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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To politely ask you not to linger outside school once you've picked up your kids?

89 replies

CrunchyNutNC · 18/08/2020 19:14

It's chaos outside our primary school at home time with groups of parents standing around the gate but I understand that you need to wait somewhere and we're all just doing our best.

However what really gets my goat are the parents, with children collected, standing chatting on the fairly narrow pavements immediately next to the school so that nobody else can pass. Every afternoon I've had to step out onto the road with a 5yo DS in order to pass people. It's ordinarily not a busy road but it becomes so at school pickup.

There's just no need, if you want to chat why not you stand in the road and leave the pavement for people who just want to get home safely, or go further away to an area where you can stop safely.

OP posts:
FizzAfterSix · 18/08/2020 21:42

YABU. Is this all you have to worry about? Lucky old you.

mrs2468 · 18/08/2020 21:42

The school near me has closed the road outside the school during pick up times to allow for social distancing rather than have everyone waiting on the pavement. Perhaps a suggestion to the school to solve the issue. Parents can then also wait on the road.

BernardsarenotalwaysSaints · 18/08/2020 21:47

As has been suggested countless times on this thread, just say "excuse me".

Our school have said no cars on site (staff to be in & parked by 8:30) to allow room & an area has been set aside for those of us who need to wait for siblings (all classes in & out at different times, no single collection of sibling groups).

Harrysmummy246 · 18/08/2020 21:51

They had a demeanour and didn't respond to eye contact.

So say excuse me. As per previous. And then say it louder. Or point out that you don't want your 5yo to walk in road

Stick up for yourself

SleepingStandingUp · 18/08/2020 21:53

@mrs2468

The school near me has closed the road outside the school during pick up times to allow for social distancing rather than have everyone waiting on the pavement. Perhaps a suggestion to the school to solve the issue. Parents can then also wait on the road.
How does that work for the people who love on the street?
Macncheeseballs · 18/08/2020 21:56

Or just step into the road briefly

Macncheeseballs · 18/08/2020 21:58

If I lived on a school street I think I'd try and avoid driving at school drop off and pick up anyway

Hollyhobbi · 18/08/2020 22:12

At least your schools are open! Shut here in Ireland since 12th March! No opening for key worker children either. And even though they're supposed to reopen end of August the rate things are going over here they may not even open!

Poppinjay · 18/08/2020 22:15

OP you are right, it is unnecessary when there is still a virus spreading.

People are doing lots of unnecessary things now, while the virus is still spreading.

Some are even going bowling or to the theatre Shock

GoldenOmber · 18/08/2020 22:29

Some are even going bowling or to the theatre Shock

You're not in other people's way when you go bowling or to the theatre, though, are you?

At our school there's about 100 parents who all need to go through the same narrow gate and along the same stretch of pavement in the 5-minute window we're allowed for drop-off and pickup for those classes. It is irritating when people stop right in the bloody path to talk and then look surprised when asked to budge. If they were bowling or watching a student performance of Death of a Salesman on the path I would be equally annoyed.

user1592512579 · 18/08/2020 22:46

Just say excuse me or walk round them. Is stepping on the road for 2 seconds really a big deal? I feel sorry for people that get annoyed so easily.

JinglingHellsBells · 18/08/2020 22:47

I am not a parent of kids that age, but I agree with you OP 100%.

In my town the path outside the school is narrow. Parents stand in a gaggle right by the school entrance and chat often in groups of 4. I have to walk on the road to avoid them and it's a narrow country road with a bend.

To give them a 2 metre berth, I'm walking down the middle of the road.

If you say excuse me, the step back enough to let you past, but certainly not with a 2metre space between them and me.

JinglingHellsBells · 18/08/2020 22:48

@user1592512579 yes it is a big deal because in those 2 seconds a car can come round the corner where I live! And the point is it's never just ONE group of parents, there are often a string of them all along the pavement,

user1471500037 · 18/08/2020 22:49

All for herd immunity

Idontgiveagriffindamn · 18/08/2020 22:54

YABU to complain when you haven’t actually said excuse me can we get through or similar. Ffs.

hastingsmua1 · 18/08/2020 22:59

@TheYellowOfTheEgg

People are social beings and want to talk to each other. It's outside. Time to chill out and stop being so censorious.
It’s not in the spirit of COVID 19 social distancing though is it? Chat elsewhere, not in high volume areas like entrances where others must pass you
etopp · 18/08/2020 23:15

@user1471500037

All for herd immunity
#metoo
Cantata · 18/08/2020 23:17

@Poppinjay

OP you are right, it is unnecessary when there is still a virus spreading.

