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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be annoyed about teachers assuming there's always a parent at home?

88 replies

mangoparfait · 09/12/2016 15:05

Went to parents evening earlier this week with DC, who has mocks in Jan.

All the teachers have agreed to offer additional support after school to pupils who need it. Which is great, not knocking that at all. I think it's a really good thing.

Attendance is voluntary, but as DC mentioned during the parents eve that some general revision help would be useful, plus more specifically there were certain elements of 2 subjects that just hadn't 'clicked', teachers and I agreed coming to the afterschool sessions would be helpful. DC mentioned they'd planned to come to one earlier in the week, but forgot, came home after school (we live 10 mins from school) and went out to play sport. Oh, says teacher 1, next time you do that, your mum will have to just send you back to school (nodding at me).

To which I said I'd happily do so, except for the fact I'm not at home at 3.10pm, I'm at work. Teacher looked amazed.

Fair enough I thought - until we then had a similar conversation with the next teacher!

I quite understand DC needs to stay for these sessions, and am not seeking to argue that, it is for their benefit, and although going at the end of a school day can seem an unexciting prospect, equally it will help them. And they need to make sure they remember (which I can help with by calling/ texting them as a reminder after school). But I won't be at home as I work ft!

Is that really so unusual? If it was one teacher I'd have brushed it off, but 2, I'm a bit surprised tbh.

OP posts:

lifeissweet · 09/12/2016 16:12

Cross post constantly cooking!

RockNRollNerd · 09/12/2016 16:18

lifeissweet don't feel bad, I'm a child of teachers and understood from an early age that my folks were teaching in the day and couldn't always be there (and yes that meant the occasional afternoon in the sick bay).

I chunter periodically about the default 'call the mum' approach from schools. DS primary had it explained to them countless times that if they called me all I would do would be to call DH who worked literally 10 minutes away (I was at least 1 hour, sometimes 3, occasionally a plane ride away) but every single time they would call me. We've already had it once from secondary, despite me putting DH contact details in the boxes before mine.

FV45 · 09/12/2016 16:22

I've sometimes wondered as to whether teachers are just so pissed off that they really struggle to get time off during term time for their own children's event and just say stuff like that to piss other working parents off?

Surely if you're a teacher at parents evening, you own children will be home alone, so how can it be hard to understand that other teenage children have working parents. Boggle.

sotiredbutworthit · 09/12/2016 16:24

I'm an emergency contact for my friends kids. They couldn't get hold of mum so called me (nothing serious- child had had a small bump in the playground) when I was holiday in a foreign country. When I asked if they had called child's dad they said no! Dad works in a office and can come home easily, mum is an A&E nurse! They just assumed that both the women would be free to drop everything. Sexism is alive and well!

SpookyPotato · 09/12/2016 16:29

I wouldn't be surprised they said that if it was primary school, but I'd assume most parents work when the kids are at secondary.. maybe the teachers know more than us!

Trifleorbust · 09/12/2016 16:41

sotiredbutworthit: God, that is terrible.

awaynboilyurheid · 09/12/2016 16:41

It was when the school said it would be better for the children if parents could walk them to school ! in an ideal world yes it would be lovely

jamdonut · 09/12/2016 16:49

I had similar just recently. I'm am part of a small group of parents that look at the school's policies and make suggestions and requests for amendments etc. The email I had( which I nearly missed) asked me to come for a meeting a few days hence, at 3pm (school finishes 2:45).
I had to say that was difficult as the primary school I work in doest finish till
3:20, and I wouldn't be able to get there before 3:45.

Surprise,surprise, none of the other parents could make 3pm either!!!
So it's been postponed till the new year, and for a later time!

Goldenhandshake · 09/12/2016 16:50

I get this from DD1's school and DD2's pre-school and it is infuriating, they looked bewildered when I said no, I couldn't come in for a 15 minute chat at 12.15, as I work an hour away and that time slot fits neither a morning nor afternoon half days leave (which I am unwilling to use for a 15 minute chat anyway!)

Dahlietta · 09/12/2016 16:54

IF YOU ARE A TEACHER PLEASE BEAR THIS IN MIND AND MAKE SURE YOUR COLLEAGUES DO TOO

I'm a teacher. I'm glad you put that in capitals because I'm too thick and presumptuous to take stuff on board otherwise. I'm sure my colleagues will be grateful when they're grabbing a cup of tea at break and I sit them down and 'make sure they bear this in mind'.

lifeissweet · 09/12/2016 16:54

Oh yes. Call the Mum!

