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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to want to scream if one more mother looks me at in horror when I give my kids sweets at the school gates?

97 replies

londoner20 · 19/03/2008 14:53

aarrghhh. The looks I get when I take sweets to the school gates! My children get a healthy lunch - tuna, strawberries, apple, wholemeal bread, fresh orange juice. I turn up at the gate to collect them with say, a packet of crisps, or horror of horrors, a sweet and the LOOKS I get you'd think I was giving them alcohol or worse. (and if I dare go to the sweet shop on a Friday for a treat ....) What's wrong with everyone!! If you forbid something you are making it appealing... surely? what does everyone else think?

OP posts:

micegg · 19/03/2008 18:29

I have had funny looks when I have given my 2 year old a lolly. People are a bit obsessed with kids diets these days which is good in some respects. My personal view is DD can have a little something unhealthy as long as her overall diet is good. She would happily live off lollies, biscuits and crips all day. However I limit her to one thing a day and say she cant have more of such and such because its bad for her teeth. For example today she had a few hula hoops (about 10) with her sandwich. I wouldnt let her have the whole packet buts thats so I can scoff come . I have a friend who lets her kids have free reign of crisps etc and sometimes it makes it difficult when we see them because her two DDs are walking about with packets of crips and biscuits and DD I have to say no to DD and offer her raisins or bananas instead. However, this is life. You cant always get what you want. I imagine some of the parents the OP are talking about are giving you funny looks becuas ethey think their child will want whatever you offer.It wouldnt personally bother me what other parents chose to give but then again I didnt know it was considered rude to eat in the street!

redadmiral · 19/03/2008 18:45

Forget the parents - how do you think the other children feel if your children are getting sweets in front of them and they are not?

Just seems a bit mean to me - I would never give my children sweets if they were in a group and the others weren't having any, and this is basically the same situation. Waiting until the other's can't see just seems basic good manners.

redadmiral · 19/03/2008 18:47

And as for the person that thinks it's funny that the other children look really unhappy

bobsyouruncle · 19/03/2008 18:51

if dd sees other children having sweets when she isn't, she usually says "my teeth will be nicer than theirs won't they? Often in a very loud voice, cue glares from other mums

BoysOnToast · 19/03/2008 18:53

was gonna say what redadmiral just said.

Freckle · 19/03/2008 19:02

Well, if I waited until others couldn't see what I give DS3, I'd virtually be home with a very bad-tempered child on my hands.

As I said, I rarely give DS3 sweets - in fact, he's more likely to come out of school with them already in his hand than he is to receive them from me. Given that about 160 children emerge from the school at about the same time, I cannot possibly consider the feelings of every other child there. That's just ridiculous. I don't go out of my way to upset, especially when I am merely feeding my child a snack (normally healthy), and, if DS3's friends are there, I usually have something for them too. I think there's a limit to having consideration for others.

Quattrocento · 19/03/2008 19:05

I GLARE AT YOU LONDONER 20

Haven't you heard of healthy eating?

It's parents who feed their children sweets that make life so much harder for the rest of us ...

lljkk · 19/03/2008 19:12

I thougt MNers were all dragon mummas who could say "No" to repel any amount of pester power? All part of asserting your authority, & all that.

perpetualworrier · 19/03/2008 19:12

I don't think what other parents do needs to make life harder for the rest of us Quattro.

DS1 will cheerfully explain that the other mummies don't know about healthy eating like we do

It's like your mum used to say - if everyone else puts their head in the oven would you do that too? It's up to us to decide how our children will be raised and do that. e.g. DS1 keeps telling me his friends watch Eastenders. Good for them, it won't be happening here. Maybe other children get sweets everyday after school, mine get them now and again, once we get home.

AllieBongo · 19/03/2008 19:12

when ds started school, one mum used to hand her 5yr old son a dummy and a packet of skittles as soon as he came out of the gate...

Freckle · 19/03/2008 19:15

Well, I'd object more to the dummy than the Skittles.

No1ErmaBombeckfan · 19/03/2008 19:15

I think Greggs sausage rolls and fruitshoots all round ....

