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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To take my kids home (bizarre situation)

351 replies

BaleandWhale · 10/08/2015 13:57

DC were at their dads. Due home at 5pm today.

I was in town doing some shopping and heard a kid crying from the other side of the shop which sounded like DD. Went to look and found all three DC with a woman I've never seen before dragging DD by her hand out of the shop Hmm

Obviously I stopped her and said WTF are you doing and who the hell are you.

Turns out she is the best mate of ex's girlfriend. Ex had to work so left kids with his partner. Partner decided to take them to town with her mate. Partner then went to get her hair blow dried at one of those pop up blow dry places and left DC with her mate. Youngest DC (5) was upset and refused to leave the shop. Big department store so she had managed to get her three floors down during the tantrum.

DD asked to come home with me and then the other two said they wanted to as well. The woman starts saying I couldn't take them as she didn't know who I was. Oldest is 11 and clearly saying that's my mum!

Anyway I took them as they are due home soon anyway.

EX has just phoned and gone ballistic that I had no right to take them and partner is frantic about it.

AIBU to take them home with me?

OP posts:
Hygge · 11/08/2015 16:52

Micah the OP says the children have met this friend once before, at a barbecue.

It's not clear how well they got to know her during that barbecue, but probably not all that well in just one meeting where they were probably busy doing their own thing or playing with other kids rather than chatting to their Dad's girlfriend's mate who the girlfriend hardly ever sees.

Their father has never met the friend. He wasn't at the barbecue, and Jane doesn't see this friend very often.

I'm assuming your husband has met your Mum, which might make a difference, and your step-children probably know her reasonably well too?

And if they don't know her, perhaps you'd be understanding if the youngest one got a bit stressed and upset about going off with her. And you'd expect your Mum to cope with this without dragging her about while she cried.

And you'd understand why their Mother might be upset to see a stranger to her dragging her upset child about, even if you would also be furious if she took the children away from your Mum.

I really don't think anyone could watch their own upset child be dragged out of a shop by a total stranger to them without intervening, or just take the strangers word about who they were and leave the children with her. Especially if their children were saying "we want to come home with you now Mum" to them as well.

People might go about it differently after that point, but the OP was in what she has called a bizarre situation and her reaction is understandable even if it's not exactly what we think we might do under similar circumstances.

Anniegetyourgun · 11/08/2015 16:53

D'you know what? If I'd seen my DC in that situation when they were that age I'd probably have done the same and the hell with whether it was reasonable or not. I could also give less than a pair of fingers whether anyone has previously said on a Mumsnet thread that it is all right for the NRP to subcontract childcare. I would have done what I deemed best in that moment, and had their dad had the absolute bloody nerve to tell me off for it he would have got both barrels. Their dad being, as he is, rather averse to confrontation, and my barrels being pretty impressive when wound up, he would have backed off sharpish. I may or may not have apologised later for some of it when I'd cooled down, but apologise for removing my own children from a situation they shouldn't have been in - even a completely non-dangerous one as it turned out - almost certainly not.

I can't think of any occasion when I've left our DC with someone XH didn't know, either, but had he found that happening and DC distressed he quite probably would take them home. I may or may not be a bit miffed in such a scenario, but hope I would have the grace to admit that I was more out of order than he was. Again though, it would have to be not the friend I had left them with, but a friend of the friend, to be comparable. And I'd be livid with the friend myself. It's all very well for a parent to decide to leave their child with a random bod, but it is not up to anyone else to make that decision.

MotherOfBleach · 11/08/2015 16:55

Thing is, its different if I recount things differently because you know, I wasn't a witness

Yet you know OP was "unnecessarily flappy"?

Either accept OP's story as is and agree or disgree based upon what you are told or find another thread to be snipey on, one where you don't have to make assumptions, read things that are not there and apply your own version of events in order to belittle the OP.

NickiFury · 11/08/2015 16:57

Good post Annie.

Also as said previously if my children's father came across my distressed child with some random that my boyfriend had decided to leave her with then I would expect him to take her and I would be furious with my boyfriend who had left her. I would have zero problem with her Dad taking her because he is her parent and while I might not like him very much, I know he loves our children very much and he would be the best person for my children to be with.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 11/08/2015 17:00

Rather embarrassingly I have been on the other side of this one.

I was out with my son and a friend (knew me and son well) son has LD I nipped to a & e because I had got glass stuck in my flip flop and had a huge cut on my foot had left son with friend because he does nt cope well with hospitals.

Son started flapping (trait of disability) ex approached friend who knew whobhe was due to seeing a photo. He was not comfortable leaving son with friend as he personally did not know her later I went spare at him.

It was brought up in court a few weeks later as part of a tiresome two parents who rarely agree thing
It is the one and only time I have ever been very much told off by a judge and it was in no uncertain terms he more or less said to me " parents have a duty to safe guard their children,in the absence of the other parent if something about their childs care gives them concern they have a legal duty to step in and resolve it, how dare I interfere with or criticise the other parents immediate protection planning"

It was not that the situation was considered a concern but that the other parent thought it was and I was not there to consult on his assessment so as the only adult with PR he had a legal right to do so.

