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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have no interest whatsoever in joining in school things, like PTAs helping nights out

182 replies

LardLizard · 05/05/2016 22:51

I just don't want to know tbh

Reasons are because I feel a lot of people involved are not 100% genuine
And there's too make fake friendships and bs

So I don't want to join the oat, I don't want to help out on school fetes
No I don't want to go on night out on the town with other school mums

I have my life and an active social life and I don't want to extend that

However guess I feel a bit guilty, esp about not really helping out with school stuff, but I just don't want to know and don't want to get sucked into the policitics of it all

OP posts:
UsedtobeFeckless · 06/05/2016 09:20

Meh - I'm a noisy feminist with unexpected hair, tattoos and a bit of an attitude. I've been on two PTAs with a healthy sprinkling of God-Bothers and Stephford Wives and it was fine ... Every one rubbed along, we raised lots of money for necessary stuff and had quite a laugh doing it.

Get over yourself. Join / don't join ... No one cares except you!

holeinmyheart · 06/05/2016 09:27

I think you are being unreasonable as other people's actions are helping your DCs. I live in a small village and although I am not someone who wants to be on a Commitee ( far from it) I was moaning about the state of the potholes and how someone had broken the glass in the wooden bus shelter one day, to someone on the PC.
They quite rightly said, 'well if you become a Parish Councillor, you can do something about it' So I did.
Most people in our village have no idea what the Pc do. I was stopped in the village recently and told ' you are on the council and that drain is blocked !!! That made me laugh.
I have now become part of THEY. As in, THEY don't do anything.
I think the people on the PTA, PC, Councillors ( unwaged) etc are pretty unselfish. They give up their time for others and give something back to the community they live in.
I think I would be a bit ashamed to have posted the OP.

LadyReuleaux · 06/05/2016 09:28

Feckless I might be able to make that work if I was confident and outgoing. As it is I'm a loner / suspected ASD, and I find the group setting so difficult.

I think my point is anyone might have perfectly good reasons for feeling unable to go there, even if that is that they just don't feel up to it/don't like it. And actually I think it is important to state that. Look at the replies on here that are all about making OP feel bad for not being keen and not feeling comfortable about it, because she's OK for her kids to benefit etc.

Some people aren't like that and I do find it a bit 1950s that there is any pressure put on people at all or resentment towards people who don't.

And while that pressure does not apply equally to men (which in our school it definitely does not) I feel feministly bound to resist it.

LadyReuleaux · 06/05/2016 09:32

other people's actions are helping your DCs

Yes but they are voluntary actions.

I do not hold it against anyone else that I have donated a lot of valuable goods to the school and they haven't, and their kids benefit from it. They don't even know. I've just done what I felt able to and could manage.

Plus, loads of parents work and pay more tax as a result, and there are those who don't, for whatever reason. So by that argument as I work I should resent that other people's kids are benefitting from my tax. SAHPs may be more likely to have the time for PTA activities, though, so maybe it's a fair swap.

People do what they can and/or want to do. I especially don't want people to toil and moil for the PTA if they are then going to be bitter about it and hold it against those who don't.

dolkapots · 06/05/2016 09:39

I would love to help with (a nice) PTA in principle but for my own reasons I don't associate with alcohol or alcoholic events. Everything that was PTA based was alcohol based; meetups in pubs, candlelit suppers, wine as tombola prizes etc.

Notonthestairs · 06/05/2016 09:41

The Op wasn't talking about "not feeling comfortable". She was having a good old sneer.
I dont bake and I dont like fairs, discos etc etc. I volunteer because my kids really look forward to the events and I know where the money raised is being spent - on stuff that my kids benefit from. Our PTA has more working parents than SAHM.

In an ideal world the school wouldnt need a PTA - its funding would cover everything it needs. But that isnt going to happen any time soon.

Plus that army of women (and it is mainly women) often are the same volunteers that do extra reading/play educational games with kids with additional needs. My DD has ASD and benefits from their time. Its the sort of help that the school can't provide (we're working on that). I think they are bloody marvellous.

LadyReuleaux · 06/05/2016 09:43

OP said
Reasons are because I feel a lot of people involved are not 100% genuine
And there's too make fake friendships and bs

OK that's quite harsh but it describes our PTA exactly and is exactly why I wouldn't fit in. OP doesn't like it because of the bullshit and fakeness. That is valid.

Isetan · 06/05/2016 09:47

If you're so secure, why the fuck are you raising this in AIBU? I am not a member of the PTA but I do volunteer for sport days/ school trips/ cater for school fetes and celebrations because I think it's important to give something back to a place and a people who have such a massive role in my daughter's life.

What evidence do you have that the school doesn't need the funds raised by the efforts of the PTA and other volunteers? Their is a lot of time and effort involved in running fund raising events and I'm sure they wouldn't do it, if it wasn't necessary to fund the extras that benefit all pupils (your child included).

As others have said, you're in the majority of parents who don't get involved but your uninvolvement doesn't make you special, cool or a maverick and your apparent self satisfaction from your 'stance', says more about you than the supposedly fake people you're trying to avoid.

BertrandRussell · 06/05/2016 09:48

Oh it's just another thread where people say how different and unique and quirky and special they are and how the rest of us are just boring "mundanes"

Move along. Nothing to see here.

LadyReuleaux · 06/05/2016 09:50

No, I think it's really important about the pressure put on women to do unpaid work for schools – and it almost always is put on women.

