Leaving DC alone at night

[6079SmithW]

Background - My ex DH and co parent our children which includes sharing Christmases. This year was my ex DH’s turn to have our two DD. They are lower senior school age (think year 7/year 8).
I was at my mum’s for Christmas as we were both alone. It is a three hour coach journey away. I got home yesterday.

Anyway the AIBU - yesterday due to the storm my coach was running nearly two hours late. It left at 17:20 instead of 15:30. I spoke to ex DH who insisted on leaving the DD at my house from 19:30 whether I was there or not as he wanted to go out. I was really concerned about the girls being at home on their own given the time, that it’s dark and at that point I had no idea of my arrival time. My ex DH was really angry and wouldn’t be reasoned with.

AIBU to think that he should have kept the DD until I got home or am I being overly cautious and should agree to leaving them alone in the house at night?

@Beezknees you said you'd "never arrange something" on the handover day. I'm saying I can't afford to do that given that I have so few options. This (the OP) s situation was not an emergency...the kids are old enough to be left and no-one can confirm that the ex wouldn't return in the catastrophic and fairly rare event that would mean the mum was longer than expected, or that the op couldn't, in that eventuality, get someone else.

The OP has two children so no one being left on their own.

Hang on being 50/50 doesn’t literally absolve you of parental responsibility half of the time.

If the parents were still together and he left the children at home without knowing whether/ when mum would be home because he had something else to do he’d be totally unreasonable, called selfish, bad father / husband etc. But according to some on here because that evening is his “time off” he was fine to just leave them?! It’s not martyrdom, you shouldn’t /don’t get “time off” from being their parent and a responsible adult just because your 50% has ended that day.

Staying with your children when their other parent is unexpectedly held up by a storm is being a parent. It’s not remotely being a martyr.

My kids were fine home alone at that age, I wouldn’t have an issue with this whatsoever

What time did you get home? I'm guessing you'd have been able to make a decent guess whether there'd be any massive delays by looking at Google maps to let him know. How did the girls feel about being left?

I think being dark is a bit of a red herring- most secondary age children would have been left at 5pm when it's dark and that isn't seen as an issue.

That's life though. You're not "entitled" to take time off parenting. Sometimes you have to cancel plans.

Agree with this. I'd add that's it's also dependent on what the children feel comfortable with. My 12 year old is totally fine being left on her own for an hour or two but only in the daytime and if she knows an approximate time of when a parent will be home.

What would I or my husband do in this situation - kids would be prioritized over a night out and neither of us would have buggered off and left the kids alone in this situation.

I think you’re being slightly over cautious especially talking about ‘it being dark’ - it gets dark at 4!

I’d need more info - was the Dad out locally with a phone so if it did get to say 10pm he could have gone back?

Or did he switch his phone off and disappear in to the night?

I’m assuming you could also keep in contact with the girls via your phone?

So they would potentially be alone for the evening. Which is something at that age they should be fine with. A parent would need to turn up at some point later in the evening. That’s the bottom line. So your DH should have kept in touch and been back up if needed.

I clearly meant without an adult, oh pedantic one.

@Beezknees my ex has decided he is entitled to take about 95% of his life off from parenting. Barring genuine emergency, which this scenario was not, I'm taking my 5% when I can. It's not the same as a together couple who work a schedule to allow each a bit of a break that might get cancelled. A single parent in my position does basically all meaningful parenting virtually all of the time. All I'm suggesting here is that the dad isn't automatically an arse for being annoyed with the op / the situation and that I can see his point of view.

I'm a lone parent, I know what it's like. My ex doesn't even see DS any more! But I don't think it's a big deal to cancel plans as a one off provided it's not a regular thing. Being annoyed at having to parent is just odd to me. It's literally what you sign up for. Obviously I'm not saying never go out or do anything but you do have to be prepared to occasionally change plans.

Which is why I said I would have stayed...

As the OP has not returned in over three hours and the events took place yesterday, I'm assuming she isn't coming back.

So 12/13 year olds, two of them together. I think that's fine especially as you said your coach left at 17.20 and its 3 hours, meaning he knew you'd be home in just under an hour and you had spoke to him so he had this information.

Thanks for all the responses so far. It’s interesting to read the various few points.
A lot of posts asked for more info -

1. They are Autistic, but are bright girls so I’m not sure that this has any impact.
2. My biggest concern was the element of not knowing when I would get in.
3. Ex would be contactable by phone but was going to a party an hour away so would not have been able to return quickly.
4. There are plenty of occasions where I have had to alter plans around events happening in his life, which I have never minded because I thought we had a reciprocal agreement. It has really pissed me off that he doesn’t view it that way.
5. In the day, they do spend time in the house alone, and in the late afternoon now yes, it does get dark (Not as dark as later on though).
6. The emphasis on ‘dark’ rather than night is because DD2 has mentioned on several occasions that she is afraid of the dark.
7. I finally got home about 21:15. There was only a small further delay of about 20 minutes and then it takes roughly half an hour to get home from the coach station.

In actual fact what happened was that I asked a friend to be at my house for 19:30 when he dropped them off and wait with them until I got in, which thankfully she was able to do.

The other thing that really upset me was how horrible he was to me for “putting undue pressure on his new relationship”(the party host was a friend of his girlfriend) . I did point out that it was the storm which had caused the delay, but he said it was my fault I couldn’t drive. He also said that if I “genuinely cared about them not being alone in the dark” I could get an Uber home. It was £170, when I told him I couldn’t afford it he said he would loan me half the money.

They are still very young and shouldn't be in the house on their own at night anyway

Not the case though. Firstly, they aren't that young. They will be between 11 and 13.
Secondly, there are two of them, so not alone
Thirdly, I suspect most of us would think of 7 .30 as early evening, not really "at night".

I finally got home about 21:15. There was only a small further delay of about 20 minutes and then it takes roughly half an hour to get home from the coach station.

So you were cutting it pretty fine in the first place, even if there hadn't been a delay. With a long journey like that by public transport, I think most people would build in a likely delay - weather / traffic / roadworks / getting stuck behind an accident / missed connection. So it isn't unreasonable for you to have made "what if......" plans in advance - either having the conversation with your ex in advance, or with the girls so they were expecting they might have an hour on their own, or with friends who might have been willing for ex to drop them there until you could get there 'just in case'.