Itsmine · 11/08/2015 17:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 11/08/2015 17:03

Sock amnesty- unless she has the kids birth Certs and her own photographic Id she isn't going to be able to prove it though. I doubt she would be able to prove no court order exists either
You would be the one having to show that a court order did
Exist.

PiperIsTerrysChoclateOrange · 11/08/2015 17:03

Reading this thread at home with my both DC watching a film I could say I would do XYZ.

However if I found my children in distress with a person I didn't know then to right I would have them back in my care.

sandycove · 11/08/2015 17:19

Basic good manners, which is what she rightly expects from everyone else.
I think the one who had to have the hair done was guilty of far worse than good manners. To hell with doing the right thing and going to the trouble of traipsing your kids to look for her, she didnt do the right thing by dumping them in the first place.That she is upset by it all is very telling too. Surely she should be feeling guilty rather than upset.

TheoriginalLEM · 11/08/2015 17:25

I can't believe this thread has sparked such furore. Her children were upset, being "cared" for by someone else who may or may not have been the resaon the child was upset, she was absolutely right to take her children home. Anyone who can't see that should have their heads looked at.

I would probably have called or texted the ex and asked him what the fuck his partner was playing at by leaving the children with someone they weren't happy to be left with. But at the time, if someone had been dragging my crying child by the arm i would have been mostly focusing on controlling my anger and not causing a scene. The red mist would be lurking in the background.

BettyCatKitten · 11/08/2015 17:30

I totally agree LEM

TheoriginalLEM · 11/08/2015 17:33

Another point, had the woman been seen with three perfectly happy children saying, "ooh come on, step mum is having her hair cut (i have my opinion about that) lets go and get an icecream" I would have been asking who she was, i might have been more inclined to leave them with her, or at least called my ex and found out what was what, but no, you don't leave my child with someone i don't know, ever! In fact if my DP left my child with someone i don't know i;d not be happy. Especially as it sounds that the children weren't happy.

If they had been happy they wouldn't have wanted to go back with boring old mum, they would have wanted to stay with new exciting ice cream buying friend. They weren't though, were they - because friend was dragging them through shops.

MotherOfBleach · 11/08/2015 17:40

TBH if anyone was dragging my screaming young child through a shop I would remove the child from their care, at least temporarily, whether I knew the person or not, especially if they were not the child's other parent.

As LEM pointed out, how was OP to know the child was not crying because of something this strange woman had said or done?

BertrandRussell · 11/08/2015 17:42

Her children weren't upset. One of her children was, in her own words, having a tantrum. The other two were-as far as we know because she didn't say they weren't-fine.

NickiFury · 11/08/2015 17:45

Well thanks to sockamnesty's post we do at least have an indication of the legal implications of this and it seems the OP was quite right to step in.

VerityWaves · 11/08/2015 17:46

I am a step parent and when entrusted with my DH children I have looked after them as if they were precious pieces of gold. Never let them out of my sight. I would never, ever palm them off so bad could have a beauty treatment! Disgusting behaviour from "Jane" and disgraceful that your ex is angry at you for taking them home safely. He should be thankful to you!
The posters saying that you loose a say in what happens to your children in their exp care when you split with them are pathetic.
I would have done the same OP! Yes the friend was put in a very bad position but the most important factor here is the wellbeing of the children. They were distressed with someone you didn't know and you took them home safe. You did the right thing.

Hygge · 11/08/2015 17:47

But all three were still asking to leave with their mother.

Fine or not, none of them wanted to stay with Jane's friend or go back to Jane.

Vernonon · 11/08/2015 17:48

Can't believe this thread. I'm a SM and if I'd been out on my own with dss and bumped into his mum, I'd have deferred to her as the parent. If she said she wanted to take him off to try on some clothes/have a nice-cream/go home for any reason, then there's no way I'd try to stop her.
And that's if I was looking after him - not some random friend.

BertrandRussell · 11/08/2015 17:55

"But all three were still asking to leave with their mother."

Of course they were- there'd just been a massive scene!

BoneyBackJefferson · 11/08/2015 18:01

The only part that I disagree with is that she took them home without telling the Ex's gf.

It could have all been sorted out in 5 minutes without the faffing around that has gone on.

yumyumpoppycat · 11/08/2015 18:04

There hadn't been a massive scene, smallest dc asked to go with mum, then the other two asked to go home too ....THEN the friend started a scene by saying they couldn't go with their own mother rather than saying ...'ok lets go see Jane and run it past her'.

BoneyBackJefferson · 11/08/2015 18:04

If I were "Jane" after this I would refuse to have them by myself again.

yumyumpoppycat · 11/08/2015 18:06

Actually I take that back a bit I missed the part where OP (understandably) said, WTF are you doing and who the hell are you!

NickiFury · 11/08/2015 18:08

The scene had already started before OP ever got there.

BertrandRussell · 11/08/2015 18:14

"There hadn't been a massive scene"

Really? In my world someone saying "What the fuck are you doing and who the hell are you?" counts as a scene.........

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