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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

WIBU to get pizza delivered to DD's school for her birthday lunch?

708 replies

PizzaMom · 12/01/2019 19:51

I apparently am known as 'that' parent and have been given the side eye the few times I've gone in since!

It was DD's 16th last month on a school day. I ordered a few pizzas to be sent to school at lunchtime so she could share them with her mates in the common room. Teachers were not going to let her have them and when they relented (by the time they got cold) made her and a few friends eat them in a separate meeting room when she had planned to share them as there was enough for about 20 people!

I don't see it as being that different from me bringing in a forgotten lunch box?

I also ordered flowers and a balloon to be delivered and school refused to let her have them until after school had finished.

I was trying to make DD's day special. I really didn't think would have been that much of an issue which ruined it a bit for DD.

WIBU?

OP posts:

Thread gallery

flamingofridays · 13/01/2019 15:01

I wouldnt say that having something nice done for your 16th birthday was spoilt at all.

AlanaMay · 13/01/2019 15:02

Kids at my school order pizza all the time. They do it on their phones and meet the delivery driver at the gate. No involvement from school staff. If you did it that way, and providing there's somewhere for them to sit and eat it that's not the canteen, I don't see that it's a nuisance, but I can also see that 20 pizzas arriving might have caused a stir.
The flowers and the ballon though - that's just weird; what did you expect school staff to do, deliver it to her in her lesson? Bizarre, and I'm surprised she wasn't embarrassed.

GladAllOver · 13/01/2019 15:02

Entirely unreasonable. You really are 'that mother'

mathanxiety · 13/01/2019 15:04

I am looking at the dynamics of a parallel universe and it really is relevant that things are done differently elsewhere. I think a lot of people here should take a look at the dynamics at play and try to join a few dots.

It is most interesting that people wring their hands about bullying but can't see how their knee jerk reactions to anything different and out of the ordinary are not connected to behaviour of students.

Many people are piling on with categorical statements revealing considerable outright anger. I strongly suspect that anger and the strength of feeling reveal deep insecurity about the breaking of a very British taboo.

It is perfectly ok to be different.
It is perfectly ok to look different, and to behave differently.
It is perfectly ok to consider your child to be special and to make an occasion of her birthday.

Eslteacher06 · 13/01/2019 15:05

This person is imitating someone she knows or is a troll. In the words of Karl Pilkington.....ehem....

CoughLaughFart · 13/01/2019 15:08

They didn't tell her they'd come until she went to reception at lunchtime for the pizza's but will happily send runners to tell DC that their mums sent in forgotten PE kits etc.

No the runners take messages to the DC to tell them x has been left at Reception. That's all. There are at two at a desk in reception, always there.

So she was only ‘waiting for them’ in the sense that she was expecting them. Runners were expected to go to find her.

CoughLaughFart · 13/01/2019 15:09

It is perfectly ok to consider your child to be special and to make an occasion of her birthday.

Who the hell said it wasn’t? Throw a party; take her for a day out. Don’t disrupt the school day for everyone with this showy nonsense.

MaisyPops · 13/01/2019 15:10

As we say round here
Aye, right
Quite

pootleposeyperkin · 13/01/2019 15:11

You did it ! You made Mumsnet Madness !
mobile.twitter.com/mumsnet_madness/status/1084404118901456896

Bluntness100 · 13/01/2019 15:13

I've genuinely never met any 16 year old who wouldn't think this was horrendous. So not sure I'm buying it.

Except for this one statement "She would have got attention, yes, it was her birthday she deserved it" which indicates if this is real, the op feels attention seeking is a great thing. And could have brought her daughter up to think the same thing.

slashlover · 13/01/2019 15:15

I apparently am known as 'that' parent and have been given the side eye the few times I've gone in since!
Everyone seems to have missed this but what do you mean by going in to the school? Please tell me you mean pick up.

mathanxiety · 13/01/2019 15:16

Again, very interesting language, and lots of anger.
'Showy nonsense', etc..

I am only quoting you because your post is right there on my screen, CoughLaughFart. There are hundreds more examples of anger and language here, in case you wonder if I am singling you out.

And can someone explain why it is so hard for teachers in the UK to keep a lid on their classrooms if flowers/balloons in a student's possession would cause such incredible disruption.

CoughLaughFart · 13/01/2019 15:28

*Again, very interesting language, and lots of anger.
'Showy nonsense', etc..

I am only quoting you because your post is right there on my screen, CoughLaughFart. There are hundreds more examples of anger and language here, in case you wonder if I am singling you out.

I don’t think you’re singling me out, but am happy to address what you’ve said. I used the term ‘showy nonsense’ because I think that’s exactly what it is - and as you yourself have said, I’m far from alone in this view. I’m not sure where you get ‘anger’ from though.

