To never speak to her again- CF!

[Peanutbuttermandms]

I have a long term school ‘friend’, let’s call her S. I hear from her very sporadically and most recently, when she wants something: sponsorship money from me for one of her ‘challenges’ to stay in my central city home (!)… but folks, I give you the best one to date today…

Text out of the blue.. not even a ‘how are you’.. can I pick her son up from the airport (!) on Wednesday as he’s flying in alone (he is 10) from his dad’s abroad. You’re thinking wtaf, right?

The text goes on.. she can’t and her new DP are holidaying in the south of France and their flight doesn’t get in to airport until 5pm.. so the wee mite is alone for 4 hours after travelling alone. At 10. Jesus!

It ends ‘would obviously be great to see you too!!’

AIBU to think cheeky fucker and never speak to the self centred cow again?

I mean, if the airport ring OP all she has to say is that she has never agreed to collect the child and they need to speak to the mother. She doesn't have to make excuses, lie, pretend she never got the message etc. All she has to say is she didn't agree and did not give her permission to be a person responsible for the child.

I would reply that I can’t, I’m not available purely so that she can’t put any blame on op.

The people giving you a hard time are missing the point. The mum is on holiday in the south of France. She can hire a car and drive back in time to collect her son!! Why the hell is it up to you?!

I'd have to collect him. He can't help his feckless parent.

Of course you don’t have to reply or engage at all, that’s a given.
But in your situation I would, the reason being: if someone is mad enough to ask something like this out of the blue and without even a civil greeting, then they are possibly mad enough to take no reply as a yes.
If you don’t want to deal with her hassling you/ expressing outrage about her child being abandoned etc.it might be easier to send a brief reply saying you won’t be doing this. Then break contact.

-The situation is that this parent is on holiday and has booked return tickets that mean her child arrives at an airport with no one to meet. The time to deal with this is before booking tickets. Putting your own needs first then desperately ringing round to find someone willing to take your child to deal with the fallout of your decisions is negligent. It’s the kind of situation that leads to poor childcare choices and all that entails. A responsible parent has trusted childcare and plans around that.

• It is absolutely not the OP’s responsibility.
• Unfortunately many children are in these kind of situations. They are children and ‘ not my circus ..’ is not a great attitude. At the very least a clear no to avoid confusion is needed. I’m really surprised that some feel that would be too much in this situation.

@TSSDNCOP

I'd have to collect him. He can't help his feckless parent.

But if she does this then the CF will do it again and again

Have you blocked her OP? I am impatiently waiting for the ? text update!!

I totally agree that you should not have to pick him up, but for clarity and to save the lad being at the airport alone and thinking he has been forgotten I would reply back with a no, it literally takes a few seconds to do and its all a bit childish to just ignore the message, its not like she's asking you to grab her dry cleaning, this is a child.

Saves any misunderstanding and means she has to sort out an alternative plan, pettiness should have no place in this situation.

I’m a bit incredulous that in all of this I’m the one being called childish by @kazillionaire

Let’s remember, I’m not the mother, I’ve no responsibility; legal or otherwise. I didn’t ask for this and I can choose how I want to respond. This literally has nothing to do with me. I’ve been dragged into it because it’s self serving for her.

If I’m childish, what does that make her?!

Ps you’re out of order.

Op has made it clear that she isn't going to respond and I can completely see where she's coming from.
The CF can't dump this on people and expect them to scrat around making her life easier. If OP says no then blocks her it's no different to not responding.
Very sad if the lad is left feeling forgotten but that is not the OPs concern. Hopefully, if anything, this will shock the CF into some sort of realisation that she's the problem. If not, then there was never any hope

@MissMaple82

To social services? Why? A child can fly alone as long as someone is there to meet them etc. YABU

But there clearly isn't as no arrangements have been made. I'm surprised I'm not seeing more posts on this.

is she saying she cannot change her flight or organise anything because of availability or covid or something?

