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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

My sister took DS in the back of a taxi sans car seat. How to deal with this?

129 replies

minouminou · 05/12/2007 15:09

She was looking after him (he's 14 months) for 3 hours while DP and I went to look at a house.
She was, supposedly, walking him in his pram to our mum's house (20 mins walk), but, due to rain, got in a cab with him on her knee - journey time about 10 mins.
I know this hasn't been outlawed yet, as it has been in private cars, but I think it should be.
She's 51 (15 years older than me), and saw nothing wrong in this, as , as we all know, it used to be OK (hmmm).
We're moving up north soon (hopefully), and she seems toi think she'll be looking after him on a regular basis, so I told her today (we're back in Oxford now)that we can't allow that to happen again, and she didn't take it too well at all, and threw a big girlie hormonal strop over the phone "oh well I won't have him again....." (which, quite frankly feels like a relief).
Background - 5 kids of her own, has been a childminder and now runs an after-school club.
Silly cow.

OP posts:
Ozymandius · 05/12/2007 17:02

If anyone can find a case where a child was killed in a taxi, I'll be really surprised.

EZeeDee · 05/12/2007 17:03

oh sorry posted after only reading first page. keep doing that.

cornsilk · 05/12/2007 17:03

Your sister was doing you a favour, she obviously didn't know you'd object so strongly to your child travelling by taxi, but she does now and has said she won't look after him again. Could she have thought she was doing you a favour also by paying for a taxi so yout child wasn't out in the rain? Can't really see why she's a silly cow to be honest.

SquonkaClaus · 05/12/2007 17:04

well, if you're going to be like that....

If you want to cat someone, you just click on the envelope icon thing at the side of their name.

And if you keep having a go, I'll cat you with some genesis you tubes

Original poster
minouminou · 05/12/2007 17:05

i can see where Ozy's coming from, as these are professional drivers, in the main, but i think, as well as the risk issue, there's an element of control here - as in who decides which risk to take with DS. I wasn't informed of her decision to do this, which is infuriating.

OP posts:
jinglebells2shoessmells · 05/12/2007 17:05

i found one. but they were in a war zone at the time.

Original poster
minouminou · 05/12/2007 17:08

cornsilk....she wasn't doing me a favour - she as good as demanded to have him, and he didn't need to be out in the rain as this was a nonessential journey, and he had a raincover
and on, and on, and on........
and i didn't ask her to take him to my mum's....this was entirely her idea

OP posts:
Original poster
minouminou · 05/12/2007 17:09

the road she'd have been driven down isn't quite a war zone, but it is dangerous, and it only takes a minor shunt

OP posts:
Original poster
minouminou · 05/12/2007 17:11

urgh...only just read the genesis youtubes thing
now come on, really, i've bent over backwards to say soz
shame on you

OP posts:
stockingfiller · 05/12/2007 17:12

so if it is quite a dangerous road she would have put him in just as much danger crossing the road with the pushchair then!

cornsilk · 05/12/2007 17:12

I would rather have a sister who gave a toss and offered to have my kids than one who didn't. She made a mistake by deciding to take him by taxi as that's not you wanted, but thankfully nothing happened and you can make it clear in future that he is not to travel in a taxi again. Still can't see why she's a silly cow.

3JinglesandnoBells · 05/12/2007 17:15

Squonka, the reason it isn't outlawed to do somehting as dangerous as travelling with a child on your knee in cabs, etc. is that it is hard to enforce it, i.e. to enforce that all cabs carry save carseats with them....
however, that doesn't mean travelling with a child on your knees is safer in a taxi then in any other car.....

Original poster
minouminou · 05/12/2007 17:15

OK...i didn't provide enough detail. The route she'd've taken on foot wouldn't have been the same as the one in the cab.
The silly cow comment was more about her strop than the incident now known as "Taxigate", as she gets sniffy and bears grudges for ages, which is very tiresome.

OP posts:
Original poster
minouminou · 05/12/2007 17:19

she didn't offer, she demanded, and was on her way to having a massive steg over the fact that DS spent the previous (ie before her) day with our chums.
"I'm a blood relative...who's Sue? I should be first to have him"
my response was "it's not DNA, it's logistics".

