To be annoyed by the assumption that mothers don't work?

[SuiGeneris]

Just received first email from the class reps (DS starts reception in Sept): pre-start picnic for the children to get to know each other. What a good idea I thought. Until I saw the time: lunchtime on a Tuesday. Email addressed to mothers only even though the school circulated contact details for both parents. Closes with suggestion that those who cannot make it can meet at a coffee morning later on.

I can make neither- work is an hour away and I am out 7-6. Will DS be condemned to social isolation? Could DH attend (busy in this particular case but works nearer)? Could I send our nanny?

But, more to the point, AIBU to be annoyed at the assumption that mothers don't work? They didn't even cc the fathers!

Daytime is better for the children too. My DD's Year 1 nativity play didn't start until 6.30pm and lasted an hour to make it more convenient for working parents. It was hideous. Half the kids, including DD we dosing off during the performance. Our school do evening drinks and things as well as coffee mornings so you can probably one or the other. It's not compulsory to attend and you can always send your nanny or other family member if you can't go.

The sending to mums only thing is a bit rubbish but it was probably to save time doing the email. Somewhat sexist though.

When my children had these "before starting school picnics" they were on a Saturday. Appreciate this is no good for those who work shifts though, but they were well attended - by mums, dads and other carers.

If anything happens in school, I am the one who is called, not my husband. Every single time. There is no priority for parents on the contact form - it has spaces for both parents then emergency contact 1, emergency contact 2 underneath - there is no reason whatsoever for them to automatically call me.

YANBU to be annoyed that it was only addressed to the mums. Someone has made a very oldfashioned assumption there. But don't worry about it, there will be other opportunities to get involved and meet other parents. One picnic isn't going to secure friendship for every child who attends it for the rest of the first day of term, never mind their whole school life.

I work part time so do drop off and pick up and DH also does it once a week, therefore we do get to chat and meet other parents. But we can't go to any of the week day school holiday things that are organised by the parents, it's no big deal. Don't make the mistake of spunking all your leave on every event that comes up, it's a long year and annual leave doesn't go very far, especially if something like a broken arm overlapping with chicken pox arises [bitter experience emoticon].

We have got to know pretty much all the full time WOH parents as well as the SAHP, mainly at birthday parties. The two hours you spend standing around watching your kids go wild in a village hall every other Sunday afternoon provide the perfect opportunity to get chatting to other parents. Once you've done that the first five to ten times you'll all be on the best of terms.

I'd have thought someone just didn't want to type out double the number of email addresses.

No I didn't find infant school worked around working parents at all for us. Often you get hardly any notice. Junior school has been better.

I think you have to be a bit discerning on what you take time off work for. As this is about your ds getting used to the other dc, I think it would be fine for your nanny to take him.

I try to save the annual leave for parents consultations, advice about supporting phonics/maths at home, parent assemblies where they're showing their work, open book days where you can see their progress in their work, sports days, plays - particularly if they're playing a part. If you want to meet more parents/teachers maybe volunteer to man stalls at the fete - that tends to be at weekends for us.

But there are an awful lot of things we miss because we don't have that much annual leave. Your ds will be fine. Mine didn't really make friends as such until mid way through year 1 and it was only then we started asking people back to play. You can easily arrange this with a note in a bookbag. Then you start to build up a bit of a network with a few of their friends' parents and it's fairly easy to organise things going forward and share lifts etc.

You have years to meet the other parents in the year - there's no rush.

I am a teacher and although I enjoy sharing ALL holidays with my dd yaaaaaaay I cannot take time off at a drop of a hat EVER ever ever for dds social life. So she misses out on this sort of thing a lot... especially as also I cannot afford a Nanny so rely on state childcare. From time to time it gets me down especially when it looks like a brilliant event but I really do understand! Logically it is usually a SAHM who organizes things like this and it is a time she is available and willing to organize it. If it is ANY help my dd is VERY happy at school and has so many friends not only in her class but other year groups too despite not going to class picinics, directly after school birthday parties, play dates etc she is socially VERY settled at school and VERY happy. This picnic isn't that important HONESTLY!!!!

It isn't the school running it though, it is another parent giving up their free time to do something nice for others. The OP hasn't specified whether the organiser actually wrote Dear Mums or similar, or whether they just selected the mums email addresses. It is entirely normal to just use one email contact per child, maintaining a list on a home computer of people you don't know with lots of random email addresses which won't necessarily be easy to link to a child's name (different surnames, nicknames etc) can be time consuming and fiddly. It may be sexist, but IME it is more likely to be the mother doing most of the school contact stuff.

If it said Dear Mums I think it would be reasonable to suggest that Dads and other carers should be included, but if it was just a case of them picking one email contact then ask them to use whichever suits you best in future, but it is generally unreasonable to expect everything to be sent to both.

You can still build up a network even if you're not at the school gate every day.

DS is coming to the end of reception. Since he started last September he has gone back to a friend's for tea and he has gone back to another friend's for an after school birthday party. One of the SAHMs took him with her own DS to an after school party at a soft play. I reciprocated by taking her DS to one of the Sunday parties.

At a party yesterday I chatted with one of the FT WOHMs about our arrangements for the summer holidays. I have kept her phone number from when I RSVPd to her DS's birthday invitation so will drop her a text and invite her DS over to play at a weekend in the summer so DS doesn't lose touch with his friends.

Seriously, parties, that's where the serious networking gets done . In reception many of the DC have whole class parties, if you have the energy and funds, do one for your own DS, it will reap rewards.

Also, you can just add in your dh/dp's address when you press 'reply all', if the problem was that his email address was not included.

How about:

'Thanks for the lovely invitation but unfortunately I'm at work that day and can't make the picnic, so I will be sending LovelyNanny along with DS. However, there is a chance that his dad Jim might be able to come, so I am copying him in to keep him in the loop. Could Jim also be added to the mailing list please?

