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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Flame amnesty : have you ever taken another child's clothes

100 replies

Bleachedandscrubbed · 20/05/2015 17:24

At my children's naice Middle class school in a naice Home Counties town, it seems that there are uniform thieves, cutting out labels and nicking the nice stuff.

Can someone explain to me the thought process, especially given that I've just paid about £6 for 4 polo shirts and £10 for two pairs of trousers? It's hardly enough to make oneself a thief for, so why do it? Can someone fess up and explain?

OP posts:

purplemurple1 · 20/05/2015 21:12

We are constantly being given other kids clothes at nursery but so far none of ours have gone missing. I give it all back once washed except a couple of pairs of socks that ive given up returning as they keep coming back.

BarbarianMum · 20/05/2015 21:30

Cadie you have to turn detective. Is there a girl in your dd's class with an older brother called George?

CadieAgain · 20/05/2015 21:38

Oh, that's a plan, BarbarianMum, thank you. I'll have a look on Facebook to start with.

Coming home with boys shorts put me in mind of when I asked on here whether I should bother to label shirts for secondary school. I was advised that if DD was coming home sans shirt, I'd have bigger problems to worry about

MrsDeVere · 20/05/2015 21:46

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SonorousBip · 20/05/2015 21:46

My Ds went to a prep school with a basically quite sensible uniform but with just a couple of inexplicably expensive items which could only be bought from the official supplier. He has an unusual surname - only one in the school. No older siblings.

He lost his games top - £35!!! I gave him the usual bollocking for being disorganised etc and he kept saying "someone's taken it, that's the only explanation". Yeah, matey, we all said.

About 10 months later we somehow found it, with our name tape crossed through in a sharpie and one of his classmate's name written in by hand.

WTAF.

Siennasun · 20/05/2015 21:51

Purplemurple

That used to happen to us too. I'd take the clothes back, but then they'd just put them back in his bag so in the end I just keep them
I did donate some clothes to the baby room to even it out.

Fizrim · 20/05/2015 21:59

I feared the worst when DD decided she wanted one of the 'school coats' like many of her classmates. Of course it was frequently picked up off her peg and she was in tears every time it went missing! I tried putting a glittery metal initial tag off the zipper and was able to pick it out once in the playground. It eventually went missing completely, although by that time it was damaged so whoever picked it up probably thought it was ready for the bin!

One item of uniform went missing for a few weeks, a parent apologised and said her daughter had it - she only realised when another parent returned her daughter's item of clothing and she had too many!

wellysrule · 20/05/2015 22:09

My DD has had a couple of these.

Most annoyingly a pair of good leather school shoes, brand spanking new, at a Saturday club. In their place was a pair of, admittedly, similar shoes.
Not so much new though, very scuffed and one size smaller!!
Funniest one was a plain white every day school top - she came back from school swimming in one swimming (sorry) on her - for a kid 3 years older than her. We could only assume kid in different school had had the class before and squeezed into this tiny top and not thought anything of it. I think I returned hers to our school, washed etc, but cross schools there was not chance of getting DD's top back.

DeeWe · 20/05/2015 22:13

I did once by accident, I think.

We got given some old style PE jumpers from a friend for junior school. They're basically plain navy blue with the school logo. By the time we arrived they'd changed to some much posher trackie tops, and you couldn't get the old ones. They'd have been at least 3rd hand by the time we got them, and hadn't been sold for years, and I never saw anyone else wearing them.

I generally name tape (sew in) fairly quickly, but occasionally forget, so when I washed her PE kit I noticed that I'd forgotten to label the PE jumper. So I labelled it thinking that I thought I had but must have misremembered.

I was very embarrassed when at the end of the year (a term and a half later) she emptied her locker and brought home two named PE jumpers. I don't think we were given two, although it was in a load of stuff so possible.

I did email out the class list and no one got back to me about losing them. 6 years later they're still going strong on dc#3

Pico2 · 20/05/2015 22:41

We ended in up with two identical hoodies from nursery. I'm not great at putting clothes away, so I'm not sure how long it took me to notice. Neither was named, but DD remembered who else owned one (and relatively few of the nursery girls wear age 6-7), so I was able to text the mum and return one.

While I will be labelling DD's school stuff, I won't be counting it in or out, so there is a chance of acquiring extra, but certainly not deliberately and we will try to get anything returned to the rightful owner.

I'm going to try to get a coat from eBay so that there isn't a massive chance of having the same Tesco coat as most of the class.

AuditAngel · 20/05/2015 22:55

DD1 once came home in the wrong cardigan. It ended up in the heap under the coat pegs. I found it about a month later! I did wash it and return it to the mum with an apology.

When DS was in reception his school coat disappeared. Turned up a year later. He also lost a brand new jumper this year in Y6 and loads of other stuff in between

DD1 lost her coat 2 years ago, I replaced it. We then were given one back by the school, identical coat, but no name tape. I assumed someone had removed the name. Roll on another 6 months and we are given back DD1's original coat, with the name!

