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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think that I shouldn’t have to drive for more than an hour because party is being held really far away and not locally - re my dd

65 replies

wondering1101 · 15/12/2018 17:30

Just dropped off dd at a party - the house is about 10 minutes drive from ours - now I am back home so that was 20 minutes drive in total. All good.

They are going out to a restaurant — a bunch of 12 / 13 year olds with the parents of the birthday person, and are getting there by public transport.

They then want all kids to be picked up at the restaurant. Which is about 25 minutes drive from my house and a very busy area which has parking issues. I need to leave the house in 1.45 hours to then drive for 50 minutes and for this party will have driven for an hour and ten minutes in total.

AIBU to think that they could have gone to a local restaurant, or could have gone back to their house by public transport so that all the parents doing pick ups don’t have to travel for miles.

Maybe I am being unreasonable ?

I would not presume that people wanted to do pick ups and drop offs miles away. It will take me longer than 25 minutes to get there as well because of the traffic and rain as well .

Are we all supposed to spend the entire evening driving because someone decides they can’t stay in the area .

Sorry, bit miffed. Maybe I am being unreasonable though.

OP posts:

Trills · 16/12/2018 08:54

It doesn't matter whether it's far away, or whether other posters are feeling smug about how organised they are.

It matters that it's not where you were expecting, and not what you'd planned your day around.

SoyDora · 16/12/2018 08:55

But that’s not the organisers fault Trills, it’s the daughters fault for not telling the OP what the arrangements were.

BiscuitDrama · 16/12/2018 08:55

I don’t think 25 mins away is bad. Could you share lifts at all?

Trills · 16/12/2018 08:55

You could have declined the invitation if you knew about the venue ahead of time, yes. Or you could have made arrangements. Not if you are informed of the change of venue at the point when you drop off.

BigSandyBalls2015 · 16/12/2018 08:56

Is she your eldest?

This is the start of disrupted fri/sat nights. For a couple of years until you’re happy with her getting cabs or using public transport late and sometimes alone.

BiscuitDrama · 16/12/2018 08:56

Or couldn’t you have shared, rather?

SoyDora · 16/12/2018 08:56

Not if you are informed of the change of venue at the point when you drop off

But that’s not what happened. Her daughter knew the arrangements in advance, they didn’t change. She just didn’t tell her mum about them until the point at which they were leaving the house.

Looneytune253 · 16/12/2018 08:58

Tbh a 25m drive for me is my big city so wouldn’t bat an eyelid. We’ve had to pick up from gigs etc there

Trills · 16/12/2018 08:59

I didn't quite get that impression from the posts, but if the daughter knew they were going to further-away one of the chain, and knew that she was expecting to be picked up from there (rather than going back to the house afterwards) then fair enough the daughter needs to learn to think about these things.

HopeGarden · 16/12/2018 09:37

Driving that distance for a party wouldn’t bother me, I’ve driven further than that for plenty of parties before.

The bit that would annoy me is thinking party drop off and pick up is at location A, and then finding out at the last minute that I’m supposed to pick up DC from (further away) location B.

But that’s not really the hosts fault, if your DD hasn’t passed the details along.

Toastedstrudel · 16/12/2018 09:48

Where do you live that 25 minutes is a long drive? That’s pretty standard. Should they have picked a restaurant within 2 mins of your house? YABVU.

ShalomJackie · 16/12/2018 09:58

25 minutes rural = standard
25 minutes London =.about 2 miles

Either way no issue!

Xenia · 16/12/2018 10:17

Looking at my diary recently of when we had a 4/6/8 year olds the weekends were just party central - it needed a computer programme to get them all over the place from the outer reaches of Herts to Chelsea. One girl was at Habs and the other at Kensington Prep for a start and our son at school here in outer London with pupils from all over the place too. We used to share lifts with other parents when possible. I think we got a new cleaner at one stage who was Australian and keen for extra work and at one point she used to do some of the party driving on Saturdays - we paid her an hourly rate and for her petrol or may be she used our car? That helped but was expensive. Sometimes we'd drive out to the place with the younger child and then hang around near by particularly if there was a park or attraction and then collect them afterwards.

Just wait until they are teenagers. I always refused any pick ups after 10pm so they got very used to Uber and night busess from London or walking an hour at 4am from where the Jubilee line takes you to (it runs all night now) to out here. All good life experience and I am certainly not staying up at night to collect or worry about teenagers.

Blackness78 · 16/12/2018 12:18

I've never driven in minutes, op, only by miles (not having a dig).

How many miles away is it?

InSightMars · 16/12/2018 12:37

Let's pretend party was at friend's home.

Ten minutes to drop DD at friend's house
Ten minutes to go home
Ten minutes to pick DD up
Ten minutes to go home

That would have been forty minutes. In effect, you're complaining about an additional 30 minutes spent driving. Even an hour and ten minutes is hardly the entire evening.

It's doesn't matter how many venues are nearer, it's the week before Christmas, many venues get booked up for parties so maybe they picked the closest one that was available.

YABU.

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