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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Aibu to think headmistress is living in la la land?

442 replies

Maxandrubyrubyandmax · 04/04/2017 17:39

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

OP posts:

ForalltheSaints · 04/04/2017 18:42

Not just unreasonable but you could argue it is a form of discrimination to expect there to be someone local who can help. If you have just moved house because you were moved after being a victim of domestic violence, or as someone whose family origins are not in the area (or the country). To give two examples.

Maybe raise it with the school governors.

ThreeLeggedHaggis · 04/04/2017 18:42

Didn't we have friends? Yes but it's not 1955 so they all work?

Batshit. Her, not you!

Trifleorbust · 04/04/2017 18:42

I assume teachers are not allowed to have their phones on.

I can have mine on.

redshoeblueshoe · 04/04/2017 18:42

TheMysteriousJackelope
Thanks SparklyUnicorn, I have been in a few jobs where you are not allowed your phone on, that's why I thought teachers wouldn't. and to stop them mumsnetting obviously

waterrat · 04/04/2017 18:43

In london nobody works near their child's school and nobody lives near relatives so that is ridiculous. Our childminder is near our school and wpuld always help in this situation but what if she was out ?! Even these mystical aunts and uncles might not be nearby at that moment.

waterrat · 04/04/2017 18:43

Why did the school call an ambulance because your child fainted?

Rafflesway · 04/04/2017 18:46

You are not alone OP! This sort of thing gives me the rage.

We had this 20 years ago with a special needs school! DD
was taken to school - 30 + miles away - by taxi and escort each morning - but if DD was ill in any way they expected me - I worked from home but VERY difficult to just drop everything - to reach her within 15/20 mins. Physically impossible without a batmobile and breaking the speed limit by around 100 miles per hour. Used to get the same moaning attitude even though I was there in less than an hour for nothing serious at all.

Like pp's have said, I wonder how many of these HT's would be happy to allow their own staff just to walk out of a lesson to pick up their own child with a relatively minor ailment. Bring back 1955 or similar IMO!
None of this ridiculous behaviour as the facilities weren't available to contact parents in those days. Granted, I went as a private day pupil to a school which also took boarders but any issues we just sat in matron's room until home time. Anything really serious then of course ambulance would been called. WTF has happened to common sense???

SunnyLikeThursday · 04/04/2017 18:48

I feel sorry for kids these days who have no one who can get there. I love being there for my ds.

Ellybellyboo · 04/04/2017 18:49

I had the same once when DD had been sick

I was actually standing out the front yapping to my neighbour. My mobile was indoors and I didn't hear the house phone. I was about half an hour in the end.

I got a huge lecture from the school secretary about always being contactable and within 5 minutes of the school. Felt like a naughty child.

I pointed out that our house is more than 5 minutes from school so should I bring a packed lunch and park my car down the road for the day.

allegretto · 04/04/2017 18:50

Waterrat - because I was taking too long to get there and they didn't want to be responsible!

ForTheSakeOfFuck · 04/04/2017 18:52

Not helpful Sunny. People have given pretty cogent reasons why they can't be close to their children's schools. I'd love to go part-time or even be a SAHM but that's never, ever going to happen as I'm the only earner. Someone sighing over how they feel sorry for my DCs that I can't be there and how they love that they can be a SAHP for theirs would get right on my wick.

Fairyliz · 04/04/2017 18:53

I work in a primary school office so I am often the person making these calls. The problem is whatever we do is wrong! If we phone up, parents are really arsy because they have to leave work. If I decide not to call parents because I think child can manage the rest of the day at school parents also complain.!

MiscellaneousAssortment · 04/04/2017 18:54

YANBU of course. Times change and no matter how much hand wringing there is, it doesn't make our world less global, employers more flexible, trains quicker and more frequent etc etc. Parents are already stretched so thin trying to work and bring up their children, there's a limit to what humans can do.

If there's no work near home, or no homes near work, there's little a parent can do about it. The only choice left is to work or not to work (& more claiming benefits instead).

