To think if you're at soft play you don't leave a stranger to parent your child

[Arrowfanatic]

I don't usually go to soft play, loathe them but since my kids school was one of the few that had broken up already I decided to take advantage of the off peak prices and quieter time.

Anyway we had been there about 2 hours and a little girl latched on to my youngest DD whose 5. Ok fine, nice to make friends. My dd asked to go to the toilet so I got my eldest dd (9) to sit at the table with our stuff whilst I took DD5. This girl pipes up that she needs the loo as well. So I say ok go and tell your mum "no, I'll just go with you" she responds. Not entirely happy with this I say she really needs to tell her mum and walk off with DD but this little girl follows. My dd goes into the stall to do her business and this girl tells me she isn't allowed to lock the door so I need to hold it shut, then tells me I have to help her wash her hands. I didn't as it just didn't feel right.

So we're back at our table and I look for this girls mum and there she is with a group of friends chatting away at a far table. Ok no problem with that, I was alone with my book if I'd had friends there I'd have been chatting too.

My kids go back in the big cage thing and I pick up my book, suddenly this girl comes along with those lunch box things you buy at these places, slams it on the table under my nose and says "look after this" and runs off. Kind of in shock I look round expecting to find mum wondering where her dd has run off to with her lunch but nope mum still oblivious.

This girl periodically comes back to my table to eat/drink and disappear again. I suggested she goes and sits with her mum but it was like talking to a brick wall. After an hour I called all my kids back so we could leave (we'd been there around 3 hours by this point) and this girl pushes past me, grabs her lunch and strolls off with it into the soft play cage thing where clearly food shouldn't be. I just upped and left at this point totally bemused by the whole thing.

I'd spent my time regularly checking where my kids were, they were under instruction to reappear at intervals so I know they're ok and not allowed to go back to play until they had eaten their lunch. But this woman must have had no clue what her dd was doing (or didn't care). For the record I had 3 kids with me ages 5, 7 and 9 so I know they can be whirlwinds hence why I give mine instructions on behaviour. But as I say I'm not a regular to these places so maybe I'm expecting too much???

Some parents have made the conscious decision to help their children less than others help theirs. Neither is right or wrong, just different. They want them to learn to sort their own little problems out, rather than run to mummy for everything.
Because you don't parent like that, you think their parent has left parenting to you, but theY haven't, they don't want you to.

Happens all the time, some parents switch off. When ds1 got to about 3 he would run off (at quiet times) and just pop back now and then, it was great! NowX I have a 2 year old im with him always, but I see mitts of kids his age and younger left to their own devices. A few weeks ago a toddler was crying for ages, couldn't tell me their name, no sign of a parent. I told the staff who took her around looking for her mum...she was sitting about 4 tables away, she must not have even looked in the kids direction in about 20 minutes.

Our school was the only one broken up today and my dd didn't know her so if have said she was maybe 4 going on 5.

I give my children independence of course and nothing wrong with this parent doing it except this girl wasn't doing it. She wanted me to do the things her mum should be doing. If she's not allowed to lock the bathroom stall door as she said then surely mum would want to take her to the toilet to help her not just expect that her daughter finds whatever stranger she can to hold the door for her.

I work with children, I'm happy to help children with toilets or whatever provided their parents are ok with it. It's not like helping a kid sit on a swing, personally toilet behaviour if they need help imo should be done by an adult the parent knows if not the parent not a random stranger who they will never have seen before since I've never been to this particular soft play before.

Sorry just realised the age isn't clear, so by 4 going on 5 I mean maybe a September born baby hence why not in school.

I would have asked where her mum was and gone and told her myself that her daughter needed the toilet just because I wouldn't have wanted to risk her suddenly wondering where her child was, starting to search for her and finding her in the toilets with a stranger! I work with children and wouldn't have minded helping her wash her hands but not without her mum knowing where she was, even if she was being useless at watching her!

I found a crying toddler in Matalan once and was just bending down to her level to ask if she was lost (whilst looking round for a member of staff to alert) and her previously out of sight mother came barging up and glared at me like I was about to abduct her.

Sometimes you just can't win!

The rest wouldn't have bothered me that much as long as my own children were enjoying her company but it is annoying to suddenly find yourself as the designated childminder.

" this parent let her child out of her sight to go off with her to the loo or god knows where else."

I don't know what the soft plays are like where you are, but there is no "God knows where else" in any of the soft plays I've been to. They are all very easy and safe for a kid to go to the loo on their own. Maybe the other Mum knows her kid is fine to use the toilets at the same time as other kids without needing following.

At the risk of sounding like one of the Four Yorkshiremen- but when I were a lass- which wasn't even that long ago, there was one soft play in town. If you were really lucky, you got to go on your birthday, and if you were really really REALLY lucky, you might even get a bag of crisps out the vending machine as well.

The idea that you might be hard done by if your Mum took you out for the day to a playcentre so that you could go off with your friends while she chatted to their Mum's would have been batshit back then, and I really don't think today's kids are being done any favours by people pretending they've been abandoned because their mums aren't following them around soft play doing a running commentary on the different colour balls in the ball pit.

Just take a book, and work on your bitchy resting face, and then chill out yourself. No need to take it upon yourself to "parent" other people's kids- but if you do, that's on your head.

This wouldn't bother me at all, though I would have gone over to the mum and said she was asking to come to the toilet.
Its nice for them to make friends when they're out, I'd rather have a kid joining in than DD not having anyone her age to play with.

I dunno... I find it kind of sad that people seem to find it palming off childcare responsibility to have to help someone else's kid in public places (not saying you're saying that OP). Time was this just would have been expected as a parent as part of a community of parents (though I guess it came with some BS about women's roles too) but now we're all so busy we do easily feel irked.

Well I think you’re being a bit dramatic to say you were parenting the child because she used a public toilet at the same time as you and left her lunch on your table 😂
But I do think whoever was looking afterward her should have been keeping a closer eye on her and need to teach her about stranger danger.

Well said saucy