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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Walking vs driving kids to school

458 replies

OpportunityKnocks · 12/02/2020 13:27

I've seen a few rants about traffic on local Facebook pages.

Every single time there is someone who says 'well, if the parents walked their children the half mile to school then we wouldn't have this problem' with an inference that parents are lazy.

Well, actually, people usually drive because it is quicker, just like they drive to work because it's quicker than walking or public transport.

Parents, like the rest of the population have stuff to do. It wound me up because a lot of comments were targeted at parents that don't work. I'm currently on mat leave and drive DS to/from preschool. I have other reasons why I drive him aside from time, but that's irrelevant. Why is my time any less valuable than someone who has to go to work? That half a mile is a 40 minute round trip walking vs a 20 minute round trip driving.

So AIBU to call these people out on blaming parents for traffic?

OP posts:
corythatwas · 12/02/2020 18:26

Many people seem to think its a piece of cake to walk DC to School until they have tried it!

Plenty of us have tried it.

Doing the best for your own family is also doing better for the larger population

So knowing that somebody felt it was best for her own family not to lose 10 minutes before she could get to the coffee shop was somehow going to cure my ds' asthma?

JosefKeller · 12/02/2020 18:31

If your kid can't handle a 15 minute walk, how are they going to manage at school?

Kids walk to sport competition, to various events, go on "welly walk", on various outings? Isn't it your job to prepare them for a normal day and be included in normal activities?

Natsku · 12/02/2020 18:41

If you have the time (i.e. not going straight to work) and ability to walk then you should, for the environment and for your and your children's health. If it's a reasonable distance of course.

I'm not relishing the thought of the 2.5 mile walk to daycare/nursery when DS starts there at 3 years old but I don't drive so there's no option anyway and I know I'll get used to it after a few weeks and it'll build up DS's stamina. Thankfully that's only for 3 years then he'll go to the school that's closer and he can walk himself.

AdoptedBumpkin · 12/02/2020 18:42

I take my daughter on foot, but it's only five minutes away.

Seventyone72seventy3 · 12/02/2020 18:45

I think anyone able bodied person who takes the car for a trip that takes 20 minutes on foot is fundamentally selfish. What are you actually doing with the time you saved? If everyone could stop being so lazy we wouldn't be in the terrible situation we are in environment-wise.

Ejmorgan · 12/02/2020 18:51

School is 4 miles from home for us if he is dawdling it takes 1hr 40 mins to walk it , no way is that happening in the morning we would have to leave at 7.05 however I have been really enjoying it in the afternoons we had 4 miles to play eye spy practise timetables or spellings and he has started sleeping really well

Barbararara · 12/02/2020 18:53

I can’t understand why able bodied non-child-ferrying people are allowed clog up the roads during rush hour when they could easily walk to work or use public transport. Children need adult assistance to get to school safely, but many adults could do with fitting in a lot more exercise in their day. If these people stopped whinging about parents and got out of their cars we could cut emissions, cut congestion and reduce the health bill.

firstimemamma · 12/02/2020 18:59

What @DaveGrohlsMuse said.

SleightOfMind · 12/02/2020 19:08

not rtft but recent study compared children walking, driving and cycling to school along the same route.
The levels of CO2 and heavy metal pollution in the DC who were driven was much higher than the other two. Cycling came second.

Also, one day your DC will want to walk to school with (distracting and possibly silly) friends.
If you always drive them, they’re unlikely to have any instinctive road sense.

yellowallpaper · 12/02/2020 19:27

Seems incredibly stupid to me to walk DS2 to school, walk back home then get in the car to drive the same route to go to work/shopping/gym etc.

corythatwas · 12/02/2020 19:37

Children need adult assistance to get to school safely, but many adults could do with fitting in a lot more exercise in their day. If these people stopped whinging about parents and got out of their cars we could cut emissions, cut congestion and reduce the health bill.

Fair bet that the people who walk to school with their children are also more likely to be looking for ways to cut down on driving at other times as well. Besides, those children are going to grow up: this is the ideal time to teach them how to navigate the world as pedestrians.

ALLMYSmellySocks · 12/02/2020 19:44

@yellowallpaper

Of course it's not stupid! It means everyone's had some exercise and some fresh air which is great for kids in the morning and helps them concentrate. That said not everyone has time to do it and get to work on time.

LolaSmiles · 12/02/2020 20:30

I didn't say I was more busy than anyone else. However, I don't believe that my time is less important than the working population though.
Your day doesn't have a fixed start time that involves a commute. Your tasks as a SAHP are house and child based. The school run is part of that. There's no need to be driving short journeys that are easily walkable under some pretence that you couldn't possibly fit the extra 20 mins in a day.

The logic of someone driving past school on the way to work is logical precisely because it's part of an onward journey to a place at a specific time.

