To think it’s not ‘cruel’ to take DD to the gym at 7.30am

[Eastie77Returns]

I attend an early gym class every Saturday morning. I leave the house around 7am.

I leave DS and DD at home with DP. He takes DS to football practice around 9am and DD tags along but she has become increasingly unhappy about having to go. I therefore gave her 2 other choices: come to the gym with with me or stay at home alone for 10/15 minutes as I’m home from the gym by 9.15-am latest. This morning I asked her what she wanted to do (I gave her the options earlier in the week so she had time to consider). She began complaining loudly saying none of the options were good ones and she just wanted me to stay at home with her. I explained that I was not prepared to miss my class and in the end she decided to come with me. As we were leaving DP began muttering that’s it’s unfair and cruel to drag her to a gym at the crack of dawn when Saturday morning should be her down time.

If it makes any difference, it’s a David Lloyd gym. DD is a member and she enjoyed a breakfast in the restaurant area and read a book while I did my class. She played with another girl in the play area and the two of them have signed up for a taster kids class so she was fine. But I’ve now received a text from my dad saying he’s heard (obviously from DP) from that “poor DD is being dragged to a gym on Saturdays” so she can stay with him on Friday evenings if she prefers. Obviously I would be expected to drop off and pick her up. I said no.

AIBU to think this is a load of fuss about absolutely nothing?

Good for you OP for standing your ground and setting a good example - to your children and to everyone reading.

There's some here reading who have a lot to learn!

Of course it’s not cruel. If DD was unable to be left at home on her own for some reason then I might feel differently as it is early, but that’s not the case.

If she doesn’t want to be left at home alone then I wouldn’t push it at 11. It does mean that she needs to come with you when you need to go out though. How is that in any way unfair?!

@DragonFly98

but why would the daughters mental be compromised by sitting in a cafe with a book or whatever for an hour?

She doesn't have to be at home on her own, she can go with either her mum or her dad, if she doesn't want to do either of those things, then she needs to learn to cope on her own, she's got three perfectly good options there, where no one has to miss out on anything.

11 year olds are perfectly capable or learning to have independence.

I totally agree. I don't know why so many people are defending the OP. Just because her husband is a bit crap doesn't meant that she is in the right as regards her daughter. The saying 'two wrongs don't make a right' comes to mind.

Perhaps her father could ask her why she is afraid to stay home when he takes DS to football. Perhaps he could try to help her overcome her fears?

Have you even read the part that DD was ok in the end? OP is allowed a bit of exercise. We don't have to become monks/nuns once we become parents.

Spot on. She’s old enough to be left on her own for 15 minutes - and I’d have given My DH a massive bollocking by now if he carried on like yours does.

If your house is anything like ours was when ours were that age, you’re running them to 2 or 3 activities every week. Having your Saturday morning class is fine. You deserve it.

That is just a pile of nonsense.

The OP is totally and absolutely in the right here!

The 1950s is missing you.

I would just be shrugging at anyone saying it was mean by telling them that i have one class a week and i'm not giving that up and if they're so worried they can stay home with her.

and then just carry on my merry way.

You really think that getting up early on a Saturday morning will damage the child's mental health? Even when it means she gets to eat breakfast in a café and meet up with a friend?

I've been reading "House of Music" by Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason. She writes about how the children got up early to practise before school, and on a Saturday morning many of them also got up really early to travel from Nottingham to the Royal School of Music in London for Saturday school - indeed, I suspect the younger ones still do. No obvious signs there that they have been damaged by this dreadful experience.

Except that her DD was absolutely fine. She even made a friend and started a new hobby that she's attending tomorrow. I don't think she's been hard done by in the slightest - do you? Really?

I cannot believe some of the posts in this chat.

OP you are absolutely right to be prioritising yourself for an hour.

No doubt the posters saying you’re being selfish and neglectful would be the first to say you’re enabling her behaviour if she turned out to be one of the self-centred brattish teens/young adults that we read about on here, taught by a life time of getting their own way.

I don't know why so many people are defending the OP.

I think people are defending her because they are reasonable people as is the OP. Most of the posts critical of the OP are bonkers or bonkers-adjacent.

So, every Saturday you, DP and DS all get to do your first choice activity and DD never gets hers?

If the logistics of DF don’t work out, why can’t you alternate taking a different gym class, missing football practice and taking DD to the gym?

'And? The family has membership, they have appropriate facilities and run an appropriate class. Why does OP have to do something else just because her husband won't drive?'

Oh they have membership! <I think that's been mentioned> Hmm you see I think thst means you pop to the gym when it suits you not at 7.30 when it doesn't suit the 11yr old.

Why won't the dh drive do we know yet?

Exactly this. Why is everyone missing this?

I feel sorry for some of the posters on here who clearly have no expectation whatsoever of time to themselves.

OP there is only one person I have sympathy for and that is you! Mostly because you’re married to a misogynistic dick- honestly, I don’t know how you stay married to someone who refuses to drive (I’d be interested to know why) therefore completely burdening you with so much of life’s admin. It would be an absolutely deal breaker for me. His pure selfishness in refusing to share the load would make my fanny permanently seal shut. I can just imagine how he is when your son is playing football, I bet he shouts and screams and thinks he knows it all… explains why your DD doesn’t want to go!

I also think people are being pathetic about your daughter getting up at 7. Like many kids I had school on Saturdays. So we were up at 6 (followed by school). If your husband or dad feel that strongly about it then they should stay and look after her although I personally think that sets a bad example and at 11 you don’t always get what you want…

Whatever you do, don’t give up your precious hour!

The DD has a choice. Also did you miss the posts about all of the activities DD is involved in that are, I assume, paid for and facilitated by her parents?

OP has explained why that is not the case.

David Lloyd you say? .

Toe/toe/drag whatever you get the gist. Stay at home with your poor dd and do your squats later on.

Because she doesn't have to get what she wants all the time

The fancy membership doesn’t exempt you from other work and life commitments, I would have thought that was obvious though. You should bizarrely jealous.

And she’s already explained that he doesn’t drive because he doesn’t want to - what more are you expecting to be uncovered?

She's 11 - old enough to be home alone for a short while without complaint.

If the 11 year old doesn't want to be home alone, she's fine to sit in the sports club - it's not the height of dangerous.

OP should NOT cancel or miss her class, she's equal and a part of the family unit not a servant to it.