Would any other parents or carers (mums and dads welcome) who cannot make the picnic like to join me at CheapCentralVenue for drinks at 7pm on 15th September?'

Also, it is worth remembering that organising anything (as above) is fraught with difficulty because, apart from the SAHP/WOHP factor, parents may not drink, have different budgets, childcare/no childcare, not be able to attend gatherings in venues where alcohol is served...

What I might find easy to attend might be fraught with difficulty for the next person and might make them feel really excluded.

So far we have school picnic before term starts, an array of play date invitations, coffee morning after drop-off two weeks into term and a mum's dinner all before half term. And I have twins going into seperate classes in reception so it is x2!!!

Plus the 'save the dates' have started for birthday parties along with the 'reminder' that it is expected that the whole class is invited (so that is 2 classes plus family etc. = 60 kids (sob!).

And I work 60+ hours a week in the City.

And I put our nanny's details on the contract list. If they want their DC to socialise with my DC they will need to arrange it through the nanny. She's better qualified to be around children than I am anyway.

I'd send your nanny if nanny is going to do all pick ups, drop offs party's etc.

One of dd's classmates has a nanny I just speak to nanny if need to sort play date etc. so best if nanny is known to the other parents.

Before my DC started school I received invitations to

NOTHING (well one school run settling in session)

... so I am finding this whole thread slightly bemusing.

Others have already made the points that

• whatever time picked would not have suited everyone
• bad form not to include dads, but it was probably on the basis of mums being first contact email (how on earth does OP know they were all mums' email addresses anyway?? I refuse to believe that every single email address was of the form sarah.jones@whatever )

Have to say for those worrying that all nurseries/schools are a portal to the 1950's, that it just doesn't ever seem to have been an issue for DS's nursery. DP does dropoffs and pickups as it's next to where he works, we explained he should be first called, and they have followed that any time they've needed to contact us.

It's not rocket science, it's just the 21st century.

Where, needless to say, many families do not have one mummy stays-at-home, one daddy goes-to-work. I'm guessing the OP's school have at least one kid with [whispers] divorced or separated parents who share custody, at least one single parent who may well be a dad, likely a kid with two mothers or two fathers, etc.

Picking a time suitable for organiser - no problem. Organiser's prerogative. Pretending all those families don't exist - not cool, pretty ignorant in fact (though I would always go in gently initially, I would point it out.)

Disney, WHAT on parties? Who is setting that expectation? That's utterly fucking bonkers and setting some kids up to have no party as their parents can only afford/house a small one.

I think it should have gone to both parents, however when you make the choice to be a working parent, it is obvious that you are likely to miss out on school life and events to some degree. I also work but different shifts so most things I can attend but there are some I miss.

YANBU about the emails. Even if the rep decided to just pick one rather than type in double the number of emails, why pick the mum? Very old-fashioned to assume the mum will be the one more likely to be able to attend in every case, and sexist to assume the mum is going to be better organised/more likely to pick up the email. Maybe I'm just over-sensitive to this issue as DH is a SAHD.

Definitely agree with those who've mentioned the children's centre. Ours also has groups during the week and then a Saturday group specifically for dads. I get that it's probably to have a group where men don't feel intimidated/unwelcome by the number of mums (DH doesn't attend any groups because he'd feel uncomfortable being the only man), but that doesn't help those of us who are female and work all week. I'd love to have a group to go to so I could build up a bit of a network of people with kids the same age as DS, but there's nothing for me.

Nowadays families are really mixed. It's not how it used to be, where people would advise single dads to put children into care because no-one could expect a MAN to do childcare. So it seems a bit weird to have mums-only lists?

It is true that hardly anything for littles seems to be organised on a Saturday/out of term time. If this happened to me OP, I would have to send DH as he is the one with the flexible job and he would not be impressed by the 'dear mums' thing (which the swimming class he takes DD to does as well). YANBU.

It's really interesting reading all of the replies....I'm a class rep, and would never write "Dear Mums" so YADNBU to feel aggrieved at that address. I usually put...."Dear All...." on my emails.

However, we get moaned at if we do things during the school day/after school/in the evenings/at the weekends...you just CAN'T win. We try to have a variety of events so that at some point, parents/carers can come to some events - but as people have said, everyone's family dynamics and working pattens are so different, that we can only do our best. Before I became a SAHM, my nanny would attend events on my behalf, in order to allow the children to socialise outside of school and also because she was the one doing the pick ups and after school stuff. I'd just write a nice note saying that you can't make it this time, but your nanny could, and you look forward to attending the next get together - perhaps stating when you'd find it easiest to attend.

YANBU to be irritated by "dear mums" - my dh would be irritated by that too, it's a bit insulting to dads.

I do think that there is no time that would be do-able for anyone - people with babies and toddlers wouldn't be able to do evenings very easily, shift workers would miss weekends...I'm the only sahm amongst my friends but all of the working mums I know have managed to take leave to take their children to and from settling in sessions and to be the one to take them to and from school for the first few days. Then later for sports days etc.

My dh took the morning off so that we could both go to dd's parents' meeting after the taster morning in Reception. Three other dads had done the same and were there with the mum, two dads had come while the mum worked.

98 replies and nothing further from the op?

My DNs don't have a mum any more, she died. So DB does all the parent stuff without exception. If he was left out of these things for not being a mum, the DNs would be left out, and I suspect other dads would be in the same situation too (via separation, custody or death, or any number of other things). It doesn't seem to me to be acceptable to have an all mums mailing list because everyone knows it's a mum's duty...for example what about kids with two dads? I have heard that happens too :D

Sure that the school didn't mean to be offensive, but it seems like an outdated practice to contact mums only.