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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think DH is being way over-cautious

148 replies

HelsBels3000 · 29/01/2016 17:29

My eldest DD (7) had a friend round for tea, all fine, had a good time and ate and played together nicely. I had previously arranged with friend's Mum that I would bring her DD home afterwards. DH suddenly announces during the day that he was going out with friends for drinks that evening - and pretty much driving past friend's house on his route. I thought nothing of it and asked that he would drop friend off on his way past - on his way out. Journey is approx 15mins each way.
DH arrives home and is told of this plan, refuses and says he will have to take friend home AND our DD in the car with him and then return home again to drop off DD, and go again - as he will not be alone in the car with someone else's daughter. I think he is being ridiculous. He thinks he is being cautious. What are your thoughts?

OP posts:

Junosmum · 29/01/2016 19:33

I think he's being over cautious but I can sadly understand why. Wouldn't cross my DHs mind though, but he was a primary school teacher and one to one time / helping children dress/ undress is normal to him.

TowerRavenSeven · 29/01/2016 19:34

I don't think you abu but if I were the mum of the other girl I'd want your dd there in the car with her.

partialderivative · 29/01/2016 19:34

He doesn't want to drop the kid off and is using stranger danger as an excuse. Pathetic.

Have you read the number of posts in support of his stance? Are they all pathetic as well?

limitedperiodonly · 29/01/2016 19:36

Yes

MintyBojingles · 29/01/2016 19:37

Does he work with Children? Standard policy if you do to have someone else in the car.

limitedperiodonly · 29/01/2016 19:37

And yes

Lifeisontheup2 · 29/01/2016 19:39

Goodness, every day, all day/night I'm alone in a vehicle with a colleague, that colleague is frequently male. Sometimes we even sleep, I used to joke with DH that I'd slept with more men in the last 5 years than in my previous 30 years.

I've never thought about DH being in a car with other children, the DC's used to generally go with him but more from a good manners point of view than the thought of false accusations.

ABetaDad1 · 29/01/2016 19:39

I agree with your DH. I would not do it.

No teacher would put themselves n this position. I am responsible for child protection in a church hobby group and nobody in a position of authority as a trainer is allowed to be alone with a child and we all have CRB checks. Its a regulation of the Diocese.

EllenJanethickerknickers · 29/01/2016 19:41

I agree with your DH. And having two girls in the car, even if aged 7, would offer some protection against false accusations, misunderstandings but more importantly, against potential abuse. An abuser wouldn't want a witness, much harder to persuade two children to keep a secret or that that they were mistaken. Your DH, or any adult is just being sensible and if he feels uncomfortable taking this girl home alone, then that's how he feels. I repeat, an abuser wouldn't want a witness.

ABetaDad1 · 29/01/2016 19:44

Drivers of cars when we go on outings with our hobby group have to be accompanied by another adult and one or other adult has to be CRB checked and preferably one of the adults should be a man and one a woman.

I have never been alone with any child other than my own children in any situation and will always avoid it and my DW agrees.

junebirthdaygirl · 29/01/2016 19:44

Agree with your dh. The parents mightnt like it. It's not paranoia just wisdom on his part. If we ever had a young teenager girl babysitting l always drove them home even if l was exhausted.

LittleBeautyBelle · 29/01/2016 19:45

Sadly, your dh is right. Child abuse happens. He is just making sure there's not even a hint of a possibility that he is alone with another child so that there's no question. I would bet her parents would appreciate your dh insisting on not being alone with their daughter, just in case.

Most abused children are abused by people they know and trust, people their parents thought they could trust with their children.

WitchWay · 29/01/2016 19:48

Very sad state of affairs but I think he's being sensible.

limitedperiodonly · 29/01/2016 19:56

It's a well known fact that women and children make false allegations of sexual assault all the time.

Sometimes it's because they are confused, but sometimes it's because they are evil and want to entrap innocent men. Some of them are so cunning that they even make up allegations when they have absolutely no sexual experience at all because they are seven years old.

It is a real hazard for the man who thinks it's a nice and normal thing to do to drive a bit out of his way to drop his daughter's friend off after a play date when en route to meeting his mates.

It's a good job we overwhelmingly don't believe the accusers.

But to be on the safe side, I'm with your husband. He should go straight to his mates and fuck the kid.

Obviously, I didn't mean that literally.

HPsauciness · 29/01/2016 19:58

I find this whole thread really odd. On the occasions I've written about sleepovers at other people's houses, which I have reservations about, I'm always told it's totally overprotective to worry, sleepovers are normal and not to be suspicious.