My ex H and father of DS is a SAHD to his two DCs with his second wife.

If DS needs a parent for something now they call me first despite me writing on his forms 'Dad is at home, so he is first contact'

I just say 'have you called Dad like it says on the forms?' In a slightly patronising tone...

MiniAlphaBravo · 09/12/2016 16:55

I really doubt most teachers assume this since most teachers work full time or at least part time and very few would be home at 3.10 either. It's probably just that they can't think of anything else to say.

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut · 09/12/2016 16:57

I find this really odd. Most of the teachers I know are parents with school aged children so they're not at home during the day!

I think some people (and that includes teachers by default) still make some sexist assumptions. Annoying.

MiniAlphaBravo · 09/12/2016 16:57

I agree dahlietta the statement in capitals was especially helpful and I will probably call a staff meeting on Monday with my teacher colleagues to tell them the crazy news - 'many parents work. FYI'

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut · 09/12/2016 17:00

Could you let them know I can't produce a costume for plays at less than one week's notice too please MiniAlpha?

Dahlietta · 09/12/2016 17:00

I really doubt most teachers assume this

I have actually been frequently amazed at the number of parents of secondary age children who don't work. I assumed they would all do so, but I've encountered quite a lot who don't. I still wouldn't assume someone didn't work though.

needsahalo · 09/12/2016 17:15

Yes, because teachers are one huge homogeneous group making deliberately out dated assumptions about the children they work with. ....

Ridiculous, bearing in mind that the teachers themselves work full time

Well, no, that's not the case, is it?

Manumission · 09/12/2016 17:17

To be fair the thread title doesn't say ALL teachers halo

qumquat · 09/12/2016 17:22

I'm a teacher and would never assume there was always a parent at home. I'm at work after all! I think in this situation the teacher may just have been assuming that, as the child had gone home there was a parent there. What does my nut is the assumption that it is the mum we should call if there is any problem relating to the child.

RedMapleLeaf · 09/12/2016 17:33

I'm disgusted with these thick, stuck-in-the-50s teachers! How dare they voluntarily put on extra classes in their own time for no extra pay and then expect a little bit of support from the students' actual parents when these young adults decide not to attend? The audacity of it all!

Moaningmyrtille · 09/12/2016 17:33

I'm a teacher, and a working mum with 4 kids. I don't spend very much time thinking about the employment of parents, I'm pretty busy.

If you have such a problem with the teachers maybe you should get someone else to use their free time to help your kids.

Moaningmyrtille · 09/12/2016 17:50

Maybe they were not looking amazed because you have a job, maybe they were amazed because you think they are concerned with your working hours?

Original poster

mangoparfait · 09/12/2016 19:16

Well nice to see most people think I'm not BU.

I also find the examples given of mums being assumed to be the first point of emergency contact, even where there is a SAHD, a little archaic and disappointing. As a single parent it's not something I have encountered, although I am always addressed as Mrs which is mildly irritating, as I've never been married, and have a different surname to DC - on school records etc I am very definitely Miss Mangoparfait. But I just politely correct in those situations, it's not worth making a fuss about.

Red please point me to the part in my OP where I said I was not supportive of the extra sessions? Attendance at them is voluntary, however at parents' eve DC indicated they felt they would benefit. So I will happily encourage them to go, of course. I will phone/ text them as a prompt and support their attendance in that way. But what I can't do is physically see them arrive home at 3.10 and direct them back to school, because I won't be at home until 3-4 hours later. Which I'd have thought is a not uncommon situation.

Myrtille as a busy working mother presumably you wouldn't expect that a parent was in the house immediately after school then? FWIW I didn't ask the teachers to be concerned with my working hours, I simply said that I wouldn't be home at that time as I'd be at work - cue looks of surprise/ amazement. To teacher 2, I think I said that I wouldn't be home as I work ft. I wasn't making a big drama of it, just rebutting a presumption that I suspect were I a man, they would not have made...

OP posts:

needsahalo · 09/12/2016 19:31

To be fair the thread title doesn't say ALL teachers halo

It says teachers...it doesn't say some teachers.
be annoyed about teachers assuming there's always a parent at home?

KingLooieCatz · 09/12/2016 19:33

At DS old school I wouldn't have been at all surprised if they had stopped bothering to teach the girls at all and just had them practise pushing prams around. If I'd had a daughter I'd have been raging rather than bemused, such were the expectations of women.

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