DD friend's mum not picking up the phone..

[lunakitty2609]

So my Dd (9) is staying the night at her friend's house for the first time. The parents of the friend know this is her first time away. I tried texting friends mum at 8.30pm to make sure dd was okay, no reply. I have since tried phoning 7 times in 20-minute intervals, still nothing... Who does that? AIBU??

Your FIL sounds like my MIL, @dustyparadeground she does exactly that, except that she leaves long telephone messages and then gets worried that there might be something wrong. She can never say what she's worried about though.

Not had a landline for 10 years plus! I never ring anyone on there's either now as I find nobody answers there's apart from my 90 year old aunt

As I said, I never realised it was so common not to have a landline. But you only need to see how big local phone directories are to know it's not just peoples of 80 plus who have landline numbers. And it doesn't include those who are ex-directory, as we are.

People not peoples, I really hate autocorrect!!

Everyone I know has a landline, well apart from the ones with dodgy credit records yes I'm looking at you dbro

Nope not everybody has a landline. Virgin refused to install me one because it was too much hassle for them to do so and I live in London.

We still have a landline but I rarely use it. Helps with the wifi though.

On reflection, I wonder if it's a middle-aged, Middle England thing, this switching your phone off or on silent.

I'm not in the UK and I leave my phone on silent most of the time.

What is Middle England anyway?

Middle England is where I take my holidays, with all the other hobbits, orcs, giants and fae. Sometimes the Children of the Forest and the three eyed raven join us, but we haven’t got

A caravan big enough this year

Sorry to revive this thread after such a long break but I had an experience yesterday that made me think of this thread.

I had an appointment with the dentist late yesterday afternoon. I arrived at my appointment to be told that the dentist had had an accident on the way to work (not too serious, thankfully) and that they had been trying to contact me since 10am. All day my phone had been charged and I had been in an area with a good signal. I had no texts, no missed calls and no voicemails. The receptionist showed me the missed calls where she had tried to call me, at least six times through the day. She even picked the phone up in front of me and rang me, and it went straight to my voicemail without ringing. I finally got all those messages late last night.

I know in the OPs case the other parent said that she just hadn't noticed the messages, so it's not what happened in this case. But the general debate that opened up, with some saying there is no good reason for not noticing, came into my head when this happened yesterday.

Phones are not infallible, and a failure to respond to calls and texts is not evidence of someone being irresponsible.

That's a really good point treacle. I think we all assume our phones are infallible and any time someone doesn't jump to reply it's their fault. I'm pleased for you the dentist wasn't actually lying!

I also don't want to live in a world where everyone is expected to be tethered to their phones and instantly accessible 24/7. I often wonder, doesn't anyone have jobs that forbid using phones during the shift, or frown upon it? It's quite a privileged perspective if you think everyone can be on their phones all the time, shows you've never had a job where your boss' word goes and you're under such pressure to do a certain number of tasks in a short period of time your phone is the last thing on your mind!

I certainly can't expect my DH to be able to answer his phone every time I call when he's at work, because he is, by definition, working. I just leave a message, or text him, if there's something he needs to know, and we sometimes get to talk for a few minutes when he's having his lunch. But he's very frequently too busy with meetings.

I don't worry about why he's not answering, I just think, ok he's busy, and don't spend time worrying about it. When someone is at work, they shouldn't be expected to be constantly on phone alert.

When someone is at work, they shouldn't be expected to be constantly on phone alert.

I think this is the case whether people are at work or not!

I agree with you there of course, though a lot of people seem to disagree with that point of view sadly. I do try to be contactable, though, in case I get a call from my DDs' school.

Exactly treacle. My previously very reliable iPhone has sporadically not been sending texts I send. I wondered why a few people had ignored things they would otherwise respond to and on checking some texts just didn't go through whilst others did.

I was quite hurt I hadn't been invited to be on a particular team and on tentatively checking wondering if I'd offended organiser she eye rolled and said of course I was on the team hadn't I got the text. So it can cause all sorts of minor confusions.

In my last place of work, phones had to be left in our lockers.

@LimonViola if you're at work it's not very likely you'd be hosting playdates or sleepovers for other children though are you?