ScrambledEggAndToast · 20/05/2015 22:58

Not clothes but someone stole my son's £80 scooter from the school which was labelled. I was so angry About a year later a kid offered to sell it back to my mum!! Not sure if that was a wind up or not though. Have had several jumpers nicked over the years and also a coat.

AGnu · 20/05/2015 23:19

DS came out of nursery wearing someone else's jumper today. I took it off him & handed it back. His jumper was in his bag & no-one seemed quite sure who had given him the other one. No way could he have got it on himself, it required a fair amount of tugging to get it off. He'd have just given up if he'd been trying to put it on. He's very sure of what is & isn't his though so I've no idea how someone managed to wrangle him into it. He freaks out about new clothes, let alone a jumper that's clearly too small for him!

Yepcomfortable · 20/05/2015 23:28

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

HarryLimeFoxtrot · 20/05/2015 23:39

DS's school insists that name tapes are sewn on the outside of the uniform so that they are visible during normal wear (they have the same colour background as the majority of the uniform). It does seem to stop items going 'missing'

NorahBone · 20/05/2015 23:55

My Mum used to send me to school in uniform that was the wrong colour, the wrong size, a different style to everyone else (shirt and tie, not polo shirts) and knitted jumpers/cardis incorporating the school colours in novel ways. Nothing was EVER stolen. I thought she was cruel; it turns out she was a genius.

MehsMum · 21/05/2015 07:55

It was brilliant when I was able to say 'oh really, shall we just look HERE then?' when the culprit was wobbling her head at me.
Genius, MrsDeVere!

lookingforbaubles · 21/05/2015 08:10

finally on child number 5 i have got the hang of keeping school uniform

i take all the uniform to the local sports shop who embroider our initials onto the front of the polo shirt/jumper etc next to the school logo

it costs 75p for each item but i dont have to sew labels in and we have never lost any uniform since!

VivaLeBeaver · 21/05/2015 08:12

Never had any problems at school.

Did have dd's expensive snow boots taken from crèche while skiing once. I had to carry her back through the snow. Another pair of scraggy old wellies in a size too small had been left behind. I really don't see how the parent could mistake dds fur topped boots for wellies.

I was so pissed off as she had no other outdoor footwear for the holiday. So that evening I sneaked round every other chalet in the vicinity till I saw them through a window in another chalets boot room. Convinced our chalet girl to help me break in and I took them back!

HootyMcTooty · 21/05/2015 08:15

We lost a very naice coat to nursery. We asked the staff to question every child's parents. The coat was eventually returned 6 months later after their child (and ours) had grown out of it

Debs75 · 21/05/2015 08:19

My dd came out once in her sandshoes as she couldn't find her boots. As we looked we saw a girl in dds boots. When i asked her to take them off she said she couldn't find hers. The mum came and i told her your dd has my dds boots on. She wouldn't take them off till her dds shoes were found. I told her twice i had to go but sge refused. In the end i asked the girl to sit down and took them off her. Mum was but i just left

LoadsaBlusher · 21/05/2015 08:26

I have had this happen at our preschool nursery.
DP and I share drop offs and pick ups , so I don't always know what the kids were wearing that morning when I collect them, so sometimes items get left , ie jackets if the kids already have a hoody on, as I assume dad just dropped them off in that.
Youngest DS had a gorgeous padded Next jacket , bought as a gift from my sister ,that had been missing for a while.
I was doing the nursery pick up and noticed the jacket hanging off the back of a buggy as the mum was in collecting her ( same age same size ) son.
Our kids attend sessions exact same times ... could be a co incidence but just seems a bit suspect ...
Plimsolls have also went missing from my eldest DC slot in preschool cloakroom but don't mind so much replacing these as only £2.50. These also had DC name written Inside in black sharpie marker pen .

NorahBone · 21/05/2015 08:42

Viva What a great story!
This was me:
Emotional Rollercoaster!

Lima1 · 21/05/2015 08:46

When my dd was about 1 yr she went to nursery with a gorgeous pink John Lewis dungarees given by an aunt. She apparently got sick on them and they were sent out to be washed, that was the last I saw of them. Despite kicking up a major fuss everyone denied knowledge of them. I am sure it was the girl minding her who also had a baby the same age in DD's nursery. She left a few weeks later.

Dd had a pair of pink crocs taken at a dance class. The teacher checked at the end if the class to see if a pair was left behind- no. How do you bring a child in with no crocs on and bring her home with them.

At a play centre I was putting DD's shoes back on when I notice "her" shoes were different sizes. Exact same shoes but one was 11 and other 12. I left my number with the centre sure the other parent would eventually cop and call them, but no. Luckily she was due a new psi anyway.

Trufflethewuffle · 21/05/2015 08:49

When DS3 was in reception he came home a few days before the end of the first term with odd shoes. He had tiny feet so it was quite noticeable, one a size 8E and the other a 10.5G.

So we went back in after the weekend and the whole class were checked without success. They checked year 1 and 2 plus nursery - nothing. I couldn't believe it. How can that happen?

The only thing we could think was that a child had come home and complained that their shoes were tight and the parents bought a new pair without checking.

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