About queue skippers

[Shockaholic]

So full disclosure, I am hot headed at the best of times and hate bad manners,and I'm also pregnant at the moment and extra hormonal,so I may be over reacting!

School pickup,children in reception so collected from the classroom. Parents all queue up against wall then teacher calls kids names one by one so not a mass exit. There's one "lovely" mother who regularly - 3 times a week maybe - strolls past the 6/7/8 people ahead of her to stand right in front of the door. Annoys me every time I see it but have never said anything. Today she did it again. So I moved back in front of her and said, quite calmly not aggressively or loudly "you know there is a queue". Then stood there with back to her (so facing the door) and didn't engage further. She started saying something about "but there was a space there" I didn't turn around as I didn't see the point in discussing it further. It wasn't a one off "oh I'm in a rush today" or a mistake in not realising there was a queue,she is doing it regularly since September. But now I feel embarrassed and that I should have just left it go. Over analysing as usual and I'll cringe about it now for days.

So how unreasonable was I? (Sorry boring I know!!)

Our school has a similar arrangement for the lower year - long corridor to get to the classroom door. There were parents who sauntered to the front of the (very obvious!) queue so would get their kids first. I never said anything but I really wanted to as I was in a rush to collect my other child and they had pushed in. Really rude and annoying... they were often the same gits who parked on the double yellows outside the school too! Grrr....

Well done for saying something, you will have only said what everyone else wanted to! Not unreasonable or petty, I hope you update tomorrow and we hear that she's at the back of the line!!!!

Oh phew I'm so relieved not to be told that I'm some kind of petty psycho I know it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but like that if everyone else has to queue and wait why should her time/someone else's time be more important than others'. I do wish I was one of those laid back people who can just notice it but shrug and say "oh well never mind" but unfortunately I'm not. Also yes to being annoyed at people who don't say thank you if you let them ahead of you at the supermarket, or when you hold the door for them etc. Not that difficult surely to smile or say thanks!

We had one like that. We queue in a narrow corridor, just wide enough for us to stand to one side and let the exiting child and parent from the front of the queue squeeze past to get out. One mother regularly squeezed past saying 'sorry, just grabbing DS'. Yes, we're all here 'just grabbing' our children, we're not fucking wall decorations.

Her child doesn't attend now, so I don't have to see her but she made me seethe every time I saw her. Miserable faced cow too, her child cried every time he saw her.

Charolais
I was told by a paediatrician in the USA to feed my then 10y old daughter organic meats and dairy......something to do with hormones in the meat/milk that was making young girls start puberty early.
He said it was so unfair all these young girls who's bodies are developing but they're not emotionally ready.
I don't think the meat etc in the U.K. has the same stuff in it as the USA but I'd say all the early puberty was to do with diet and environmental.

Charolais Yes, I think early puberty has been researched quite extensively - google and you'll find lots of news reports. It's been linked to various lifestyle, diet and environment changes.

I think the main issue with child safety and walking home alone is because there is so much traffic now.

I don't know where you live now, but I think these changes are pretty common around the world, certainly in many, if not most, developed countries.

never did I see parents picking up their children from school.

good for you. I can't see any sane parent letting their 4 or 5 year old out on a busy road on their own. It might work when you are in the middle of a village with no traffic and everybody knows their neighbours, but as most of us don't live in Walnut Grove, it's completely unrealistic.

I am now middle-aged and the average age among my own mum/aunties and friends my age to start their period was around 10. I have read that we are actually poisoning our children and periods age and fertility in boys and girls is plummeting but I am sure there are serious studies you can find.

On another note, if someone needs to pick up their kid first, they arrive early enough to be first in the queue!

Can you please report back to let us know if she tries it again? I agree you are probably the hero of the other parents (but also don't think it's worth waging war over as sods law will have it your DC will decide to become best friends.)

@Charolais in our school the two youngest classes are handed over at the classroom door,after that they exit the school themselves and I'd imagine most have a parent waiting in the yard for them,not sure if it's checked though as haven't got that far yet! In terms of walking home by themselves at 4/5 years old, roads are a lot busier than say 30/40 years ago and also due to changing towns and cities children may be going to schools further away from home than before,or childminders are collecting them as both parents are working etc. So I think that does explain why they can't walk home unsupervised as early as before- and sadly there is certainly more perceived risk anyway from strangers.

Hormone wise I have no actual idea scientifically what is behind it,maybe it is an increase in chemicals from processed foods or additives in foods,or maybe it's some quirk of evolution but certainly puberty does seem anecdotally at least to be starting much earlier than even 20 odd years ago when I went through it.

Diet is believed to play a big part in the age of puberty. Poor nutrition in the previous centuries meant that periods didn't start till late teens and the higher fat diet now means they may start earlier.

Yes probably a correlation between queue jumpers and people who have to park as close as they can to school (usually parked badly).

How can there be a queue to collect from reception? Why does it matter?

@ThereIsIron there is at our school so the kids can go home with the correct parent

It does matter - because if you make the effort to get there early as you have other kids to collect, some CF pushing in is unfair and rude...

@ThereIsIron there's a queue because their classroom is at the end of a narrow corridor so a big crowd of people standing around the door wouldn't fit. So the teacher asks people to queue and then she calls the children one by one as their parent/childminder is at the door/top of the queue. And it doesn't matter hugely,but if everyone else can stand in a line and wait then why should one person do differently and bypass others waiting longer? Not the end of the world,need said it was,but it is bad manners.

Sorry,meant to say never said it was the end of the world.

Also if they had an other system that the school decided worked then I'd have no problem following that - I didn't start the queuing system.

Charolais
I grew up in the fifties, and did a lot of the things you speak of, but times change, sometimes for the worse, much more often for the better. There is tons more traffic these days than in the fifties and sixties.
And I started my periods at age ten.

OP it would annoy me too. Good for you for speaking up!

@Charolais....interesting but massively off-piste. Start a new thread! Like all people that whinge about this country ....I always wonder what's keeping them here, go back to the land of milk & honey...wherever that is?!

Charolais I grew up in the 50s too.* Your post has nothing whatsoever to do with this thread. Go away.*

It's a bit of an alpha move. Annoying but often what's needed to get ahead in life. I'm imagining she's probably one of the more successful, social parents?

An alpha move? That’s an interesting way of saying it’s fucking rude. Are you that parent Barbara?

YANBU

Well done, OP.

Alpha moves and idyllic 50's childhoods - how perfectly bonkers.

I thought early menstruation was linked to weight (no, I'm not going off piste with the obesity epidemic). Children are well nourished these days and weigh more earlier. Hence periods begin earlier than in ye olde post war days.

Back on topic. When pushy mum arrives today step in front of her. If she elbows you out of her way, grab her ponytail and yank her to the back of the queue. Or just tell her she's out of order and to wait in line.

You don't queue jump in England! Less alpha more rude git.

@busybarbara I wouldn't say it's an alpha move. She drives an ordinary (old ish, not top of the range) car, from seeing her around I know she works in an unskilled type job, so not successful in those superficial type ways if that's what you meant. And definitely not one of those social queen bee types, usually swans in and out without speaking to many others, will occasionally walk up to other mothers from her country to pretend to greet them and then use that as pretext to skip the queue. No smiles or small talk for anyone really otherwise, and it's not a language barrier thing either as she had perfect English when she tried to tell me yesterday that she ignored the queue because there was a space at the top!

And I'm not sure how skipping the queue at school pick up will help her get ahead in life,but maybe that's where I've been going wrong and why I'm "just" a SAHM