You asked what is wrong with this. Several posters have answered that already, but to sum up the key points:

Even if the daughter managed to minimise the disrespect (collecting the food herself, sorting out the clean-up), it still required staff to find her and sort out somewhere where she and her friends could eat this food.
It sets a precedent - how many 16th birthdays a large school has in a year? Is this going to be a regular thing?
Teachers have enough to deal with without listening to the other kids who weren’t invited to share complaining about it all afternoon. Like it or not, this was the equivalent of holding an unplanned social event on school grounds.

Now can I ask you - what would have been wrong with a party or day out; something the parents could organise without the school being involved?

CoughLaughFart · 13/01/2019 15:29

*Disruption, not disrespect.

frazzledasarock · 13/01/2019 15:33

Greentulips I was thinking sending it for lunchtime for the whole class and teachers.
We live too far for most of the class to come to a party at ours, most of the kids live locally we recently moved.

I’d not do it without permission.

It just struck me as an idea I liked 😜

petmad · 13/01/2019 15:34

maybe you should have waited till dd got home for her special day i would be mortified and embaressed if my parents did this also how do you think the other kids felt some would be lucky to get a card even a present for their birthday or achknowledgement of their birthday the issue was you went ott and ruined it for her. comparing it to a forgotten lunchbox is taking the pxxx a bit. its not even in the same league. note to self celebrate birthdays at home or in private
.

listsandbudgets · 13/01/2019 15:34

DDs school have a strict rule of no take away food UNLESS the pupil is taking part in an after school activity extending beyond 6pm.

Given that this normally applies to school plays and the odd sports event it's not a very wide exemption

YWBU OP. I am sure you did it with the best of intentions but next time leave a load of party popprs, non alcoholic drinks and £50 next to a pizza menu in the kitchen and retire to your room wuth good book for the duration of the evening

mathanxiety · 13/01/2019 15:39

1) Even if the daughter managed to minimise the disrespect (collecting the food herself, sorting out the clean-up), it still required staff to find her and sort out somewhere where she and her friends could eat this food

Not so. There was a common room where the pizzas could be eaten, and apparently 20 people could easily have shared them there.
The staff intervened to create a mountain out of a molehill and made the DD have the pizzas in a separate meeting room when the pizzas were cold.

2) It sets a precedent - how many 16th birthdays a large school has in a year? Is this going to be a regular thing?
Seriously?
Once one person does it, everyone has to? Is this how stuff happens in Britain?
And even if three more people do it, how is it a terrible thing?

3) Teachers have enough to deal with without listening to the other kids who weren’t invited to share complaining about it all afternoon. Like it or not, this was the equivalent of holding an unplanned social event on school grounds.
Are. You. Serious.
These people are 16, Not 6.
Are British teenagers so immature that this would have happened?

Again, eye opening.

No. Eye-popping.

You are saying that the teens of Britain are grossly immature, unable to focus on school if anything out of the ordinary happens, the teachers are barely able to control classes, and British parents on the whole are a bunch of lemmings.

GladAllOver · 13/01/2019 15:40

What is really so wrong with delivering pizzas to a school where 16 year olds can presumably take care of their own boxes, and where the birthday girl herself was perfectly happy to carry flowers around school?
Probably OK is one girl does it once a year, but if the rest of the class expect the same - as they will - it would become unmanageable.
Girl A has pizza.
Girl B has ice creams.
Girl C has balloons,
Girl D has boxes of chocolates.
Girl E has dairy allergy.
Girl F has wheat intolerance.
Girl G is the only one in the class who doesn't get a treat because her mother can't afford it.

mathanxiety · 13/01/2019 15:41

And being far from alone in a view is no indication that you are right or that the view is justified.

The response here to the OP has been unbelievable.

mathanxiety · 13/01/2019 15:44

GladAllOver, why would everyone else feel the need to jump on the bandwagon?

Is the herd mentality so strong? Does nobody have a mind of their own and can nobody accept that other people have a mind of their own?
It certainly seems as if this is the case.

And can nobody do anything in case it offends people with allergies? (Speaking as the mother of children with dairy allergies).

Is resilience such a foreign concept?

areyoureallysaying · 13/01/2019 15:45

I really dont see a problem with this. Am assuming the daughter is in the sixth form?
At my sons school sixth formers regularly use the Deliveroo service to order in food to be delivered to the common room.

Klobluchar · 13/01/2019 15:47

It was a sixteenth birthday so no, not sixth form.

GladAllOver · 13/01/2019 15:50

And can nobody do anything in case it offends people with allergies? (Speaking as the mother of children with dairy allergies).

As the mother of children with allergies, you are saying that handing around unsupervised food may "offend". Only offend? You just cannot be serious.

thatsmycoat · 13/01/2019 15:51

That’s not what math is saying.

I agree with her.

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