To leave my 7.5 year old home alone today?

[brewbrewbrew]

She's off school as the bubble are isolating and I had school runs to do today.
Was fine for the morning run as dh was here but not for the afternoon one.

I drive a 7 seater car and had been given a curtesy car for the day. This car only has 5 seats and I needed 6 if dd was going to fit in.

I couldn't do anything else at short notice. The others were at school and needed collecting.

I spoke to her beforehand about the dangers and what to do if x or y happened, explained she could use Alexa to call my mobile also if there was a problem. I was gone about 15 minutes in total.
Even if I'd have walked (which isn't so close) she wouldn't have been able to come to the school with me as they've sent the bubble home. But at least next time I can leave her in the car if needs be now we've got the big one back.

I came home and she was where I'd left her, on the sofa watching tv lying down on her iPa

Is this awful of me? I feel so negligent.

[CloudyVanilla]

Nope I wouldn't have done this sorry. I would have left earlier and walked, but I am used to walking most places

[CastleOfDoom]

@jontyl

We nearly always played with matches if our parents left us alone.

But I bet you never burnt the house down? Kids are more sensible than we give them credit for.
We, as children, used to have penknives as well but never ever cut ourselves (or each other!) because we learnt the risks. Mollycoddling youngsters these days does them no favours whatsoever.
PPs not leaving their nearly teenagers alone fgs it's just ridiculous.

[promrs]

@Bikingbear

Maybe you could keep an emergency fund to pay for a taxi to collect the children next time you find yourself in a situation like this.

Would a taxi actually take 3 young primary aged kids? Yes I know some kids are Taxi'd to school but are those drivers given additional checks?

Yes they would. Most schools have a list of taxi firms deemed safe to use.

[Mango101]

RTFT her DH was at work.

Does this mean read the f text or something ?

I know he was at work.
But why is that relevant ? He just had to ask his employer permission use up a bit of annual leave to leave a bit early to avoid his vulnerable DD from being left alone. It was a planned situation too.

[Natsku]

@jontyl

We nearly always played with matches if our parents left us alone.

I know a 4 year old that played with matches while his grandmother was napping, he started a small fire. His 6 year old brother remembered what he learnt at preschool about fire safety and put the fire out by smothering it with a thick cloth and woke grandma up. There's always some children that will do dangerous things but also even quite young children can react calmly to such situations.

[NancysDream]

@Mango101

RTFT means Read the full text no Fucks

[TwoZeroTwoZero]

I stupidly played with a sharp knife when I was at home alone with my elder sister. We were young teenagers (about 12 & 14?) and my mum and step-dad were at work and not due home for a few hours. My younger siblings were being looked after by my nannan. This was the norm for us.

My sister and I had been arguing, like normal, and she'd stormed off up to the bedroom whilst I stayed downstairs and started stacking bits of cardboard onto the blade of a very sharp knife when it slipped and I sliced my finger open and blood sprayed everywhere.

A stupid thing to do, yes, but we knew what to do rather than panic. My sister phoned my step-dad at work (we knew all of the numbers and they were on a list by the phone) who came home and bandaged up my finger, she cleaned up the blood and rang my mam who took me to hospital.

We're now well-adjusted, capable adults who grew up appreciating the independence we were given. We weren't mollycoddled. If we hadn't had those experiences as children, where we not only knew in theory what to do in an emergency but had chances to actually put it into practice, I think we'd have found it much more difficult coping as adults.

I'm not saying that we should leave our young children at home to play with knives and matches and shards of glass of course but we should trust them more than we do. Building up independence should be a gradual process that starts young, like in the OPs situation where a 7, 8 or 9 y old is left alone for short periods of time with instructions on what to do in an emergency, and then build up to them being left for longer and actually having faith in their own abilities when they need to make snap decisions, if that makes sense.

If they've been sheltered and protected from everything until they're mid-teens or young adults you them either going wild when they're suddenly allowed out into the real world or them growing up with a crushing fear of the outside and not actually being able to function as an independent adult.

[alexdgr8]

agree twozero. you put it so well. i knew a single mother working 6 days a week to keep roof over 9,11, 13 year olds.
no car. on saturday mother at work, children were sent to walk over two miles each way with money for groceries. first week they bought lots of crisps, sweets, etc and no cream for their mother's coffee. next week the middle one said mum should have her cream for the coffee she likes. gradually they got what everyone needed, used the money carefully, and carried it all home, walking. the mum said this house is a co-operative: from each acc to his ability, to each acc to his need.

[Nonotmenotmeatall]

Let’s be honest the only other option would have been for the others not to go to school. A lot of you seem to forget that isolation means you are not allowed in any public places, where other people are!

[AngelDelightUK]

YANBU. In all honesty, if you had a severe upset stomach you could be shut away in the bathroom longer than 15 minutes

When I was a similar age my mum had flu and I walked to the local shop about 5-10 minutes away for some supplies. I can’t remember now where my dad was, possibly working away. I thought it was a massive adventure and was so proud of myself, especially for choosing the type of ham and cake etc

I later found out my mum had suffered such guilt for doing it, and told everyone how awful she felt about sending me. Yet to me it was the best day ever.