OP posts:
jinglebells2shoessmells · 05/12/2007 17:20

i love squonky but i ddon't agree. i think i would be just as angry if someone did this in a taxi as I would be if they did it in their own car.
You can say that taxi drivers are profesional drivers. but you watch them on the road most are a law unto themselves. also you have to take into account that they will not be the only car on the road. so can still be involved in a collision and then.................................

noyummymummy · 05/12/2007 17:28

I suppose it's not so much about the taxi but that it made minouminou upset - Her sister should have understood that she doesn't ever want her child in a taxi without a car seat.

Minouminou, if it were me, I'd leave it a few days and then have a chat with your sister. I'm sure she will understand... i hope?

Come on, we all have fears for our children - especially when someone else is watching them.. I have a whole list... my family thinks I'm neurotic but when it comes to what I believe is the safest thing for my kids, I do not care.

Original poster
minouminou · 05/12/2007 17:33

This is it, noyummymummy, i'm surprised she offered to take my concerns on board, as on balance she'd have been more likely to dismiss them.
Lucy ellen's mum kindly suggested a softly-softly approach earlier, but if i'd used the "i know i'm being a bit PFB here" i'd have been sunk there and then, as she'd have agreed and then told me to stop fretting.
there is no "softening of blows" here!

OP posts:
CoteDAzur · 05/12/2007 17:34

Going on a hopefully relevant tangent here: Don't ever fly Lufthansa. They don't provide infant seat belts. Instead, they tell you to hold on to your baby

I took our own baby belt (nicked from another airline) on a Lufthansa flight and this is the conversation that followed:

Stupid Air Stewardess: Madam, you can't use that baby belt.
Cote d'Azur: Why the hell not?
SAS: Lufthansa says it is safer to buckle up yourself and hold onto your child.
CDA: Never watched the movie "Fearless", I see. Remember high school physics? Force necessary to stop a body in motion = mass * velocity. Mass of an infant might not be much, but at plane velocities, NOBODY can hold onto a child.
SAS: If you keep that seat belt on, we crash, and something happens to your baby, you can't sue us.
CDA:

FrannyandZooey · 05/12/2007 17:37

I wouldn't be at all happy about someone taking my baby in a car without a car seat, but unless I had specifically told them that this wasn't ok, I would feel it was my own fault for not telling them this.

I expect I would have a few choice words privately to dp, but people make their own decisions, based on what they think is best - I have had people make some really WEIRD decisions for ds based on what they THOUGHT I would want - until we have thought reading in process I think people will contine to make decisions we wouldn't have made ourselves, unless we spell out very clearly what we want for our children.

Original poster
minouminou · 05/12/2007 17:39

dude...niiiiiice..........
mind you, my philosophy with plane crashes is....you're gonna go anyway.
shudders

OP posts:
Original poster
minouminou · 05/12/2007 17:42

good point F&Z, but the subject of a cab didn't come up, as she said she was walking, and, as she's a keen all-weather runner, i didn't think a bit of drizzle would've put her off. It was raining, but intermittently if i remember rightly, and not torrentially, as we were walking aorund in it.

OP posts:
FrannyandZooey · 05/12/2007 17:58

No, I don't expect I would have thought of it either. I think you have to accept it was your responsibility to tell her you felt strongly about it though; she didn't do anything illegal, or that many / most parents would find objectionable or risky.

Original poster
minouminou · 05/12/2007 19:17

see what you mean, F&Z, but i didn't chew her out for doing it, i recognised that this was an issue that needed clearing up, and did it asap, and then she lost the plot.
if i'd have bollocked her straight off, then she's have been right to get angry, as, as you say, she wasn't to know my feelings (although i think she should know about the safety implications).
Her full retort, after she'd l;ost her rag was "oh well, I won't have him again then, I'm not that bothered (about DS, i presume)...see you" down goes the phone.
this is after she's been on and on about having him.
i'll leave it a few days and then phone her and ask if the HRT's kicked in yet .

OP posts:
wooga · 05/12/2007 22:13

We used a taxi firm to take us to airport one year-we provided our car seats and the understanding was that they'd keep them at the depot ready to use again when they collected us all.
Unfortunately, driver turned up in minibus-minus seats -not his fault.
I could feel the pressure from my parents to just think 'sod it' and get in taxi (about 2 in the morning delayed and knackered!) but I knew there was no way I'd dare risking anything.
I told them to go back in that taxi and that we'd wait with kids for the taxi being sent out with forgotten seats but they decided to stay with me (and huff and sigh!)
Glad to know I wasn't being neurotic-was in the minority at the time!

essbeeavenue · 05/12/2007 22:23

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