I'd be far more worried about a sleepover than a 10 min trip in a car! You can't stop someone being alone at a sleepover with another parent/sibling because it's a long time period, kids go to the bathroom, everyone's in night clothes, some asleep, you can't watch them all the time. But then I had a bad experience on a sleepover so perhaps I would feel the same if it had been in a car.

I think this is totally disproportionate, I would be happy with any of my children's friends dads giving a lift without anyone else in the car, otherwise why would I send them round to their houses, where there are equal amounts of opportunities if the person was that way inclined.

Booboostwo · 29/01/2016 20:01

EllenJane if we were to assume that the DH is an abuser why would you ever think that the presence of his own 7yo would stop him from abusing her friend? Is this part of a paedophile code of ethics?!

wannaBe · 29/01/2016 20:09

recently there was a thread on here from a poster who had seen a young girl in the rain on the motorway, had stopped, let her into her car, driven her home and called the police to tel them where she was. This girl was apparently running away from home to meet someone from the Internet. .

Almost everyone on the thread said that the op was fantastic, had done the right thing and that they would all have been grateful if it had been their dd. the op said she was a foster carer, so presumably would have had safeguarding training, and yet no-one said that she shouldn't have picked up a strange girl in the middle of the road and taken her back to her house.

Yet on this thread the assumption is that no man should ever be alone with a child who they probably know through regular contact with their own children.

And for those who say that two children in the car are protection, presumably if your dh's are going to abuse the young girl they're driving home, they're probably abusing your dd's as well, so no protection there....

I would probably take both kids on account of the fact that they're friends and would want to go together. It would never occur to me that it was for personal protection. This notion that A, children make things up, and B, because children are abused that this should be guarded against at all costs and everyone considered a risk is bloody ridiculous.

Jesabel · 29/01/2016 20:16

If DP is dropping one of DS's friends home, DS always goes too. I think this is so the child doesn't feel uncomfortable as much as anything, it can be a bit intimidating to be on your own with a man you don't really know when you're little.

One of DS's friend's dads was picking him up somewhere the other day - we don't really know him and I was glad he brought his son with him.

Crispbutty · 29/01/2016 20:22

"Why would a child make a false allegation of sexual assault?

It's even less likely than an adult woman making one."

but it still does happen, and the ramifications of that allegation would be horrendous..

I think it is a sad world that way live in, but better to err on the side of caution.

AppleSetsSail · 29/01/2016 20:23

I totally agree HPSauce. It's general consensus here that sleepovers are OK and you're overprotective if you balk at them.

limitedperiodonly · 29/01/2016 20:27

Recently was driving to a school I often work in. Torrential rain. Drove past a bus stop and recognised a boy waiting there from the school I was driving to I did not stop and offer a lift for the same reasons, but did think it ridiculous, and really wished I could have done, but too risky for me as an adult, open to accusations

WTF? And from the nickname I assume it was posted by a woman.

limitedperiodonly · 29/01/2016 20:35

it still does happen

Does it really? What's your evidence?

I have no evidence either. But using my intuition, I strongly suspect that this bloke cannot be arsed to drive out of his way to drop off his daughter's mate while en route to a night out with his own mates.

So with the magic peedo shield he gets out of that duty and either his wife drops the girl off, her parents come and get her or his little girl doesn't get to see her friend. But he gets to see his.

Great.

Sophia1984 · 29/01/2016 20:37

I think it's also just so DD's friend doesn't feel awkward being on her own with a parent? I wouldn't have liked that when I was a shy kid!

NeedsAsockamnesty · 29/01/2016 20:49

I have had huge huge case loads of service users where one parent is known for making abuse allagations against the other/ the others friends and acquaintances on behalf of their children as part and parcel of the accusers own abusive behaviour.

It's not an unusual occurrence. When you are dealing with other people's kids you rarely know the full details of their life.

For me the consiquences of a malicious allagation made for example by the childs NRP to attempt to paint the RP as neglectful in some way or abusive themselves would in the short term have a catastrophic effect on my own household and my ability to run it and parent my own children as well as perform my job. It is a risk I prefer not to expose myself to and one that is easily mitigated by some fairly easy to cope with actions.

I have been on the receiving end of a malicious allagation many years ago now but the steps I have always put in place to reduce the risk were what removed the potential catastrophic results of it

Sallystyle · 29/01/2016 20:51

I agree with your husband as well, sadly.

My husband would agree too. He never thought about this stuff until one day when he was over the park he noticed a toddler had fallen over and was bleeding. He couldn't see her parents and as she was crying he picked her up off the floor and tried to help her find her mum. Mum went mad because he 'touched' her daughter. It scared him how quickly an act of kindness could be turned into something nasty.

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