To take my kids home (bizarre situation)

[BaleandWhale]

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

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?

I'm another one who would have taken them home. They wanted to go home with their Mum. Can't imagine anyone saying no to their children and I'd question anyone who did.

What kind of parent would not ask "who the fuck are you and what the hell are you doing to my child?" if they saw a stranger dragging their screaming child through a shopping center?

I know a fair few parents who'd have slapped first and asked questions later if confronted with the same situation, I think OP was fairly restrained, given the circumstances.

Not saying she shouldn't have. Just saying it's not surprising that the two other non distressed children wanted to go home after witnessing that.

But actually, thinking about it, I think that, unless irrationality took over,bi would have asked the 11 year old what was going on first. If only because I would have expected him to have a better idea of what was going on with his sister.

Well it was a stranger dragging her screaming child through a shopping center, to OP.

OP didn't know the woman was a friend of Jane. She just saw a stranger dragging her child, who was screaming so loud she heard her from the other side of a shop, described as being large.

No parent in the right mind would not have stepped in or been concerned for their child's well being in the same situation.

I would have been annoyed, WITH MY 5YO tantrumming like a baby!
You have totally undermined your Ex his DP and her friend.Why couldn't you just have said ' hello, kids, fancy meeting you here and asked them to introduce me'

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

So safe to say they probably weren't fine then, if there'd been a massive scene. And understandably, they wanted to go home with their mother rather than stay with Jane's friend or go back to Jane.

Also, the scene as we know about it had already started with Jane's friend and a child who could be heard from the other side of the shop.

Before that, we don't know what had been going on, or how long it had been going on for. But it started with Jane's friend and the OP's DD, not with the OP.

The scene was already taking place by the time the OP arrived and quite rightly wanted to know who the woman was and what she was doing with her children.

I expect that's the first thing most parents would ask of a total stranger who they had just seen dragging their screaming child by the arm, and with no sign of the people the children were supposed to be with at the time.

Other than that, the scene can't have gone on that long after the OP arrived because the OP says that within 30 seconds of her arriving, the friend was on her phone making an unanswered call to Jane.

And by then, all three children were asking to go home with their Mum.

I don't believe that any parent in the middle of this situation would leave their children with the stranger, especially if they were asking to come home.

Hygge

Pretty much all of you post is based on assumptions.

The grown up thing to do to do is to protect your children in the first instance- protecting the hurt feelings of the adults involved comes a long way down the list of priorities.

I'm finding impossible to comprehend that any parent would come across their children being dragged out of a shop in tears and think that the right thing to do would be to leave them in the care of an adult that neither the children nor the parent (nor, in this case, the other parent who actually had responsibility for them at the time ) actually knew.

Jane was called and didn't answer her phone.

Micah - has your husband actually met your mum? If so then it isn't an equivalent situation, because the father in this situation doesn't know Jane's friend and didn't know that Jane had left them with the friend.

Jane is upset is she ?
Who gives a fuck !

What if the phone call Jane "missed "was one alerting Her that one of the entrusted children had ran off in the store?

This woman is totally irresponsible and I wouldn't personally trust her again.

Well yes Verity. "Jane" wasn't actually available at all in the event of something going wrong. Luckily the OP was on hand to step in really.

Itsmine- perhaps there would be trust that ex and ex's partner wouldn't put the children in harm's way if either of them had actually known where the children were.

And, whether you think it's an over-reaction or not, the OP did find her child being dragged around by a stranger (to both). There are a lot of posts mentioning it because that's what happened.

How is it based on assumptions?

The OP says she heard her DD across the shop before she saw her, so the DD was therefore already tantruming and being very loud before the OP got anywhere near her.

The scene was already taking place because it's what the OP heard and what attracted her attention. It's why the OP went to investigate.

By the time the OP reached her DD, she says Jane's friend was dragging the DD by her hand. The OP says she saw this and I don't see any reason not to believe her.

The OP says she confronted Jane's friend, who is a stranger to both the OP and her ex.

And the OP says that within 30 seconds of this confrontation, Jane's friend was on the phone to Jane, who didn't answer the call.

And all three children then started asking to go home with the OP. So by her own estimation she was there for about 30 seconds before the children were asking to leave with her.

Jane's friend tried to prolong the scene by saying the OP couldn't take the children because she didn't know who the OP was, even though the children were all calling the OP 'Mum'.

OP took the children, as I suspect many parents in her situation would do, intending to call her ex from the car to explain.

I haven't assumed any of that, it's all in the OP's posts.

The children were either 'fine' as one poster suggested but still wanted to go with their mum. Or they were not 'fine' because they had just witnessed a massive scene, according to another poster, and still wanted to go home with their Mum.

But it's unfair to blame the OP for the scene, because she wasn't there when it started. She heard it after it had started and went to investigate. And asked some perfectly reasonable questions of Jane's friend when she got there.

Hygge

The OP says she heard her DD across the shop before she saw her, so the DD was therefore already tantruming and being very loud before the OP got anywhere near her.

Not a scene, just a child crying in a shop.

The OP says she confronted Jane's friend, who is a stranger to both the OP and her ex.

Yup, that would be the start of the scene, a woman swearing at another woman with a tantruming/upset child. The op posts that "I stopped her and said WTF are you doing and who the hell are you".

Jane's friend tried to prolong the scene by saying the OP couldn't take the children because she didn't know who the OP was, even though the children were all calling the OP 'Mum'.

Heaven forbid that she should get conformation of who the woman swearing at her is.

The children were either 'fine' as one poster suggested but still wanted to go with their mum. Or they were not 'fine' because they had just witnessed a massive scene, according to another poster, and still wanted to go home with their Mum.

Yup fine with that, but she could have calmed the 5yo and gone and spoken to the Ex's gf.

Once again, I think that:-

The OP was right to step in
She could have handled it better.

Verity

By all means throw a couple of "what ifs" in there as well.

I will Boney. Because we never think we will be the mum getting that call do we? To say our child is lost..

How many of us when looking after other people's children hold their hand that little but tighter, pay even more attention because we have been entrusted with the most precious thing to someone.
Not Jane, she wants to get her hair done ...

As a stepmum, my DSS's mum has my phone no and in this case could have rung me to let me know she was taking them or to find out what was going on. (Not that I'd have left him with someone unknown while I had my hair done).

I think that the OP was right to take them, but should have gone back to the beauty salon with Jane's friend to tell her or should have rung her ex there and then to tell him.

She rang "Jane", "Jane" didn't answer.

And what exactly could ex have done from his work?

Nothing, but at least he would have been in the loop of what was going on with his kids.

And Jane probably wouldn't answer if being blow dried, I can't hear the phone at the hairdressers, but she would have if they'd walked into the shop.

The way things went, the ex and Jane got a bit of a nasty shock. I'm not saying she wasn't wrong, she was, but scurrying off with the children without letting people know wasn't right either.