgs · 12/06/2014 13:15

Tell your Bond villainess mate that there is an orderly queue of MNers to replace her wankbadgery ex-friends. I will marshal the queue myself! Grin (Thoughtful like that, me Wink)

Now... when would she like us to arrive.....??!! Smile

Hissy · 12/06/2014 13:16

Who ELSE would have been 100% responsible for the kids in the water at all times?

If i were her, i'd have done the same thing. these frenemies are a bunch of jealous arses.

MiscellaneousAssortment · 12/06/2014 13:16

Brilliant idea, well done them!

I hate being trapped at a venue (by politeness as you can't walk out from a friends party!) which is unsafe, and you're being pressured to relax or mocked for being helicopter mother... I hate it more than most as I'm disabled so it causes me great pain and strain to be running around keeping my child from fire/ great heights or water.

[shudders] Remembers going to a friend of a friends BBQ, which turned out to be in a squat and was filthy, side open to a canal, bbq on an open fire just made on a patch of concrete and on scrubland with rusty wires half buried on the earth. Lesson = ask a bit more about friends of friends before tripping gaily towards health hazards with an 18 month old!

Hissy · 12/06/2014 13:16

And I'd LOVE to be invited next time too! :)

Aeroflotgirl · 12/06/2014 13:55

These 'friends' would be the first to blame the pool friend if anything happened to their child in the pool, you just can't win, so get rid.

Original poster
BioSuisse · 13/06/2014 17:48

No not in the UK. And yes i did tell my friend this morning that a few of the mums at her party made a few nasty comments at a playdate which i overheard.

So it turns out; she knows people are making bitchy comments and knows who they are AND apparently they are on MN too! Lets hope they are reading this thread. Sadly my friend has less friends now she has her new house than she had before. Lots of jealous people out there it seems.

And yes the pool is 50 x 25. It ain't no regular house.

OP posts:
MrsCakesPremonition · 13/06/2014 17:53

I would be making sure that I became a very, very good friend of lovely, kind, thoughtful, generous woman with ginormous pool.
And she does genuinely sound lovely.

honeybeeridiculous · 13/06/2014 18:09

She sounds lovely and sensible, I would have been pleased to see a lifeguard there, good for her
Now OP, please,please can we have a photo so we can see how the other half live Grin

LynetteScavo · 13/06/2014 18:34

I want to mix in circles where children mock each other fir having too many staff. Envy

Actually, having thought about it I really don't. Grin

I'm with the friend. I'd have a life guard. So easy for a child to drown at a party, IMO.

GrannyOnTheSchoolRun · 13/06/2014 18:47

I have a pool like the one you've described and at any get together involving a lot of adults, let alone children, we have people on life guard duty. No one as a paramedic though because it is possible to have the marble rough hewn to avoid slippage. It looks like a natural stone.

3littlefrogs · 13/06/2014 18:51

I thought you were going to say there was no lifeguard and there should have been.
I think she was exactly right. The other party guests are just ignorant and ungrateful IMO.

I would have really appreciated not having to be on the edge of my seat watching the kids for the entire time.

ExitPursuedByABear · 13/06/2014 18:56

I think she was perfectly sensible to hire a life guard.

Some people!

LynetteScavo · 14/06/2014 13:32

Actually, for an Olympic size pool, I would have two lifeguards.

They are hardly going to be expensive to hire.

TheIronGnome · 14/06/2014 14:33

Sounds great! Very very sensible to have a lifeguard- she sounds lovely!

LastTango · 14/06/2014 17:40

Like my Mum would have said when I was bemoaning her status as a housemaid in a wealthy household.......it paid my wages.

Safety was paramount, someone got paid. What's not to like?

Aeroflotgirl · 14/06/2014 18:59

Your friend sounds lovely. Less is more! Better have a few good, reliable and lovely friends, than loads of backstabbing bitches.

Fortheloveofralph · 14/06/2014 19:25

I think your friend is very sensible. Why take the risk?

CeliaFate · 14/06/2014 19:47

Hiring a lifeguard is a completely sensible thing to do in that scenario.

Why did you feel the need to tell her that people were bitching about her though? That's only going to hurt her feelings. Are you a bit jealous of her? I wouldn't want to know if someone had been mocking my choices, it's not the end of the world, it's idle gossip.

Surely what you don't know won't hurt you in this case.

UsedtobeFeckless · 14/06/2014 20:00

Very sensible idea!

I went to a family party at an old school with a pool surrounded by ultra slippery tiles and it was carnage ... I slipped carrying DS2 and broke my arm and some cousin cracked his head open! By the end there were more of us in A and E than left at the festivities!

ProudAsPunch92 · 22/09/2014 07:29

I think she was very sensible. They sound extremely jealous of your friend! They would have had something to say about it if one of their kids had fallen in and no one was there to save them..!

ThatBloodyWoman · 22/09/2014 07:40

I used to lifeguard pool parties.
Trust me, a lifeguard isn't a status symbol but a very sensible precaution.

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