Aibu to think headmistress is living in la la land?

[Maxandrubyrubyandmax]

Get out of a 30 min meeting at work 5missed calls on mobile and my secretary comes rushing over at same time land line calls. Headmistress from ds school. DS has run into post and banged his nose. Can I get there immediately. Apparently DS is fine but we have to pick him up. Explain I will be about 45 min as need to pack up and get train and walk to school. DH about an hour away. Quizzed about couldn't a grandparent pick up
DS (no the nearest is 2 hours away). Didn't we have friends? Yes but it's not 1955 so they all work? Other relatives? No they live miles away and yes they work. Set off to school. Head mistress rings DH goes through same questions. As no one has moved house in last 5min gets same answer. Get to school. DS sat chatting to school secretary happy as you like. Head mistress goes through same questions nope still no one hAs moved or given up job in last 45 min. But there must be someone says the head. Well no actually there isn't. But she wants someone who can be at school in 5 min. Start to get pissed off. No one I tell her. She then shakes her head and says I guess that's how it is these days then. Aibu to be pissed off and felt judged about the fact I have moved away from the family home, got a job and don't just drop off child and sit at home all day? If it had been urgent I would have jumped in a taxi

Or people who live in London? Or people who have the sort of jobs you can't just drop?

When you don't have someone, you put measures in place

If you don't have someone how do you put measures in place?

And for the umpteenth time - you can be out even if you are a SAHM. And even if you do know people, they might be out too. You might even be out together.

If you are out, you might not even have a mobile phone!

People are not always contactable. It is a simple fact of life and the idea that people will call social services after half an hour is silly too. My son's childminder had a 45 min rule but I did tell her that mobile phone coverage can be lost on a railway line so could she check National Rail for the train times before she rang SS. In the event I was never that late to collect ds.

There really do seem to be people on this thread who think you should not have children if you don't have several contacts who can be at home all the time and never have a broken down car.

When my kids were at nursery DT1 cut her hand badly and needed stitches. Nursery called ambulance, member of staff went with her in ambulance and stayed with her in A&E until I could get there (for various reasons not until about 1 hr later). I was called by nursery manager (I'm self-employed and work at home) just as they were leaving in ambulance and told which hosp they were heading for. They found it absolutely standard to sort child out first and involve parent once care/treatment in hand, and absolutely took it for granted that member of staff would stay with DT1 until parent or other family member/appointed adult could get there.

Perhaps I should add that we're not in the UK.

You can call Social Services after half an hour if you want. They will not be interested since they already have too much work dealing with families who actually need their involvement.

On another occasion (my DT are accident-prone ) DH was only 10 minutes' drive away coming to pick up both DT when DT2 bashed her head. Ambulance arrived at same time as DH. Nevertheless, member of nursery staff went in ambulance with DT2 with DH and DT1 following behind in our car, then nursery manager bringing up the rear in her car to bring staff member back to nursery afterwards. It was like the Wacky Races! Once at A&E, nursery staff left and DH and DT2 stayed on with DT1.

They obvs do things differently round here!

I think the HT is being unreasonable. Firstly, if they couldn't contact you they should have tried your DH immediately (or any other alt contacts you've provided) and secondly even in a small town it can take 30+ minutes to get from home/work to the school.

Although have to say I was a bit embarassed when started new job based at hospital and my youngest was brought up to a&e twice in first fortnight as no-one could get hold of me.

tasout the HT rang the OP several times first When the OP wasnt picking up because she was unable to, why didnt the OP try the DH THEN.

Because...............sexism thats why.

I think the Oz training mentioned by a PP sounds great - all teachers and TAs and staff First Aiders and with training in Epipens/asthma relief. Renewed annually. Though I can see the DfE budget might not run to it and the NHS might not have money spare - unless it could be argued it lessened the impact on emergency services/local GPs
.
I've worked with trauma care specialists (advising people first on scene) and their general advice was intervene in an emergency after dialling 999. With an asthmatic DC it would have been good to know someone knew the warning signs of an attack and prevented it before it became dangerous. Ditto use of epipens.