ImperialBlether · 04/04/2017 18:54

To be fair, though, Sunny, my children went to school from 4-18 and I was never called once. Lucky I wasn't sitting there waiting for the call!

Trifleorbust · 04/04/2017 18:55

My mum was a SAHP and it would STILL have taken her 45 minutes to get to our school, because we went to school quite far from our house. She didn't drive and would have had to take two buses. The Head was BVU.

WaxyBean · 04/04/2017 18:55

Normal for schools to expect this imo. Theschool secretary rang 20mins before school finished to say DS's after school activity was cancelled for unforeseen reasons and to pick him up at normal time. The attitude I got when I said I was an hour away and would leave immediately but would still be late. She tried to insist that I find someone else to pick him up - but that situation IMO does not justify trying to pull favours from someone else.

SparklyLeprechaun · 04/04/2017 18:56

I feel sorry for kids these days who have no one who can get there. I love being there for my ds.

So do you camp outside the school gates during school hours to make sure you're never more than 5 minutes away?

ForTheSakeOfFuck · 04/04/2017 18:57

Fairy that's a bit of a different issue to the OP's though. Their issue was that she couldn't arrive fast enough. Not that she was being awkward about arriving at all. If you act the way the OP's HM did, badgering her to find anyone else who could get their faster and then checking up on that information repeatedly as if she had been lying, I'd say you were well out of order. I assume you don't do these things though.

onceandneveragain · 04/04/2017 18:57

I know there is always a possibility that someone will be unable to be contacted for 30 minutes, but my post was just suggesting that you can try to mitigate the chances of it happening as much as possible.

It's ridiculous and insulting that they tried you five times over 30 mins but didn't bother trying to contact DH at all - then decided to ring him after they'd spoken to you to see if you were wrong!

frostyfingers · 04/04/2017 18:58

I had a similar hassle when my 18 year old son (who normally drives himself to school) was ill. They rang me while I was riding my horse and said he's been sick, you need to come now, he's not safe to drive home. I said that I would be there as soon as I possibly could but it would not be for an hour (20 mins drive to school) as I needed time to get back and put horse in field before I could come in the car. Lots of tutting and questions about could someone else get him (no, sorry, no one else available). For an 18 year old......

Confuzzlediddled · 04/04/2017 19:02

I once lived in a large village where people usually had lots of family in the surrounding streets, my parents lived about an hour away. I was in a uni chemistry lab do obviously had to have my mobile off, school then tried my parents, who had to let the head know they were on holiday in Malta. When I came out my lecture an hour later saw all the missed calls, phoned school back to be told ds had been sick. I was 20 miles away so I said I would get a taxi, only to be told by the Head that wasn't good enough and they would be taking it further - sure enough I was reported to SS by the school for neglect, they said I didn't feed the DC
-probably because I was fat and they were naturally skinny little things. Thankfully I could prove that was untrue as they went to breakfast club and after school club 5 days a week as well as having a school dinner. I moved away from that village as soon as I could - the head even tried calling the school I was moving them to, fortunately the new school was more sensible and made thier own opinions

brasty · 04/04/2017 19:06

When I was at school,most people did not even have a landline. So even if your mum was a SAHM, if she was out shopping for the day, there was no way to contact her. We had a sick bay in our ordinary state school.

Original poster

Maxandrubyrubyandmax · 04/04/2017 19:07

I think we all love being there for our kids sunny and we are. But the difference between 25 min and 45 min is nothing. Quite frankly my DS would probably have been happier going back to class once the one drop of blood had been cleaned. I would have been happier if he had learned to be resilient after a very very minor mishap rather than being surrounded by adults demanding immediate evacuation home! Adults must learn when to support a bit of resilience as children grow (probably the case with a 2mm scratch with one drop of blood) and when to come running. The inability to draw a distinction as the head showed in this case is probably what it leading to much less tenacious children who have an inability to pick themselves up and dust themselves down!

OP posts:

Hissy · 04/04/2017 19:08

Oh I'm with ForTheSakeofFuck, sunny you have to be a goady fucker to have trotted out that pile of twaddle.

brasty · 04/04/2017 19:08

And I am an older Aunt. But I work

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