It's the housework situation all over again. It is a feminist issue. And I see that pressure and shutting down of anyone who doesn't like it right here on this thread.

EatinAintCheatin · 06/05/2016 09:53

yanbu my good friend does it (at a different school) from what she has said its a nightmare, loads of bitching and politics and above all loads of work for little reward!

I stay well away Grin

Notonthestairs · 06/05/2016 10:02

I agree its a feminist issue. Unpaid school volunteers are almost exclusively women.

I just also know that those women are helping my kid have a better experience in school (and might even get to stay in mainstream schooling) as a result of their efforts so I am going to celebrate their efforts.

BertrandRussell · 06/05/2016 10:08

And you know what else is a feminist issue?

The assumption that volunteers are all attention seeking, bitchy, cliquey cows with nothing better to do.

Those assumptions are made because volunteers are mainly women.

herecomethepotatoes · 06/05/2016 10:10

I agree its a feminist issue. Unpaid school volunteers are almost exclusively women. Hmm

A feminist issue?!?!?

Head of PTA at my school is a man, who replaced another man. Is that a feminist issue because of sexism in the workplace?

I suspect it's mostly women who work for the PTA etc as in single income households, it's still far more likely for the mother to be the one staying at home, looking after the children, helping at the school etc.

You can't have your cake and eat it.

BeautifulMaudOHara · 06/05/2016 10:15

I agree with LadyR, it is a feminist issue

Men don't get this shit for thinking the PTA is a PTFA

LadyReuleaux · 06/05/2016 10:23

Head of PTA at my school is a man, who replaced another man. Is that a feminist issue because of sexism in the workplace?

Yes actually. It doesn't surprise me at all, and it's often the case at our school, that it's a man at the top and mostly women lower down.

Exactly the same dynamic as you often find with primary school staff.

I'd surmise that's because a man who does want to get involved may see himself as naturally good at being in charge and women may tend to defer to that, because of ingrained assumptions and men's (widely studied and documented) far greater willingness to put themselves forward for top jobs and women's greater reluctance to. In general. Of course there are women PTA leaders etc etc but yes I do think it reflects societal inequality.

SpinnakerInTheEther · 06/05/2016 10:24

I think the problems occur when social pressure is put on people to volunteer. This is what causes resentment and is divisive, so you get the sneering and bitchiness.

People make too many assumptions regarding people's free time. For example, there is an assumption that a SAHM has nothing to do all day, when in reality they are usually a SAHM for a reason, small baby, elderly parent to support, children with additional needs which require a huge amount of their time. Not all of this information will people want to share with relative strangers either.

We really are not obliged, at all, as parents, to function as a free resource for schools to utilise. They can get very willing volunteers through colleges and universities, which helps with the training of students.

t4gnut · 06/05/2016 10:26

PTA are a curious bunch of busybodies and trolls. Don't blame you for steering well clear.

witsender · 06/05/2016 10:31

Feel free not to volunteer, those with your attitude are probably not best suited to it tbh. At my daughter's old school the PTA is very active, buys things like defibrillators and little things like that but certainly isn't cliquey or bitchy, it's a very misogynistic view that groups of women will be so.

I'm not PTA material as I'm not a 'joiner', but I wanted to contribute so I became a governor. My children are home educated now so we have no other connection with them now but I keep my duties up.

SuckingEggs · 06/05/2016 10:31

The people who criticise the PTFA at our school are a small bunch of sad, moaning, self-absorbed, inversely snobby, critical twats. They are also rather jealous, usually, of the people who are perceived to get on and muck in because they are doing it for their kids/ the school.

Thankfully, the others (whether involved or not) who either come or don't - but don't make a meal of things either way - seem lovely.

Funny also how the whingebags love to get rat-arsed on subsidised booze at all the events...

herecomethepotatoes · 06/05/2016 10:34

LadyReuleaux, Notonthestairs

Ah. I see. You're those people. I'll stay well away.

Will say though that the head of the board is a lady.

BertrandRussell · 06/05/2016 10:34

"I think the problems occur when social pressure is put on people to volunteer."

The problem is that one person's "please can people help with the year 2 disco- we need another couple of grown ups or it can't happen" is another person's completely unreasonable, emotionally blackmailing demand........

Oly5 · 06/05/2016 10:35

I agree that it's only women who face scrutiny over involvement with schools etc
Men are just expected to work and bring home the bacon.
They don't face nonsense
Yes, there are assumptions that sahms have the time for PTA
There's also the assumption that women who work don't care about the school.... Or their kids for that matter

SuckingEggs · 06/05/2016 10:36

The 'you're so fake' shit... normally more suited to 11-year-olds

How do YOU know who is fake and who is not? You're hardly friendly or involved enough to be privy to this, so how do you know? Are you psychic? Or just making ill-informed assumptions?!

LaContessaDiPlump · 06/05/2016 10:36

Skim-read the thread.

I didn't go to school in the UK, plus I went to an International school and we didn't seem to have all the cake days/book days/trips away/fetes/discos etc that they do here. DS1 is now in Reception and I haven't got involved at all as a) it just wasn't on my radar as a thing to be aware of and b) I used to work FT (now dropped to PT) so had minimal time anyway.

Should I be getting involved? Is it expected of me? Is there possibly a group of women (let's be honest here) sitting somewhere thinking I'm lazy and don't care about DS1's school life due to my lack of involvement? I'll get involved if it's expected of me, I just don't know if I'm over-thinking or not!

This being a grown-up is no fun, I tell you.

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