And surely in this day and age the school database should carry notes about whom to contact, in what order, and likely response times and whoever might step up? Filled in at the start of the school year with the onus on the parents to file changes? And notes on the child's medical history as another PP suggested: "doesn't like sports, always claims headache" .. "never complains" ... "usually just needs time out and quiet"

.

Often found. Nursery is completely different, it seems to be staffed by people with common sense who would never say "it's not my job". IMO if you choose to work with children you automatically sign up to looking after them as well as teaching their ABCs (although that was apparently my job too -whole different thread)

Tasout. My son (who is a precious only btw and over eggs things generally even said he wasn't hurt and trust me you would know if he was). My son quite frankly will chat to anyone but urs it was nice of a person who works in a school to chat to a child. I don't feel
Guilty thanks. But cheers for playing the guilty working mum card (presume ur one urself and are trying to
Make yourself sound better than 90% on this thread) yes the HT is judgey as coobbetated by numerous people since

All parents are asked to provide an emergency contact these days and that means someone who can get there quickly.

No it doesn't. It's just someone the school can contact if they can't get the parents. No-one could conceivably guarantee that an emergency contact can get to the school quickly - you can hardly order them to sit by their phone constantly throughout school hours.

if I worked quite a distance away, I would contact a local childminder to be available and to be my emergency contact.

Childminders have statutory limits to the number of children they can look after. Unless you want to pay them full price to keep the place free for your child - which would be ludicrous - that just isn't going to be possible. And, as pp have pointed out, they generally won't take a vomiting or potentially infectious child anyway.

Tasout
if I worked quite a distance away, I would contact a local childminder to be available and to be my emergency contact

No you wouldn't. I wouldn't be 'on call' for free for anyone's kids. There is no guarantee I would have room for another child nor even be in. And I certainly wouldn't be taking a sick child.
Stop making things up as you go along you obviously have no idea how child minders work, we aren't a drop in centre nor at random parents beck and call.

And for the umpteenth time you still haven't acknowledged that SOME PARENTS DO NOT HAVE ANYONE THEY CAN CALL ON TO PICK UP THEIR KIDS ANY FASTER THAN THEY CAN. Emergency contact is just another person it's no guarantee they can get there quicker than the parent . Why is that so hard to understand?

We have four contacts for Dd. Dh is contact until 2pm. I am contact from 2pm onwards. Grandparents are both contacts but 45mins away. Twice dd s extra curricular activities have finished early meaning an early pick up. Both times they ring dh after 2.

Dd tells learning mentor they must ring me as her dad's phone is in his locker. Both times she's told not to worry, daddy will come for her. Dd ends up sat in office with catsbum face till sensible Secretary rings me. Last time Secretary said not to hurry as they were having a party with the eight or so kids in the same situation

Less sensible Secretary will only ever ring first emergency contact despite what my ten yr old tells her. Hence she was nearly left at school when they came back early from PGL . Luckily a friend on Facebook mentioned the coach was only ten minutes away and she could get Dd, or they would have kept ringing dhs unanswered phone in his locker!

I would put in a complaint every time less sensible sec or anyone else does that. They will soon get sick of it. It's unacceptable and actually a safeguarding issue.

Megatherium: Childminders have statutory limits to the number of children they can look after. Unless you want to pay them full price to keep the place free for your child - which would be ludicrous - that just isn't going to be possible.

You know, I wonder if there's actual mileage in this as a career. The stand-by childminder. Get paid a lesser standby rate to hold a space every day for years just on the off-chance little Timmy gets poorly one day and needs collecting.

Bloody hell. Child-minding with no actual children for 99% of the time? I'd do that. So. Who wants to pay me £100 a week to be your standby childminder who might only actually mind your child once in ten years?

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Anyone…?

Reading and following this thread and the two threads currently running because of the Benefit Cap programme that was on BBC1 this week its obvious that the parents cant win.

Dont work? Get moaned at

Work? Get moaned at for not being able to drop everything to be at the school within the hour.

So glad i skipped parenthood.