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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:
GreenSkittles · 10/08/2015 17:59

Our society has become a sick place if it isn't ok for a distressed 5yo to be taken home by her mother.

Terribly sick. Especially as someone on the last page accused her of kidnapping her own distressed child! How have things got this fucked up?!

Oswin · 10/08/2015 18:02

If I left my dd with my partner and he palmed her off on his friend to look after,I would be pissed off. Now if my ex had walked into a shop and seen our dd crying her eyes out being dragged along by a random man?
He would take his child. As he bloody well should. Then he would fume at me. As he should.
Tbh If he did see dd being dragged out of a shop, by a man, who is a friend of my partners. A friend that I haven't even met! He would probably go for full residency.

EmeraldKitten · 10/08/2015 18:08

If you met your children out with a complete stranger who said they were a friends of ex's gf (or whoever, it doesn't really matter what the story was) would anyone really take their word for it and wave them on?

JohnFarleysRuskin · 10/08/2015 18:16

I would have done the same op.

I would now underplay it - I'd say 'sorry but the dc were distressed. next time perhaps he could let you know if he can't do contact rather than leave them with a stranger who is struggling.'

Guitargirl · 10/08/2015 18:17

Those posters who are saying that the OP shouldn't have taken her DCs home with her - what would you have done? Are you honestly saying that if you came across a child of yours crying in a shop in the care of someone you had never laid eyes on before that you would just say 'yep, crack on' and just leave? Really?

TheoriginalLEM · 10/08/2015 18:22

the gf has shown herself to be untrustworthy in the extreme. id be reassessing access arrangements.

The5DayChicken · 10/08/2015 18:37

I think most people who think the OP WU think so because she didn't ring either the ex or his girlfriend to confirm it was actually her who'd taken the children. The girlfriend shouldn't really have left the children with her friend but she doesn't deserve the shock of having that friend come back and say she's had the kids taken off her. The GF then had to tell the ex that someone who they thought (but didn't know) was the OP had taken the children. There were other ways to behave in this situation that didn't cause so much worry.

slithytove · 10/08/2015 18:49

Yanbu.

And for those saying op is bu, how happy would you be if someone you trusted to watch your kids (the gf in this scenario) palmed them off on someone else?

If my kids were with my parents or sister, or friend - I'd be pretty angry if they then dumped my kids on someone I didn't know, for vanity. Emergency yes, but that's it.

scatterthenuns · 10/08/2015 18:55

YANBU! NO fucking way. Fuck that. Fuck.

tiggytape · 10/08/2015 19:00

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PerpendicularVincenzo · 10/08/2015 19:03

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youarekiddingme · 10/08/2015 19:07

Another who's with wannabe here. Recently there's been a few threads about ex H/P's cancelling contact due to them having to work etc. everyone says well it's his time he has to arrange childcare.
He did arrange childcare here.

The children may well have known this woman.

Itsmine · 10/08/2015 19:15

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Itsmine · 10/08/2015 19:16

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slithytove · 10/08/2015 19:19

The childcare XH arranged, then found her own childcare. That is the difference.

If your child is with your mum, dad, childminder, sister, friend - arranged so you can work, child knows them, they know you. Would you really be happy if that person then left them with someone you didn't know, for the sake of a blow dry?

Let alone to find those kids upset.

ArmfulOfRoses · 10/08/2015 19:19

What does your ex think happened?
I doubt he was told you heard your dd crying from across the street and turned round to see her being pulled out of a shop by her arm by a stranger.

LazyLohan · 10/08/2015 19:20

Youare, totally agree with you. It's his partners best friend so he will probably know her quite well. If it's someone the ex knows and trusts that's fine. I was once for a short time. If the kids were regularly being palmed off on her or the periods were long, like a whole day, then the OP might have a point. But a short period with a good friend is fine.

And the OP should have spoken to gf or x before taking them, it put that poor women in a horrendous situation and she'd done nothing wrong and was practically accused of kidnapping in public.

slithytove · 10/08/2015 19:20

And if XH were to see dc with someone he doesn't know, that's fine.

It's on realising that

A) they are miserable
B) they aren't with their arranged carer
C) the person they are with isn't known to either parent
And D) all of the above.

slithytove · 10/08/2015 19:21

Lazy, op has already said XH doesn't know the mate.

CatMilkMan · 10/08/2015 19:23

YABU and the responses in this thread are bloody scary, get a grip.

NickiFury · 10/08/2015 19:24

I can't believe someone used the work "kidnap" in relationship to a mother taking her own dc in this situation. I really hope they were joking, because that's one of the most stupid things I have ever read on here.

My dd screaming her head off in a shop with some random I had never seen before in my life? Damn straight I would have taken them all home with me and there would have been no traipsing around finding blow dry girlfriend either.

Hygge · 10/08/2015 19:26

OP you were not being unreasonable and I would have done exactly the same.

It would perhaps have been a different and difficult situation if it had been your ex's new partner with the children, as at least you know who she is.

But not a total stranger that you've never met, and who your ex has never met either.

I wouldn't be happy with that and I would have taken my DS home with me as well. Tantrum or not, a stranger dragging my child about with no sign of the people he was supposed to be with, I wouldn't leave him with her.

Itsmine · 10/08/2015 19:36

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BoneyBackJefferson · 10/08/2015 19:36

Not telling the Ex's gf makes you unreasonable.

TheoriginalLEM · 10/08/2015 19:44

i am absolutely gobsmacked that anyone would think the op unreasonable.