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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think that the PTA is voluntary?

277 replies

malificent7 · 30/11/2016 06:43

I used to help the pta as and when i could with the Christmas fare etc.

Then i got more work so i had to stop. I will nog forget one of the PTA have a moan at me in the playground that some mhms were not pulling their wieght as they were not in the PTA. When i said id love to help but couldnt she said "we are all in the same boat" She didnt work.

Aibu to think that if you volunteer you shouldnt moan about people not volunteering for whatever reason!?

Voluntary means just that!

OP posts:

Wookiecookies · 30/11/2016 10:53

I am probably going to get flamed, but I cannot bear the PTA. Please please, can schools just ask for a cheque at the beginning of each year instead? (dont hate me!)

Our PTA is full of joules/boden wearing cliquey queen bee clones, who all seem to be peddling some sort of pyramid scheme tat. Some members also seem to enjoy hunting animals for fun at the weekends! Joy!

I guess my trouble is I am just too gobby, I would inevitably end up pissing someone off within the first week or so and life around school and where I live would become a special kind of hell as a result.

All jokes aside, I do appreciate the hard work that they do for the kids (even though about 50% of it is unecessary) but I am just not the comittee type. Nothing positive would be achieved from my attendance and that is just the bare truth of it. And I am a sahm, so I have time, just not the inclination. Sorry not sorry

JigglyTuff · 30/11/2016 10:57

I'd rather just pay £50 a year and stop all these pointless events that take hours and hours to organise, cost ££ to run and raise £500

Wookiecookies · 30/11/2016 11:00

jiggly you are my people... waves excitedly

Wookiecookies · 30/11/2016 11:08

mrshathaway

Co-ordinating class tea towels? WTH?

MrsHathaway · 30/11/2016 11:15

Tea towels.

Wookiecookies · 30/11/2016 11:22

Oh dear... those tea towels confirm yet more reasons to me as to why I avoid the pta!

I want to just write a cheque and make tat like that go away.

bikingintherain · 30/11/2016 11:24

I get a least one email a week asking for help in school, from baking with the kids, to extra clubs, sports day, class parties etc. I work and have 3 DC, the youngest who is 5 months and high needs (well at least compared to my other two). I honestly can't help with stuff, I simply don't have the capacity. Yet I feel so guilty that there are a few parents who seem to do the majority of the hard work. I would honestly rather they did less of the extra things if they need all this help.

JigglyTuff · 30/11/2016 11:24

I bet there's loads of us Wookie :o

BadKnee · 30/11/2016 11:25

I love my tea towels. I have loads of them. Use them every!! DS was actually looking at his, (by now 10 years old) pic as he did the drying up yesterday! We laughed about it and wondered where some of his classmates were now!

MrsHathaway · 30/11/2016 11:26

I want to just write a cheque and make tat like that go away.

A lot of our parents were delighted to write a cheque and get some of their grandparent Christmas presents sorted - win-win!

Some of us can write large cheques; some of us have only time to donate; some have both; some have neither. I think it's rude to make assumptions about which group a particular person falls into. And that's kind of the whole point of the thread.

BadKnee · 30/11/2016 11:28

BUt £50 a year wouldn't run the athletics club. Or pay for responsible adults to accompany teachers on all the school trips. Or read with all the reception and Yr1 kids twice a week.

And don't feel guilty if you genuinely can't. When I had a new baby - I couldn't. When I got a new FT job - I couldn't. When my dad died - I couldn't.

As long as everybody does what they can when they can it will be enough.

Wookiecookies · 30/11/2016 11:30

God help me when I am a grandparent, if these tea towels will be the highlight of my christmas.

Musicinthe00ssucks · 30/11/2016 11:31

Notonthestairs Thank you. I guess I'm still a bit put out by it all. I need to man up a bit I think

NotMoreMinecraft · 30/11/2016 11:32

I'd much rather pay money too at beginning of year. I don't get the point of doing 30/40/50 hours work in a year to bring in a small amount of money. I can go to work, and in a few hours make way more. I'd rather donate 50 or 100 even. A lot of the issues discussed seem pointless ( which sweet to give the kids when santa visits, which sweet is the cheapest , where to buy it, how do we get a discount on the sweets etc, just forget all the sweets and tat, the kids don't need and we are supposed to have a healthy eating policy.)
we have a school calendar which comes out months too late. If it came out early you could use it as your family calendar. I'd have 4 months of appointments and work on shop calendar by the time the school calendar comes out. They spend hours taking silly pics just for the calendar too, instead of getting the teachers to submit a few already taken.
The parents association look for parent volunteers to supervise a specific sport in our school. My kids are independent in organising their gear, changing etc as most kids should be. Yet they insist in volunteers to help the kids changing. These volunteers are not for kids with additional needs, their extra needs are already met.
Extra reading resources are bought by the parents association, this is brill, but my kids are more advanced and I end up using the local library. So this only benefits some kids. There has been some great guest speekers organised.
A lot of the volunteering in our school seems to be cliquey too, I've turned up to help at the fate and been told they have enough. Then the following week you'll have volunteers complaining that it was the usual people helping out.
The parents association seems to be a social group for a small group of Parents in our school. I volunteer in a shelter, I don't tell any one in the school that I volunteer there or discuss it with anyone in the school. I'd say a lot of parents volunteer for other causes, just because it's not with the school doesn't mean it's less meaningful.
If it suits you to volunteer, that's great, enjoy. Don't impose your views on others.