People are doing lots of unnecessary things now, while the virus is still spreading.

Some are even going bowling or to the theatre Shock

Who's going to the the theatre? Chance would be a fine thing. Anyone who works in the theatre is up shit creek with not even a hint of a paddle.
SummerSummerSummertime · 18/08/2020 23:20

OMG there sure are a lot of uptight folks about Hmm

SleepingStandingUp · 18/08/2020 23:24

It isn't that op is wrong, altho it's odd she's not concerned about coronvirus. its that it's pettyand childish to come on MN and address the randomers on here s tho we're her coparent cohort from her school.

phoenixrosehere · 19/08/2020 00:14

Just say excuse me or walk round them. Is stepping on the road for 2 seconds really a big deal? I feel sorry for people that get annoyed so easily.

Doesn’t work if you have people who act deaf and people also driving to pick up their children..

I detested the school run because of the parents mentioned because they would not only do it on the main pavements but in the middle of a gate or pavement on school grounds where the majority of people are trying to get through. Some even let small, younger siblings just sit or lie on the ground while chatting to another parent. I shouldn’t have to ask parents to pick up their f-ing kid who they see sitting in the middle of a path when I and others are trying to get to our children’s classroom and have a line of other parents behind us and parents coming from the opposite direction trying to do the same nor should I have to ask several times getting louder and louder and close to shouting for such parents to please move when they know it’s a congested area.

The positive side of Covid in this respect is that the school run now is more organised and structured (as it should have been without a pandemic to make it so) that I and other parents don’t have to deal with such parents anymore because now they don’t have a choice but to stand in line, take turns, and keep ahold of their children. It takes less time to pick up my child than it ever did before.

ineedaholidaynow · 19/08/2020 00:23

If people are chatting arranging play dates and sleepovers your issues of crowded pavements may be short lived with the school having to close!

Thesunrising · 19/08/2020 00:39

Raise it with the school. The lack of social distancing from parents is alarming. Schools round us have marked queuing areas for drop-off and pick up with 2m marked at intervals for people to stand at. If the pavements are too narrow for the number of parents to congregate safely or for children to move around safely, then the local authority needs to close the road at pick-up/drop off times - pp has mentioned school streets project which is leading the way on this.

Girlzroolz · 19/08/2020 00:48

I have perfected my hearty, cheery, firm tone for these situations. Good for school (if it ever goes back where I live!), good for the old dears in supermarket aisles, good for the sweaty jogger blokes draped on play equipment at the park. I use ‘Coming through!’ or ‘Excuse us!’ or ‘Whoops, trying not to brush past you!’.

Channel Miss Jolly from Ben & Holly. Singsong, with just a hint of threat, and a side-order of ‘Don’t make Nanny count to 3’.

I’m not one for a quiet cough or stepping into the road, me. Although a Loud Hacking Cough holds some promise.

Lancrelady80 · 19/08/2020 01:03

@Picklypickles

I hope people wont do this at our school when it re-opens, its a narrow pavement on the side of a narrow country lane with a lot of farm vehicle traffic and sometimes people driving/cycling far too fast around a blind corner just before the school gate.
We have to queue up on the narrow pavement before the school gate, 2 metres apart. When I say narrow, you struggle to get a double buggy on the pavement.

Because people are queuing, once you have dropped your child off the only way to get past is by walking back along the road until you get to the end of the queue. There's no pavement the other side of the road to cross over to. The entrance to the school is just past where cars turn onto the one way system, so cars swing in to find people walking in the road with their backs to the traffic. Because cars park sides of the road, it narrows the road right down to a single lane.

It was bad enough with 10 children in June, but it's an accident just waiting to happen come September.

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