@hooplahooly no idea. Don’t care, have had little to no info. All read as if she has been hellishly disorganised and he was an after thought. In any case.. this is my problem how?! Lol

If the CF had called OP in panic that she had ballsed up or that something had happened to prevent her from being there for her son or other plans had fallen through last minute, then I think OP would have had a very different response, even if it was still a no.

@YouokHun so sorry to hear of your last year-18 months. I follow you on another thread and am a big fan of your general outlook on life.

OP I am sorry you have a ‘friend’ like this. I hope your other Friends are better. And obviously, say no, block and move on x

@YouokHun I'm really sorry to hear that. I have had a similar experience but not as hurtful as yours. Hope you are doing well now.

@Blackberrycream

-The situation is that this parent is on holiday and has booked return tickets that mean her child arrives at an airport with no one to meet. The time to deal with this is before booking tickets. Putting your own needs first then desperately ringing round to find someone willing to take your child to deal with the fallout of your decisions is negligent. It’s the kind of situation that leads to poor childcare choices and all that entails. A responsible parent has trusted childcare and plans around that.

• It is absolutely not the OP’s responsibility.
• Unfortunately many children are in these kind of situations. They are children and ‘ not my circus ..’ is not a great attitude. At the very least a clear no to avoid confusion is needed. I’m really surprised that some feel that would be too much in this situation.

You don’t know this!

Ops “ friend” might have booked the holiday and told her Ex when she was coming back . Ex might have booked the flight without thinking back and home are two different things,
.
The ex could change the child’s flight as easily as the Ops friend.

OP I think your reasoning is sound - the fact of receiving a text doesn't suddenly shift responsibility to you. Any sane parent would phone the person they hadn't heard back from, just to double check. And, if there is some sob-backstory then she can call you to walk you through it - at which point you can decide what to do. It would be the ultimate cf-ery to assume that the act of sending text which is not replied to constitutes acceptance by the recipient. If that is the case we can all look forward to a whole new seam of cf threads on MN going forward .

Well that would have been quite a miscommunication @Lightisnotwhite. I think I would have been communicating flights numbers , times etc.
Again, it is interesting the different standards we apply to a different class of parents.

@Lightisnotwhite sure, but that’s between the parents and not me, right? They fuck up or things change, they sort it. That’s their problem, no one else’s.

Their lack of communication ain’t no one else’s problem. It’s ridiculous the amount of excuses being made for blatantly shit behaviour, to the DS and to myself.

It’s a worrying precedent if some PP think sending a text outlining your needs and indeed, demands, constitutes consent on the part of the unwitting recipient. Because that’s what I’ve been told today. Of course no one wants to look at that issue as they’re hung up on the fact there is a child involved, but this is a red herring and to enable and green light this type of behaviour by collecting the child will, in my opinion, facilitate its regular occurrence. How does that help the child ?

If no child was involved I’d have got undoubtedly different replies, but as the childless person here with no responsibility whatsoever, doesn’t the same principle apply? That of course being that you can’t expect someone else to pick up your duty on the basis of a flimsy text with no backstory or care for what’s going on in the other persons life/ their circumstances.

At the end of the day, there is a child who could potentially be waiting at the airport with nobody to greet them. It’s not the OP’s responsibility, but if her friend is enough of a CF to expect the OP to do the pick up, she’s enough of a CF to read the OP’s silence as acquiescence to the request. Why the OP won’t actually text the CF back to say no goodness only knows. For the kid’s sake, send a message and then block the CF.

Just reply and say you can't do it for heavens sake!

@Figgit but the kid ain’t my problem. I didn’t solicit the message, it came out of nowhere. A child stranded does not by proxy become my issue because I exercised my right not to reply.

There is no requisite that I must reply when someone makes asks/ demands of me.

I won’t text the CF because because I choose not to. She chooses to strand her son willingly in the same vein I choose to not reply.

Again, the child is not my responsibility. I didn’t put the child in this situation and I’m damn well not coming to the rescue to sort a Shitshow which will be entirely of its mothers making.

@Ginger1982 why? Because you told me to? Should I just go to the airport and collect the DS because she told me to?

Batshit crazy.