CF and lifts. How to handle it.

[TheLostTargaryen]

I'll try and keep this short. Obnoxiously rude kid and his equally rude siblings keep demanding lifts because we live on the adjacent street. The mum who is disabled (lifelong so has always known what the score is) has told said children that if I'm picking up my kids that they should get a lift with me because I'm going that way anyway. One club ends at 8pm 2 days a week. My oldest DS (13) attends and just before Christmas, rude kid started the hobby. I went to pick DS up one week and kid announced loudly, "You have to take me home. My mum said if I was to see you, you have to give us a lift!" - He's 11 if that's relevant.
I didn't know what to say. It's no huge effort for me to take these kids except that I find it so fucking cheeky. The mum had hinted about it to me days earlier in passing but I had shrugged and told her that my DS usually walks home most nights. The night I did go, I had to stay late to speak to the coach about something and the kid kept interrupting telling me, "You need to hurry up!". DS angrily said "If you're in a rush, you can always walk home!"

The other thing is that the kids are not well liked at all (the rudeness and bad behaviour means the other children merely tolerate but don't socialise with them) and my DS is red faced and mortified leaving his mates with the "weird" kids getting into our car. I've told DS to tell his smirking, piss taking mates to grow up but honestly, I can totally sympathise. As a child I would have thought the same.

I've knocked the expecting lifts home from school on the head (finding kid standing beside my car instead of walking home like he's supposed to) by acting dumb to him telling me "It's raining. I'm going to get so wet walking home!" Or "I need to be home quickly today but it'll take soooo long walking" by me replying, "it's lucky you have a hood on your coat isn't it?" or telling him he'd better walk quickly then.

I don't want to fall out with the disabled woman. I understand that she can't easily walk her dc to and from hobbies etc but why is it my bloody problem? Yes I'm going there anyway but I like the journey being just me and my DC. I feel for the woman, I do. Life must be difficult but it's starting to piss me off. I'm the type to go out of my way to do anyone a favour but when it's expected or demanded I back right off. I'll now be changing my routine (going to the shop after pick up instead of before) so I'll be able to diplomatically decline their kind offer of an unpaid chauffeur job.

I need to put my tough-bitch pants on and just say it don't I? But if I do I could upset a presumably already pretty isolated woman. This is really difficult. What's the best way to do this? Fake excuses until they stop expecting or saying it straight and possibly causing upset?

I really hate people complaining about things that are firmly in their control. If you don't want to give a lift to the child then don't. If you do then do so positively.

Lastly if you do give lifts you need to agree / discuss with mother.

Kids are not cheeky they are doing what they claim their mum told them to do. Presumably the mum also told them not to be late.

It's not actually the kids fault. They are doing what their mum says. If you don't want to give lifts you'll have to say no every time to end it.

Are the kids disabled? Didn't think so. Ignore them and drive off

The mum had hinted about it days earlier. Perhaps she thought she had asked and the op had agreed because she didn't actually say no.

Those posters saying the mum should have asked. She kind of did.

I take it from your posts that the mother can drive (as she runs them to and from other clubs), but her disability makes it difficult. I think her degree of need might affect how "hard line" I was about this, but I would still not be a pushover in the face of such CF'ery. It would seem from your posts that the mother can drive if need be, the children are old enough to walk, and it's not far. Your lifts are a "nice to have" rather than essential. If all that is correct, then I would be tempted to stop.

I definitely wouldn't make up an excuse about needing to be elsewhere, which is fairly obviously not true, because, as she has already shown that she is a CF, and may well be teaching her children to be the same, she and they could badmouth you to others.

I would say that you need to talk to her and the children about the lifts. I would remind them, calmly and politely, how the lifts were demanded without an arrangement having been made. Explain to them how you would have expected to be asked. Then give some examples of why you have an issue with continuing (the rude interrupting etc).

If you decide that you will give lifts, make it clear that you will do so only as and when it suits you, and that you can't guarantee that you will be prepared to continue it indefinitely anyway.

I know all that sound very headmistressy, but you are dealing with someone who does not "get it", so you need to leave no room for confusion.

Have read all your posts I would just say direct to the child something like

"I don't offer let alone give lifts to adults or children that are rude or obnoxious toward me"

This will hopefully be a lesson to the DC that there are consequences to their behaviour and to the Mum that the DC are acting in an entitled way and people don't like it! If she brings the matter up then you can explain it's so rude that she and the DC expect a lift.

You can still help her and them out when suits but they all seem to be more appreciative of people helping them via having manners and binning the expecting!