HeCantBeSerious · 30/11/2016 11:32

It gets to the stage where it's the same few people the whole time and believe it or not it's hard work organising everything.
They're human they get tired and they have personal chores to do too so they can be busy.
Sometimes they feel they have to or a function won't go ahead and disappoint the children so the push through and get it done.
It's not just for their kids it's for all the kids and they're human so a moan isn't unforgivable and understandable sometimes.

This. As well as running the PTA I run a business, work and study. There are 5 other parents that routinely help out, including a paramedic single parent. Where are the other 200 (approx 25% of whom are young and don't work)?

We have parents that sneak their children into the discos and lift them over the sides of bouncy castles rather than pay £1. It's those parents that are first to complain that there aren't enough events and that the ones we have are too expensive even though they put precisely fuck all into them.

Wookiecookies · 30/11/2016 11:38

Hey mrs, here is an idea.

Ditch the naff tea towels, and sell personalised wine bottles. You will make a fortune. 😂

BadKnee · 30/11/2016 11:40

Those complaining about cliques - that didn't happen at all at our school. We had so many sub-groups. The school and the teachers asked for a group of people to do X and someone to do Y - the whole committee thing was hardly in evidence.

Set up your own sub-group. Ask a class teacher what they need and do a "Raising money for Sunflower Class new flowerbed" for example.

Or send out an e-mail via class reps asking whether anyone would like to help a teacher run a three week Christmas Card Making Group or Sew a Cushion activity ? Great for kids, great for parents, - why not? Or if you are Spanish/French/Polish/Indian (or not), ask if you can do a two week cookery and language taster. Advertise it, get the teachers' help and have the school on board as insurance etc is important. Ask for a small contribution for food - maybe £1 - profits to the school. (My DC went to a Spanish event like this - so good for them - they loved it. Raised a few quid for the pot! All organised by a Spanish family at the school)

roundandroundthehouses · 30/11/2016 11:46

My PTA days are over but the 'same faces all the time' was always a bit self-fulfilling. In my dds' primary the PTA had the (justified) reputation of being cliquey, but for me that wasn't the main issue. It was the fact that because they were so short-handed, the merest sniff of a new person being available unleashed a juggernaut of demands from the two or three main organisers who seemed practically to have made it a full-time job. Especially as I 'didn't go out to work' (I worked at home and was also a carer). I ended up being sucked in more and more, voted into the Committee, etc. etc. In the end I gave up because, to be perfectly honest, the guilt of not being in the PTA was actually less than the guilt of being in it. If I had it to do again I wouldn't have joined at all. I imagine that other parents who'd be perfectly willing to help on cake stalls decide to keep their heads down because of that. I don't know what the solution would be.

Notonthestairs · 30/11/2016 12:02

I think the answer is to just do what you can, dont feel guilty when you cant, and appreciate the events when they happen.
And having read this thread I realise that have been a background face for so long I had forgotten how horrible it is to turn up for the first few times. I now remember sitting in the car outside just dreading going in and te first few events I think I wandered about aimlessly. Five years on I have fallen in to the habit of slinking in to the back of the meeting, taking my jobs and leaving - I am going make a lot more effort to say chat to anyone new that arrives.

Cucumber5 · 30/11/2016 12:07

Stay at home mums are busy you know!! they are fitting in their pta activities around other commitments. Work isn't the only commitment some women have

BarbarianMum · 30/11/2016 12:58

TheresAGhostYouFools · 30/11/2016 13:00

Bloody hell, HeCantBeSerious, I'd like to see them try that at our school! Disco's are strictly one door entry, on the door is a table manned by 2 teachers, and the kids can't go in until they've coughed up their pound and been signed in and given a wristband. Parent volunteers on the door of the hall then check wristbands - it's like a club!! Same with the bouncy castle at the summer fair - all inflatables are in a fenced off part of the field and you have to buy tickets to get in. It's a shame it has to be that way, but as you illustrated, there are so many entitled piss-takers around.

HeCantBeSerious · 30/11/2016 13:03

I've known a lot of people say they'd prefer to do this but never met one whose actually coughed up a penny.

Yep. We have some parents (25-40%) that would cough up and others would attend the events run on the donations of others. They're utter pisstakers.

HeCantBeSerious · 30/11/2016 13:03

It's a shame it has to be that way, but as you illustrated, there are so many entitled piss-takers around.

Yep. A pound towards their child's education is asking too much, but they're booked in for huge tattoos every other week.

HeCantBeSerious · 30/11/2016 13:05

Teachers won't help at our events.

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