Don’t beat yourself up, she was fine and i bet she felt so grown up

[Hushhush89]

@msgreen

not legal ,,,,,NO not ok
surely they should all stay off school until tested etc
otherwise if she has it all of the other kids will pass it on as well to other families even if you don't seem to care about your own
FFS we will never have our lives back if people like you keep this behaviour up ,
can't we all behave as caring citizens

Her daughter was home isolating as she had been in contact with someone who had tested positive... her siblings are still expected to go school as they have not been around anyone with it.
They do not need testing as none of them are showing symptoms, this is the rules the school has to follow so there was no need for your comment. Mum here has done nothing wrong

[Hiscodisco]

Lots of people have obviously forgotten how to be kind to other mums here - you can be honest without being nasty, especially in shit times like these.

OP, Dd’s fine - obviously this wasn’t the ideal scenario but it was 15 minutes. IMO making kids scared about everything is unreasonable.

[ERFGLA]

What a shame. This bloody virus :{
My mum popped to the village shop and left me probably every weekend for 20 mins as a kid. The house never burnt down.
There’s probably LOADS of single parents forced to do crap like this at moment ( with no option of partner to “come home early”)
If anyone has to do this in the future: I’d suggest keeping the child on speaker phone whilst I was driving - it’d probably make everyone feel better and there be literally on the end of the phone for both your reassurance.

[knickerbockerglory33]

YANBU, its fine, needs must sometimes and not everyone has the luxury of helpful neighbours/grandparents etc. God knows what people on here would think of me. My eldest is 6.5 and we live on a farm, whilst the kids are often with us we also often pop out to feed/check on animals and leave kids in the house on their own, and probably for longer than 15minutes! When i was little (younger than 6) mum would leave me in the house at lambing time and go out and check on the sheep in the far fields, if there was a difficult lambing, she could be some time....

[Blunderpuss]

I think for 15 minutes made a sensible decision not worth risking lives by piling into car. We do wrap our children up way too much these days. I can remember being left for 20 minutes at that age why my mom popped out. Seven is old enough to understand not like a four year old. We have to allow our children some room to grow. Biggest mistake is posting on the web people are always going to have different opinions but it doesn’t mean anyone is wrong everyone knows their own children.
Some 7 year olds have greater maturity than others. You made a call and she was fine I wouldn’t beat yourself up over it.

[Spidey66]

@Mango101

RTFT her DH was at work.

Does this mean read the f text or something ?

I know he was at work.
But why is that relevant ? He just had to ask his employer permission use up a bit of annual leave to leave a bit early to avoid his vulnerable DD from being left alone. It was a planned situation too.

It's not always that simple
-Husband could be a surgeon in the middle of life saving surgery on a child
-He could be a nurse on an ICU full of covid patients
-He could be a police or prison officer in charge of difficult or violent people
-He could be a train or HGV driver miles away from home
-He could be a tube driver unable to get a signal
....the list goes on. There are a number of essential workers still at work during a pandemic where it's not always possible to drop everything and rush home mid shift. Except, maybe, on MN.

[Spidey66]

Add to my above, he could work in a supermarket and unable to have his mobile phone on the shop floor.

[PriceEmUp]

How old are the other children?

[BBOA]

In such situations just ask yourself; ''What would the Coroner say?". Always makes me see sense! Personally I would not have done it, but all is well in the world so move on from it.We've all made mistakes at some point!

[AmbroseGHmum]

All I would say regarding your decision is that you couldnt guarantee it would have been 15 minutes. What would have happened if you were involved a car accident on the way to or from the school? It happened to me, luckily both my kids were at school and I was fine and could phone someone to collect them for me. But you can never guarantee it will only be 15 mins etc. No judgement here, but I would only suggest that you factor this into your decision making for next time. Everyone was focused on your 7yo. But what would have happened if something happened to you?

[G5000]

What would have happened if you were involved a car accident

If OP was really in such a bad accident that she couldn't make other arrangements and even communicate there was a child home, surely it's better the child was not in the same accident with her?

[humblesims]

It's not ideal but its not really a big deal either. You judged the risk and took it. Life is all about risk assessment. Life is messy, you dont always have the luxury of the perfect option so you judge the risk. Yes something could have happened but it didnt and 99 times out of a hundred it wouldnt. But you cant live in cotton wool. It was a one off so move on with your lives.

[Ohdear2020]

I think yabu to post this on mumsnet to be honest - you were always going to be flamed. Nothing happened, it’s fine, don’t beat yourself up, maybe don’t do it again. And don’t post about it on mumsnet!

[Spidey66]

@G5000

What would have happened if you were involved a car accident

If OP was really in such a bad accident that she couldn't make other arrangements and even communicate there was a child home, surely it's better the child was not in the same accident with her?

Quite.

[AmbroseGHmum]

@G5000

What would have happened if you were involved a car accident

If OP was really in such a bad accident that she couldn't make other arrangements and even communicate there was a child home, surely it's better the child was not in the same accident with her?

Well obviously!!! The car accident was just an example of not knowing what is around the corner. You missed the point entirely.