Troutpout · 19/03/2008 19:16

Surely it's up to individual parents to say no.People seem to forget it's within their power to say this word.
I really couldn't give a toss if other parents give their kids sweets in front of mine.

AllieBongo · 19/03/2008 19:21

i'd equally object. skittles have the same effect as ecstasy on my kids

Mouselady · 19/03/2008 19:35

So, in the interests of equitable treatment for groups of children - I shouldn't take dd's scooter or bike up to meet her at school so that she gets her quota of exercise on the way home in case the other children get upset because their mums can't be bothered to do the same.
Just checking, as I wouldn't want to offend anybody.

Oliveoil · 19/03/2008 19:38

what a load of bollocks over a bag of sweets

get a grip folks and worry about something else!!!!

hotcrossMonkeybun · 19/03/2008 19:43

I shall continue to give my kids whatever the fark I like and not give a rat's ass about other people's children's feelings. I try not to give sweets, but so bleeding wot if I did? If they were playing at my house, or called in in between riding their bikes or punching each other, then I would worry about not having enough to share, but at the school gates?

TBH other mothers PAY me to feed my child stuff, just to stop him marauding.

Freckle · 19/03/2008 19:43

Never having tried ecstasy on my children, I couldn't possibly comment on that .

Mouselady · 19/03/2008 19:45

Agree Olive. Hope you don't include my tongue in cheek post in the bolls.
The day I adjust my game to suit the crowd of no-hopers at my school gates, well, I may as well call in social services.

cory · 19/03/2008 20:09

I agree with it being rude to offer sweets to one child and not the others if you are in a group- but not if you're define the whole school as a group! A group IMO would be a playdate party or a couple of mums out together for the day, not the whole of Year 1 or whatever.

I don't give sweets at the gates and never have; on the other hand I've never had the slightest difficulty in ignoring dc's whingeing about what others are allowed. Same with school lunches. Our dc's have what we think is healthy, never mind what the rest are having. Whinge filters, they're really cheap.

fizzbuzz · 19/03/2008 21:02

I would wait until someone is giving you a "look" and up the ante a bit for higher entertainment value. Make sure you really stuff them full of crap in front of the disaproving glares.

It's none of their business what you give your kids, and if I was on the end of a look I'd really make sure the cap fitted.

But I am an older mother and we aren't to supposed care what anyone thinks, and have raised a completely normal healthy teenager who had his fair share of sweets. Nothing terrible has happened to him, no rotten teeth and as skinny as a rake. I suspect that this is just yet another food fashion that will come and go.........

motherinferior · 19/03/2008 21:07

Good grief, I am suddenly realising that taking a snack at home time is a Bad Thing, apparently. It had genuinely never occurred to me. True, occasionally when I do remember to make and therefore take the Inferiorettes a flapjack, occasionally one or two of their mates create - but it's pretty damn rare. And frankly it raises their blood sugar levels from Evil to Bearable, and means we can walk for 20 minutes quite happily.

But hey, it's not the first time MN has taught me that something I felt was perfectly straightforward was a source of Shame and Guilt.

pukka · 19/03/2008 21:08

o, ffs, ignore teh biddies. do what you think is right.

PSCMUM · 19/03/2008 21:10

why do you give your kids sweets when they are coming out of school? I am probably one of those parents who looks at you in a funny way. well actually i am not becasue no one does that in our school, or if they did, they wait til they ahev hidden round the corner a bit. I just think that at that time at 3.30 when you pick them up, they are starving, well maine are, and its a really good chance to get something GOOD into them, so why waste that op on giving them sweets, when they will eat sweets any time of the day or night?!
I don;t really care what anyone gives their kids when they come out school by the way. but i am a bit judgy judgy when i see fat kids being given junk food. then i do care.

soapbox · 19/03/2008 21:14

Almost everyone brings a snack to school for the children at my DC's school. Mine mostly get a biscuit or two, except for Thursdays which is sweetie shop day.

On Friday's when I know the boys hang around for a while before their sisters come out of their after school club, I take extra for the boy whose mother is helping out at the cookery class. I couldn't have given DS a biscuit/cake and not his friend!

Some parents do bring sweets/crisps but my DCs are absolutely fine with that as they know they get theirs on Thursdays!

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