Furious at another Mum

[Pastryapronsucks]

What are your thoughts about this? My 13 nearly 14 YO DD went to
the park with 4 friends this afternoon. She text to say they popping in to 1 of their home let's call him Dave (she hasn't been before). 40 mins later she was home and absolutely fine.

About an hour later she ran out to me in the garden in floods of tear. Daves mum had called her on his phone demanding my number and our address, she threatened if DD didn't give it to her she would call the school on Monday. She accused DD of taking gin. DD absolutely denied it and said she was only in the kitchen a few minutes nor did she think any of the others would.

I had a missed call from the woman so rang her back she said she was calling me because she was 'concerned and thought I should be aware of this worrying behaviour'. Apparently 500ml of gin had gone (that's nearly a pint FFS). I told her I had spoken to DD and has flatly denied it. The woman then said DD had slurred when she spoke to her on the phone (DD has a lisp). She rode her bike home and was talking perfectly lucidly. I am 100% certain she hasn't drunk anything.

The woman accused me of ignoring this behaviour and I am storing up trouble for myself in the future and will regret it! At this point I was quite angry and asked what grounds she had to acuse my DD and suggested that she allows young people in her home she should take more responsibility, or perhaps look to her own son. I told her I am extremely unhappy that she approached and accused my daughter and has caused her so much distress, poor thing was absolutely distraught and thinks she is going to get into trouble at school.

The woman said things have been disappearing in her home. I reminded her DD had never been round before and will certainly never be visiting again. The woman said she clearly wasnt getting anywhere so would be calling the school on Monday.

I think she has been trying to get the numbers of the other children and DD has been told never to give information to any one again but to come directly to us. I am realybshaken up by the whole thing. This isn't normal is it?

OPs not asking if Dave’s mum is an alcoholic - she’s asking how to deal with this mother who is threatening OPs daughter.

Thanks for all the replies both harsh and supportive. It has raised lots of debate. I just wish my poor old DD wasnt in the middle of

The Mum accused DD of slurring on the phone. DD does have a condition in her jaw which causes her to lisp and affects her speech, she may have to have surgery when she stops growing. We have never discussed this with the school so perhaps they should be aware, particularly if she has an alcohol incident logged on her record!

This morning we have had a long conversation regarding safe boundaries and getting yourself into difficult situations.

I think for today she has given up being a teenager. She has gone with Granny and Grandad to steam rally and left her phone at home😀

Good for her, OP.

I’m sorry this insane mum has contacted you and I’m also sorry your thread was somewhat hijacked by insane posters, who have essentially accused you of turning a blind eye to child abuse by a neglectful alcoholic mother. 🤯

Not extreme at all. The early-mid teen years are typically full of assumptions that you will be in trouble. I can imagine it’s worse now given you can get into serious trouble at school for forgetting a pencil. This is a young, well-behaved typical teenage girl - they do still want to stay out of trouble.

I remember ds2, who is not remotely under confident & can be a bit overconfident imo arriving home in year 7 in floods of tears because a ‘policeman was going to report him to school for stepping out into the road in front of a cyclist’ We decided a policeman was unlikely and it was more likely to be a passing security guard. He was convinced he was going to be expelled and spent the weekend in a state about it. I’m pretty certain the security guard just told him to not be an idiot and get run over/knock someone off their bike. Story which was very odd was confirmed by his friend.

I hope your dd isn’t too upset by someone drawing attention to her speech problems OP. Definitely let the school know in case the mum has another go at any of the kids.

When I was around 13, one of my schoolfriends showed me her dad’s stash of porn magazines. Her mother caught us and laid into us both and bizarrely, particularly me! She said how shocked she was at my behaviour, how appalled my own mother would be when she told her. The hilarious thing was, I was pretty naive and couldn’t quite work out or have the time before we were discovered to understand what the pictures were anyway!
I remember feeling really ashamed at the time but realised afterwards, her reaction was more about her embarrassment that children - particularly from another family - had had access to adult stuff than the fact we had done anything particularly wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the case with the over dramatic and totally disproportionate response from this woman.

And she never did tell my mother either!

I very much doubt she'd have an alcohol incident on her school record.

They haven't got time to do this for every teenager who gets involved with alcohol - and there will be plenty

The school will only ever punish in school for something that brings school into disrepute - Eg travelling to and from school in uniform or on a school event in uniform.

I don't understand why she thinks the school will punish her because Daves mum said they should.

Hope she has a good day at steam trains. That's my ds sort of day out!

