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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:
maxxytoe · 11/08/2015 06:58

Some posters on here are talking out their arse!

You were not being unreasonable to take your own children, who were asking to come home with you after you saw them being dragged out of a shop by a stranger .

As if any mother would tell their own children they couldn't go home with them!
For those saying the OP is unreasonable you need to go and have a stern word with yourselves!

clam · 11/08/2015 07:34

Who the hell has to suddenly go and get themselves a blow dry on impulse, when out shopping and in charge of someone else's children? It was hardly an emergency, surely?

BlueberryWafer · 11/08/2015 07:36

Yanbu. I would have done the same.

Inertia · 11/08/2015 09:32

You might be able to take his stance about presenting a united front with caregivers if any of them - children, op or the ex - had actually ever met the caregiver before.

What the ex is saying is that he expects op to support him in not making adequate childcare provision and then expect the children to break any rules the family has about not going off with people they don't know. Doesn't matter whether Jane knew her - she wasn't there.

And how does the OP have any proof that this woman was who she says she was anyway? The ex had no idea who the children were with until afterwards.

And yes, I have plenty of experience of nurturing stepfamilies thanks. We have a fantastic stepmother who would never have dreamt of leaving us with a stranger in a shop to get a bloody pop-up blow dry, ffs.

BertrandRussell · 11/08/2015 09:43

But the woman wasn't a stranger to the children, was she? Just to the OP. And the oldest child was 11 and presumably the other one was 7ish? So not babies.

Have people never been out with their children and a friend and wanted to try on a dress or something and the friend has said "You do that- the kids and I'll go and look at the toys/have an ice cream/whatever and we'll meet you back here in 30 minutes"? Seems a perfectly ordinary thing to do to me. And when mine were younger I had a lot of "mum friends" my dp didn't know- if he had bumped into them while this was happening they would behave been with a "stranger" to him.

NickiFury · 11/08/2015 09:43

I, as the actual parent of my child, would not leave them with someone they don't know well, especially as my dd in particular is quite tricky and can get stressed out quite easily. The GF, who is not the parent made the decision to leave these children with someone they hardly knew without the knowledge of either of their parents so she could get a blow dry. That's piss poor and I absolutely would take me kids without "clearing" it with her.

NickiFury · 11/08/2015 09:44

My not me

BertrandRussell · 11/08/2015 09:47

And of course the OP shouldn't have ignored her child- but surely calming the crying one down then letting them carry on with their weekend was the right thing to do- not whisking them all home- particularly without first talking to the father or the step mother about it.

BertrandRussell · 11/08/2015 09:51

What, you wouldn't leave your children (one of whom is 11, remember) for 30 minutes with your best friend?

NickiFury · 11/08/2015 09:52

Probably because they know here very well and have been around her regularly since the day they were born.

BertrandRussell · 11/08/2015 09:56

And no child should ever be left for 30 minutes with anyone they have not known since birth?

NickiFury · 11/08/2015 09:58

No, where did I say that? Confused

youarekiddingme · 11/08/2015 10:01

I don't think the OP should have ignored the child. I agree with those saying she should have sorted it there and then.

I'm shocked at suggestions of pressing charges because someone was walking whilst holding the hand of a tantruming child. Most parents and guardians the world over would have criminal records by that standard Grin

I'm also thinking if children were left with the friend they were out with the friend and GF for the day shopping? So not a stranger but maybe not the way ten children would have chosen to spend the day. Again, children the world over are having to do stuff they don't want to do.

So if a NRP isn't allowed to work during contact time does that mean RP are also forbidden to work - as they should be wanting to spend that contact time with the children?

How does that work when there is a 50:50 contact time split. Surely you have to find a way to make it work?

BertrandRussell · 11/08/2015 10:03

You said you would "probably" leAve your children with your best friend because they have known her all their lives. The implication being that if they hadn't, you wouldn't.

NickiFury · 11/08/2015 10:04

You're extrapolating Bertrand. You asked me directly what I would do and I replied factually.

