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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think my DH was wrong to leave DD and a friend?

42 replies

User73milliontrilliondillion · 06/09/2017 16:57

I'm fairly sure I'm right but just in case there is a different opinion! Firstly important geographic information. We live on a close of around 20 houses, secluded from the village, down a long drive, open countryside to three sides, a large hedge on the other seperating our close from the next street. Everyone knows everyone's face who lives here, if not names. Kids play out on bikes, it's a dead end, so traffic would be people who live here, visitors or deliveries.
My DD who's 6 has made friends with a neighbours daughter who's 5, they've been in and out of each other's houses all summer. I went out to the shops, leaving my husband with our 3 year old, and 6 year old who was playing up in her bedroom with the neighbours 5 year old. Neighbours were outside on the close working on their garden.
When I came home, husband mentioned he'd already walked our dog, I asked where the girls had been, he said he took the youngest, I assumed the oldest went round to her friend, but no he'd left them in the house. He was away 20-30 minutes in the neighbouring fields, so within eyeline of the close but not the house. He told the neighbours he was going out, the back gate and door were open, but I'm not sure the neighbours would have heard the girls if they'd shouted.
He sees nothing wrong with this, I do!! He just can't see why I'm angry, aibu?

OP posts:

Jaxhog · 06/09/2017 17:58

It's one thing to leave your own kid, but quite another to leave someone else's unattended. Saying you're 'walking the dog' doesn't tell them that there now isn't an adult with them. And you can't just assume they will look after the 2 kids, if you don't tell them.

Irresponsible on so many fronts.

corythatwas · 06/09/2017 18:04

What Jaxhog said. I'm from "the other part of the world" and might not have a problem with leaving my own 6yo (knowing that she had been suitably primed and knew the people who might look out for her). But no one I know in Scandinavia would do that to somebody else's 5yo without asking first.

Aquamarine1029 · 06/09/2017 18:04

Your husband is totally in the wrong. They are far too young to be left unattended like that.

Charolais · 06/09/2017 18:05

I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s. We’d take off and play in the woods, fields, country lanes until tea time. No adults in sight. When I first started school I’d go exploring the woods after school, alone. I was 5 years old. I’m still like that - I love to take long solitary walks alone, to explore, to think.

I’m glad I lived in a time I could be me, to find out what made me tick instead of being smothered and told what I should like.
I feel sorry for the kids today.

Butterymuffin · 06/09/2017 18:17

No, that's not on at all. He should have asked the neighbours if they could go round there for half a hour. It's not as if that would have been hard or time consuming to do. Does he often cut corners on childcare like this?

Ttbb · 06/09/2017 18:24

Far too young-what if they made a game of jumping out of the window? Children that age aren't very reasonable.

Original poster

User73milliontrilliondillion · 06/09/2017 18:25

The road is really a drive, it just goes round the back of our house to our garage.

I think I'm pretty laid back, would leave the kids in the car at a petrol station for example.

I'm trying to work out if I'm cross because as some of you've said they weren't that far away. But we'd just come back from a few days away and the house was a mess, I'd have been mortified if they'd come in, they've never been in and we haven't been in their house.

I think if it had been the other way round and the girls had been at theirs I would be furious and I wouldn't want my daughter going over there again.

OP posts:

diddl · 06/09/2017 18:30

Could he/the dog really not have waited until you got bak or he could have taken the girls with him?

Sounds really odd to me to just leave them.

Did they know that they had been left??

Original poster

User73milliontrilliondillion · 06/09/2017 18:33

Neighbours and parents are one and the same!

Charolais - I grew up in the 80s in the country and at 6 I walked to school on my own and to a friends house almost half a mile away, we'd go on regular 5 mile bike rides, and I agree with you I loved my childhood, I don't really think the world is a more dangerous place now but people's attitude have changed, I agree I hate the loss of freedom our kids have now.
But having said that, I'm still not happy with this, somehow in the house worries me more than being outside!!

OP posts:

VioletCharlotte · 06/09/2017 18:34

I think if the neighbours knew the girls were alone in the house when your DH said he was popping out to walk the dog, then they were taking charge of them. If they were in the garden, it's no different really to the girls being in the house while you work in the garden surely?

If the neighbours didn't realise the girls were alone then that's different.

VioletCharlotte · 06/09/2017 18:35

Oh I've just seen your diagram. So they're not NDN? In that case he shouldn't have left them.

Slightlyperturbedowlagain · 06/09/2017 18:38

I would not have been happy with that. It would only be ok for me if very very close- e.g. In a terrace or semi where the other kids mum or dad was literally 10 yards away from them out in their front garden and the front door was left open and they had agreed to look after them.

Bluntness100 · 06/09/2017 18:45

It's not even is it irresponsible, I'm fairly sure it's illegal to leave a five year old alone. The law doesn't specify an age, but no one would successfully argue its five or six, as such if anything happened to one of those kids , fell over had an accident, your husband could have ended up in jail for neglect. And quite rightly so in my opinion.

Arguing he told the neighbours he was walking the dog wouldn't have been successful unless he can prove they knew you hadn't returned and no other adult in the house. Even then it would be all of them in trouble and not just him. It would not negate his neglect.

He's lucky one of them didn't hurt themselves. If they had have done, life as you know it would likely have been over.

If he can't take his responsibilities seriously and he doesn't want to look after them alone, then don't leave him with the kids again.

Bluntness100 · 06/09/2017 18:47

And if somethjng had happened, and it hit the media that a child was abducted or seriously hurt and the parent just left them at fhat age to go walk the dog there would be an out cry, as there was with the McCanns.

WhataHexIgotinto · 06/09/2017 18:48

I would hand him his arse for this.

MrsJamesAspey · 06/09/2017 19:36

My daughter was best friends with our neighbours daughter from the age of 5 and although they were next door there was a big parking area between our houses. We always sent the girls to the other house if we needed to pop out to pick another child up or go to the shop. Although if I'd been in the garden and my neighbour said she was popping out with the dog I probably wouldn't have insisted they came to me. As long as they knew where to find me.

paq · 06/09/2017 20:01

I've left my 6 year old in front of the tv for 20 mins as I've walked the dog. Strict instructions not to move from the sofa, answer the door etc.

I don't think I would have left two 5/6 year olds playing like that. Not to mention that that they might have enjoyed going with your DH.

So my view is poor judgement but not horrendous behaviour.

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