Blimey, if your 14 year old had drank a pint of gin, she'd be comatose! I think you'd know!
Either she has a drink problem or her own children has taken it.
What does she think school will do about it??

Dave's Mum sounds a bit unhinged. What does she think school will do? Replace her gin? If stuff is going missing from her house she has a bigger issue and it is totally unreasonable of her to point the finger at your dd. She is the safeguarding risk allowing teenagers unsupervised in her home where there is gin left lying around. I would bet 100% that Dave himself had been nicking the gin, or Dave's older sibling and they thought they'd blame someone else. Tell dd to keep away from Dave and his troubled mother.

On a side note have none of these teenagers considered topping up the bottle with water once they've pinched some booze? Amateurs!

I think this is the advice I would go with and explain briefly what occurred. If there are any kind of safeguarding issues around the boy, this will be picked up at the same time.

I bet she didn’t. She’d have to own up to her and her dh’s failure to protect you! Showing my age now, but I remember a 6th former bringing a porn mag to school when I was about 12/13 and showing us all the picture of king dong.

Sounds as if the mum is an alcoholic, checking her spirit levels as soon as she gets in! Zero to do with the school. They will not be interested, obviously, she will just make herself sound ridiculous. If the school, stupidly, does attempt to do anything, give them short shrift. Just ensure your daughter never goes anywhere near this woman's house again.

I wouldn't contact the school at all. That's just stirring the pot unnecessarily. If she contacts them be it on her own head. Can you imagine the time it would take a school if every incident out of school gets reported to them and investigated! If she carries out her threat, and if the school contacts you, I'd just tell the school it's nothing to do with them. Tell your daughter to say nothing to them at school if they try to interview her, say they should phone you. Speaking as a retired senior secondary school manager here.

Maybe she was trying to wangle a new bottle of gin out of you!

I find it really strange when parents accuse other peoples’ kids instead of investigating the most likely culprit-clearly Dave or someone else in their own household.

Either the mum is bonkers or someone is lying.

I don’t see what it has to do with the school, but I’d probably send an email just to make them aware of what happened, then let it blow over.

I can't offer any practical advice as it sounds almost surreal and how horrible for you! Dave's mum obviously unreasonable and I doubt the school will listen to her. 2 out of my 5 are teenagers (boy 18 and girl 15) but I've never come across parents like that.
also if a teenager drank 500ml of gin they'd probably be in a coma, not cycling home so it doesn't even sound plausible.
I hope your daughter is ok and the school tell the woman to get lost.

In these circumstances I would definitely speak to the school. It may be they need to keep an eye on the child whose mother rang you. Having had teenagers of my own, I would 100% know if they'd been drinking spirits.

I expect she's trying to get free gin to, as others said at the beGINning, fuel her own drink habit.

Absolutely nothing to do with school. Incident was out of school time. Only problem is if she lies and claims it’s a safeguarding issue - ie you are allowing your child to drink alcohol. If school did become involved, they would have to talk to you and then it’s her word against yours. I would keep my child away from her.

There's one kid in every school year with a batshit parent. Shame your daughter has made friends with that kid. But at least she knows who to avoid from here on in.

School are not going to be interested. AT ALL.

Sounds a nut job, I wouldn’t bother contacting school, I very much doubt she will, even if she does school will be aware of her I expect. If your DD had drunk a pint of gin, you would definitely know! Make sure DD never goes there again.

It's a stupid allegation - as you say, if your DD had sunk a pint of gin she wouldn't have been cycling home, she'd have been getting her stomach pumped or throwing up behind a bus shelter somewhere. You would have smelled it on her.

Whatever has happened to the gin (or anything else she is missing), your DD isn't responsible.

I wouldn't contact the school. If they get in touch with you say what you've said here - there was nothing to indicate that your DD had drunk any alcohol at all, she certainly wasn't carrying a bottle with her, and you are sure that the woman is a drunk mistaken.

Firstly, poor Dave.
Secondly- who is measuring their gin?
Thirdly- I was pre-empt this and send an email to the school office marked urgent and explain what’s happened. If she’s like this with you (who she doesn’t know) it’s for certain the school have had dealings with her before.

I'm not sure the school will want to be involved as it didn't happen on school grounds. You would know if she'd had almost a pint of Gin. Anyway how on earth would she get time to drink it? Surely the other kids would have witnessed it. Perhaps Dave took it. If she were that concerned she'd have reported it to the police or social services. She's full of hot air and maybe needs to look closer to home. You could let the school know there may be a call but like I say unless there's a safeguarding concern they won't get involved.

Nothing urgent about this. If it crossed my desk, it would be straight in the bin.