@Fozzleyplum thank you for your reply and suggestions. The mother cannot drive, they are a family that walk and always do so when there is no one to give them a lift. You are quite correct that the lifts aren't necessary but are firmly in the category of "nice to have". They walk to the venue because they have learned by now that I don't always take my DS there. He'll sometimes go straight from the pool or his friends houses so if CFer family don't set off early enough due to expecting lifts then they would be late.

I will definitely speak to the children and tell them that I find their demanding attitudes and language unacceptable and will only provide them a nice warm car journey if they quit that rude shit.

I'd just go round to speak to the mother directly. Tell her you're not happy with the assumption that you'd provide a lift and when you did provide a lift their behaviour was unacceptable so you won't be doing it again. If the kids come back to you for another lift tell them you're not going that way and they should speak to their mother.

I think you need to say to them ‘until your attitude changes you’ll be getting no more lifts. I am doing you a favour, you aren’t doing me an honour ‘

Even if I didn't want to do it I would feel worse telling an 11 year old to use their hood in the pissing rain then driving past their house than I would having them in my car for five mins. You sound lovely op.

Oh please. As if anyone here would happily comply with a child walking up to them and telling them they have to take them somewhere! I can guarantee the only ones who would are the ones who would sit there after thinking wtf? Cheeky shit!
Do you also provide lifts for any child walking home in the rain? Do you pull over and say get in?

Kids I know who live on an adjacent street? I would OFFER them a lift if I had space and they were there at the time I was leaving.

What’s the big deal?

I would talk to them about manners, though.

Offer is the key here. Being told I have to or people expecting I should is the real issue.

This is one of the nastiest threads I have read.

I know I wouldn't make a child walk home in the rain and or dark and then sleep well.

Nothing wrong with speaking to them or the mother and letting them know you expect a please and thank you and it's not 100 percent guaranteed if you have other stuff on etc.

Not letting them in the car when it's raining to give your own kids cool points for not being with the weird kids with the disabled mum is truly nasty.

I know I wouldn't make a child walk home in the rain and or dark and then sleep well

Why? Their mother doesn’t seem bothered otherwise she wouldn’t let them go - and it’s her responsibility

It's hilarious that some people think DC can't walk 10-15 minutes in the rain!!! So many secondary school pupils walk 30 minutes plus each way all weathers!

Good point @RandomMess, my DD in high school walks every single day. It's a good 20 minutes/ half hour (dawdling dependant) and she's been doing that since she was 11 (same age as rude child) I know for a fact that some of her friends are picked up in cars. Perhaps I've missed an opportunity here for free travel.

My middle two it's more like 45 minutes each way no other options!

I don't understand why you are getting a hard time here OP, no YANBU by being annoyed with this. I have a very rude relative (DPs side of the family actually) who KNOWS that putting adults on the spot usually gets him what he wants. He's 10 and will just say 'can you give us a lift/can I stay here for a while/will you do this for me' etc etc. His parent tells him off and I know she tells him before visiting not to ask X or Y but he knows people usually feel too awkward to say no so he asks anyway. It's beyond annoying but after too many times being put on the spot I just say no. I don't know why he still asks to be honest as it's always a no now.

I would just have to get firm and tell the boy 'No. And it's not polite to just expect lifts'. I'm sure the mother will hear of it at some stage and then probably approach you about it but you can tell her you were happy to give one off lifts when you wanted to but won't be expected to be a taxi to her son.

I don't think this thread is nasty at all.

It is not OP's responsibility to give other people lifts. Yes it is nice when it is raining etc.

I am disabled, I don't drive, we walk everywhere. No one has ever offered me or my children a lift and we have never asked, we just get by.

Now they are older they walk or use public transport.

Why Tooty because the CF mum offers her kids lifts in ops car, without having the decency and good manners to approach op herself and ask properly. I am sure that if she did, and was decent about it, op would gladly give the children lifts. I would not give lifts to kids who told me that their mum told me that I have to give a lift, it is arranged prior by the adults. What is wrong with that! How is that nasty . Because the mum has behaved in a rude and cheeky way, and the children are rude, it has quite rightly put op back up, as it would most people.

Crux of it is, I would not give random kids lifts if they asked me, especially not when they tell me their mum has told them that i have to give them a lift. I will be driving home with my own kids, and the mum has to make arrangements for them, only if she approaches me first, and then it is up to my discretion.

Loads of kids walk considerable distances to school or catch buses, tram or tube. Not everybody has a car and not all cities make it practicable to drive one.