Also the OP describes that her dd was refusing to leave the shop. Presumably this was occurring when GF went off for her blow dry but she still went anyway. The friend had managed to get her three floors, still crying and distressed and OP heard her child from the other side of the shop, I imagine GF knew exactly what was happening but carried on anyway. No one should have to deal with that, not my dd, not my friend, just so I can get a blow dry Hmm

BertrandRussell · 11/08/2015 10:08

So everything stops for a tantrumming child?

As I said, the OP should of course have stopped to comfort the child/do whatever she usually does to stop a tantrum, but she was wrong to take them all home, particularly without talking to the father or stepmother first.

NickiFury · 11/08/2015 10:12

See there's the difference. I see a "distressed" child, who is distressed for good reason it seems to me. The dismissal of this as a tantrum takes nothing into account of the circumstances, which have already been described at length so I won't bother again.

BertrandRussell · 11/08/2015 10:18

I thought the OP said she was tantrumming? Must have misread-sorry. But even if it was distressed, we don't know why. Sounds as if it's because she was not with the stepmother- easily cured by her going back to stepmother.

It's a bugger of a situation- of course it is. But the children being with the stepmother's best friend is perfectly fine. People are being utterly hysterical about it. All this talk of never letting them go again and pressing charges.....Just ridiculous.

BertrandRussell · 11/08/2015 10:24

Yes, the OP said "tantrumming" several times.

NickiFury · 11/08/2015 10:24

Yes agree that's ridiculous, pressing charges for what exactly? Also ridiculous to blame Dad for having to work.

The OP may have said tantrumming, but I am not a fan of that word. When my children kick off there's always a reason even it's not valid to me. In this instance the distress or tantrum if you prefer, was valid in my opinion. Not only that, the older two wanted to come too. Sounds like all the children were thoroughly hacked off by the situation.

NickiFury · 11/08/2015 10:26

Not only that the children were due home soon anyway. Couldn't GF wait for a blow dry till they'd gone?

youarekiddingme · 11/08/2015 10:27

Op says she heard a child crying and her dd was having a tantrum because she didn't want to leave shop.
Op was right IMO to ask who she was. Gf BF was right to ask her who she was.
I don't agree taking children home was right. To me it sets the example if you don't like what's happening whilst in one parents care you can run to the other. That's unhealthy.

sandycove · 11/08/2015 10:28

I'm just thinking of the the number of times when mine were little, how I'd have loved the luxury of just popping into the hairdressers. Not a problem for this woman, even though she'd been entrusted with boyfriends 3 children. Such a huge responsibility, I wonder what had been going on for one of them to be so upset. Well let's see, today is the day I'm supposed to spend time with my Dad, he couldn't manage it so palmed me off with his girlfriend. This was a nuisance to his girlfriend because she had plans of her own, ie getting hair done. So she then decides to palm me and my siblings off with her mate. This was a nuisance to her too because she wanted to look round the shops. So there we are, in town with a strange woman. She doesn't want us, we are a nuisance to her, we don't want to be there trailing round shops, the strange woman gets impatient with us and talks a bit off with us. Ends up we refuse to budge, she starts dragging one of us out of the shop. But then, what a wonderful sight......Mum is here. Thank goodness for that.
Just imagine how distraught those children would have been if mum had then just walked away. A memory like that would have stayed with them forever. There's no way on Gods earth if this was me I would have allowed this woman to have kept my children from me.

BertrandRussell · 11/08/2015 10:33

"Just imagine how distraught those children would have been if mum had then just walked away. A memory like that would have stayed with them forever. There's no way on Gods earth if this was me I would have allowed this woman to have kept my children from me."

Nope. Me neither. Nobody is suggesting anything of the sort. And you have noticed, haven't you, that one of these children is 11?

Inertia · 11/08/2015 10:39

Exactly Sandy - how hard hearted a parent would you have to be to leave your child in that situation, when she was clearly distraught?

Jade's friend was not only a stranger to the OP, she was also a stranger to the children's father, who had also never met the friend - and unless I have missed something, a stranger to the children up until that point.

So no Bertrand, adults don't need to stop everything for a tantrum ming child - but they do need to consider the needs of the children they are supposed to be in charge of, rather than just dumping them on a whim.

There's a difference between a getting-your-own-way tantrum and genuine distress, and Jane's friend was put in the difficult position of dealing with a distraught child she didn't know.

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