Original poster
OpportunityKnocks · 12/02/2020 20:42

@lolasmiles
My day does have a fixed start time that involves a commute.
My tasks are not house based either!
I didn't have a child in the 50s where my taskings involve keeping my child alive and my house spick and span. We are allowed to leave the house nowadays and do things that enrich our babies lives and have adult contact. These are usually scheduled and whilst not directly after dropping off DC3, there is a number of things that have to happen before I get to that scheduled event

OP posts:
GoldenOmber · 12/02/2020 20:56

We are allowed to leave the house nowadays and do things that enrich our babies lives and have adult contact.

This is a weird way of phrasing things. Do you think those of us who walk short distances to school rather than driving are unfamiliar with life looking after children? Never see friends or go to baby groups? Why would you think that your challenges of preschooler + baby are totally alien to the rest of us, on a site called 'Mumsnet'?

Selfsettling3 · 12/02/2020 20:58

DD1 started school nursery when DD2 was 6 weeks old. We always walk to school but sometimes I pick her up in the car at lunch time if I’ve been somewhere in the car or if we are going somewhere straight away. I think the walk is good for all of us and without i think I’d struggle to get DD1 3 hours of exercise day in as in some days.

LolaSmiles · 12/02/2020 20:59

Nobody said you can't leave the house.

The fact is that your day (just like mine at the moment whilst I'm off work) is not tied around a working day with a manager who expects you in that place by 9am where a school run would logically fit into the morning commute

Driving kids an easily walkable distance every day because you couldn't possibly find a way to allocate 20 additional minutes into your day is bizarre and exactly the cause of school run issues in terms of traffic, congestion, parking issues because all it takes is a sizable minority of people to think that they couldn't possibly fit the walk into their super busy, utterly important lives to create issues.

Fair bet that the people who walk to school with their children are also more likely to be looking for ways to cut down on driving at other times as well.
True. Fair bet that the people who couldn't possibly walk to school because half a mile would take 82 years / crossing the road would be too dangerous / DC doesn't like the cold will also be the people who won't let their children walk round their friends unaccompanied when they're older or start threads on MN about how terrified they are about DC starting secondary school because the students walk to school and their 11 year old hasn't done that yet and the secondary school might be a whole 25 minute walk.

Original poster
OpportunityKnocks · 12/02/2020 21:01

@GoldenOmber I was objecting to a specific poster being told that my tasks were in the home therefore I should accommodate those who have to go to work and avoid driving in peak times

OP posts:
1Morewineplease · 12/02/2020 21:02

It all depends.
Many parents are lazy and just can’t be bothered to walk , even a quarter of a mile to school, even less.
The parking , around our school is horrendous, with frequent double parking, parking over driveways and parking on pavements.
Endless reminders from our school are ignored. Local residents complain endlessly but parents won’t listen to the school re complaints.
A local PCSO was attacked when they approached a parent who parked on zigzags outside our school.
There seems to be a school run ‘’madness’ in our country. Most of the parents who drive their children live quite near to the school.
Yes, I get that some parents drop off on their way to work ... but while wearing PJs???( yes, seen it so very many times!)

GoldenOmber · 12/02/2020 21:04

therefore I should accommodate those who have to go to work and avoid driving in peak times

Did she say that? Confused

Original poster
OpportunityKnocks · 12/02/2020 21:06

@LolaSmiles it's 40 minutes a day. 20 minutes each journey.
The equivalent of a lunchbreak in the working day. It's a valuable amount of time.

I am a keen walker. I prefer to walk over driving and do quite a lot. I've spent good money on slings, carriers and prams. But these particular journeys don't work for us at the moment.

OP posts:
TheDarkPassenger · 12/02/2020 21:10

I have t go straight to work or I’d be late. But then I’m not really bothered about what the other parents at my school think.
We live a 45 min walk from school but my partner walks when he takes them if he’s off, because he’s off.
We do park away from school and walk down 10 mins down the road though, so my car doesn’t get clipped on the main school road like everyone else’s does when cars are squeezing all over!

eeyore228 · 12/02/2020 21:10

I don't care who drives, what I care about are the large numbers of totally disrespectful parents who park where they want with no thought for the pavements they just launched onto so that they aren't inconvenienced. It's ok for pedestrians to cross the road around them but not ok for a driver to be a tab more thoughtful.

Lipperfromchipper · 12/02/2020 21:13

I’ve been thinking and there is not ONE child at my DD’s school that walks... there are 4 houses within walking distance but 1 out of those 4 has primary aged dc, and they go to a different school 🤷‍♀️

LionelRitchieStoleMyNotebook · 12/02/2020 21:16

I would really prefer to walk DS to nursery and if I have a day off I do, however it's just over a mile away 15 minutes brisk walk, then I'd have to walk back to get my car to drive back past the nursery to work (far too far to walk), making me half an hour late for work, I can't drop DS off any earlier than I do. Our nursery has a large car park and a great speedy drop off system though and all local roadside parking is permit only, so hopefully it isn't too bad for local residents