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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Parents who do not label their kids clothes

69 replies

Fattymcfaterson · 12/10/2018 18:37

Just. Fucking. Why?!

OP posts:
Original poster
Fattymcfaterson · 12/10/2018 20:00

All these posters who don't label but never lose stuff.
You probably have lost stuff, had stuff swapped with others a long the way. But have no idea because how could you possibly know if it's not labelled in some way?

OP posts:
whiskeysourpuss · 12/10/2018 21:07

Well I'd know OP because I'm an anally retentive control freak when it comes to laundry so I'd know if something was missing or didn't actually belong in my home... I've had to loosen up a bit now that the DD's are teens & I have a variety of items in my laundry that don't belong here but I just wash, dry, iron & put them in a separate pile.

BitchQueen90 · 12/10/2018 21:10

Well if I don't know about it then there's no harm done to be honest. Grin

cookiesandchocolate · 12/10/2018 21:10

As a TA it's my bug bear when parents ask me about jumpers and then tell me it's not labelled. There are 400 children in the school with the same jumper. LABEL it. And if you don't. Take some bloody responsibility for it

lynmilne65 · 12/10/2018 21:14

Why are you 'just fucking'?

MoonlightMedicine · 12/10/2018 21:19

I do what Merry does. We’ve lost 3 labelled (sewn-in too FFS) cardigans so I’ve helped myself to 3 unlabelled ones from lost property. And have sewn labels into them!!

mumsastudent · 12/10/2018 21:21

I always wrote on the washing label - you don't have to sew anything on & on jumpers, shirts & t shirts it in exactly the right place & even trousers etc where its on the side its still visible. (several dc first one you sew labels by 2 or 3 -you take the easy way out (& always sewed their gloves to band together! when they were younger not in high school although it was tempting!)

Soubriquet · 12/10/2018 21:24

My dd’s are named with iron on tags even down to her classroom.

Luckily she hasn’t lost anything. Or if she did it came back quickly

Surprising how many people don’t label them. It takes two mins if you use a sharpie on the label.
No need to fork out on fancy tags if you don’t want to

lynmilne65 · 12/10/2018 21:37

Merry 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Littlecaf · 12/10/2018 21:42

My DS lost his preschool jumper about a month ago. It wasn’t labelled....... I’ve learnt my lesson, everything now has their name written on it. Do those stick on labels actually stay on? Which ones are the best?

AnotherPidgey · 12/10/2018 21:45

I have a serial cardigan abandoner. He'll run out then come home with a job lot that have been peeled off the cloakroom floor.

In y1, I ended up numbering them so I could trace them better as I knew I was looking for cardigan#2.

I've gone sloppy about the sew in labels, but I do make sure I've written it in. As a brownie leader, I know the trauma of matching owners to 30 identical tops in a range of 3 size variations.

Piffle11 · 12/10/2018 21:46

I have labelled everything since my DC started school: DS1 6 years ago, DS2 4 years ago. Nothing has ever come back to me. I labelled DS's towel when he started swimming … a really weird green colour one that he'd taken a fancy to. One day after swimming he came back with a tatty brown one in its place (DS has severe ASD so can't say 'hey that's not my towel'). I washed and sent back said rag with a note saying 'this is not ours, etc'. Our green one never turned up. I bought another in a different shade of green … months later that disappeared, only for the original one to be sent back in its place - with our name tag cut out. They'd actually cut out the bit of towel where I'd sewn the tag. Bastards.

user1471451866 · 12/10/2018 21:47

I sometimes have the joy of sorting lost property. I'll happily return named items but I won't spend ages trying to work out who has the initials AB, or which of the many Chloes an age 8-9 sweatshirt might belong to. We have over 500 pupils!

ItWasntMeItWasIm · 12/10/2018 21:55

Teachers don't really have time to be sorting through lost property trying to figure out who RB is. Or who might now have jonny smith's jumper now ( he left school 5 years ago and doesn't have any younger siblings ). They do welcome parents in to check lost property though.

Catmatrat · 12/10/2018 21:58

I didn’t label mine this year purely cos I spent a fucking fortune on one of those stamps last year then couldn’t find the thing this year. I refused to sharpie everything knowing that stamp was somewhere in the house. We’ve lost a jumper and a cardigan. But I found the stamp so the others are labelled now 🙄

anniehm · 12/10/2018 22:00

I bought 12 dozen woven labels before each started school, they lasted through (I reused some)

Barbie222 · 12/10/2018 22:04

Parent: I've lost little xxxxx's cardigan.
Me: was it named?
Parent: no it wasn't.
Me in my head: it will be by now!

I'm sure all teachers have a special face they keep ready for such occasions.

cardibach · 12/10/2018 22:10

I work in boarding. Imagine the exponential horror of the unnamed clothes.

TovaGoldCoin · 12/10/2018 22:16

It's not that I can't be bothered to sort through list property, I really don't have the time. I check for names, and then it's list property. Just write with a sharpie, we are adept at Reading wash faded lables. Yesterday I was trying to allocate 4 age 4~5 tesco jumper and cardis without names, parents asking me why the children had taken them off....

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 12/10/2018 22:16

There was a similar thread on here a few years back, talking about lost uniform in schools - and a teacher came on and said that she had a girl in her class who could identify which unlabelled clothes belonged to which child, just by smell. She sniffed them, said who they belonged to, and the teacher gave them back!

Who needs labels if you have a child with that skill!

MartagonLilies · 12/10/2018 22:24

I label all the clothes, with a sharpie or biro. Doesn't make a bit of difference. I still don't get it back if it goes missing Confused

BikeRunSki · 12/10/2018 22:25

I’m a Cub leader. I brought back 76 pieces of unlabelled clothing and camping equipment from camp in the summer. 4 months later I still have parents wingeing that that their child has lost their jumper and can’t identify it in the list property box. And they are all slightly different because of badges etc, not that anyone can ever remember what they have.

Pleasehelpme433 · 12/10/2018 22:25

I don’t label anything because I can’t be arsed - but I don’t complain if things go missing either

Earslaps · 12/10/2018 22:27

I bought the stamptastic stamps so it took me no time away to label things this year. The more expensive items like blazers and school jumpers I sew in a label too.

Our school bungs all lost property into the room of doom and then parents tend to rifle through it and find the parent to tell them or post on the school Facebook group.

At the end of term and at parents' evenings the school put all the lost property on a table outside and if it's not claimed then they pass it on to charity.

ladygracie · 12/10/2018 22:28

I never labelled anything until secondary school. But also never complained when things got lost. How could I?! Also my kids school had no uniform so I’d have ended up labelling everything. As a teacher I hate it when parents insist something is named when it clearly isn’t. That does not help at all with finding stuff.