Cheeky school mum

[Kag38xh]

DD and her friend both go to a ballet class after school. Despite talk of us taking turns bringing the kids there, the other mum has now started texting me on the day moaning about how busy work is and whether I can just take her DD with us. It was ok the first few times but now am getting a bit more annoyed about it. Not sure whether am being unreasonable or how to reply next time she texts me. Any advice?

I would text her and say "are you ok to do the runs for the next few weeks as I've got to work late" before she can even ask.

Lift sharing is usually a recipe for disaster. Always say no you'll make your own arrangements.

In this instance I would reply that she's gone against the original agreement of taking turns and letting it all fall on you so she'll have to make her own arrangements from now on.

If she gets shitty send a laughing an emoji back .

What’s so infuriating about this type of person is that although she’s not saying it out loud she clearly assumes her job is more important as your work is trivial enough to be dropped when hers can’t possibly be. Urghhh.
I would just sympathize saying you can relate as you have exactly the same struggles as her. Say that you have done the last 3 times, so she needs to do the next 3. Tell her not to worry if she has changed her mind and can no longer commit to this, you totally understand.

Well she wasn’t the only one doing this elaborate dance in the car park to avoid the CF, so you’re clearly not alone in this @Kag38xh !

These people are very good at asking an open entrapment question, “hi YouOKHun, have you got a busy Saturday planned?”, my answer was always words along the lines of “yes, massively busy, so busy that I plan to leave my children playing with matches as I’m too busy to even do the basics, why?” because I knew when someone was trying to get me to say “not much” so they could drop their child off for a play date. Some people just believe their time is more precious than yours as @Lampshadeblue says. I graduated to “can I just stop you there. The answer’s no”. I didn’t end up more unpopular than I already was!

"Yes that's fine, I will take the girls this week and you can do next."

And next week, the day before "So glad you're taking the girls to ballet this week, I'm really run off my feet at work."

Repeat as necessary.

Id turn it around and pretend you'redoing a her-
'Hi x, I'm so glad dd and your DD. But I'm going to have to respectfully back out of our agreement to pick each others dd up every other. Works changed hours so I can't committ to being able to pick up your DD and I don't want to put you in a situation where you're relying on me, only to let you down. So thought it best to tell you now so you're not side blinded(?) later on, see you at the gates! Xx'

This!!

No, bright, breezy and return the rudeness she is directing at you!

Politeness doesn’t work with these people !

I’ve learned this the hard way too OP.
Once you deal with your own awkwardness and get over it , you realise that it’s much easier to be direct bordering on rude ! They get the message and respect you for it !

it Sounds like you’d really benefit from sharing so just point that out. “Hi x happy to do today but that will be the third one in row, do you want to do the next three? Or go back to alternate weeks? “ I’m sure she’ll see the sense in grabbing this rather than fucking you off

Ask the other mum what her expectations of you are.
Mary, I thought we agreed to swap off. Your work seems pretty demanding. What are your expectations of me?

I made that mistake once and someone tried to drop their child off. Couldn’t believe it - I had three children and the youngest was 4 months old.
What we had on was ‘looking after small children!’

thankfully, what happened is that I looked completely overwhelmed and the CF ended up taking DS1 to the park for 30 minutes…

YANBU. Say, “Sorry but I can’t take responsibility for taking your DD as well as mine every week. It doesn’t work for me. Perhaps someone else would be able to help? Or I’m happy to alternate so we both share responsibility, like we agreed.”

Or, more simply: “This isn’t what I offered to do. We agreed we’d take turns. I can’t do it again this week.”

You owe this CF nothing!

I’d just look back at the messages she’s sent you over the last few weeks about work being busy and send her a variant of the same, before she can text you.

If she’s a helpful parent who has just unluckily had a couple of bad weeks she’ll be really happy to pitch in and help. If she’s a cheeky fucker who is trying to offload the work to you then she won’t. But either way at least you’ll know.

"Oh not this week, sorry!"

And then

"Oh not this week, sorry!"

and so on.

I do a lift share and it works really well -

One set drop the other collect - occasionally we do both but it has evened out.

BUT it is either - one drop one collect or one week the next week. No other way works.

OP Would you not be going there anyway? I would do it for the sake of my DD's social life. If DD's friend quit because her mum couldn't take her then you would still take your own child. So what's the difference in offering her friend a lift whether you lift share or not?

Op, when you say talk of us taking turns bringing the kids there - how firm an arrangement was this? Did you specifically agree to alternate weeks? I think the MN jury need to know this to pass full judgement!

Long since past the taxi service days, but found it very telling when a mum with kids at a different school boasted of it being a game to see how far she could push her luck with parents there.
Knowing she was a CF meant we laughed when regifted something unique - and not cheap - that we'd given her child.

Yes but out of 4 sessions they had (presumably) agreed to do 2 each, so OP has only done 1 “extra” session.

When I read the OP I had assumed it was much more unbalanced than that, though perhaps other mum has already been asking about future weeks?

You don't know the other mum that well...but she's ok for you to ferry her kid about.
Perhaps time to become assertive and end this scenario.

But she's happy to assert her boundaries with you!! Woman up 😊

@FolkSongSweet
”Yes but out of 4 sessions they had (presumably) agreed to do 2 each, so OP has only done 1 “extra” session.”

She’s done one extra session than expected, but also consider that CSM has done one fewer/less.
It’s not the same as her doing 2 and CSM doing one less than 2.

Still 3:1 OP:CSM.

@MaySheWillStayRestingInMyArmsAgain sure but the reality is, at this point, OP has only done 1 more pick up than she agreed and expected to do.

Obvs she shouldn’t let it go any further than this and I completely agree that she should make the other mum do her fair share, but it’s not that extreme (yet).

I would ignore the text and if you can, delete it "unread"

We usually share lifts so one takes and one brings back. Perhaps with her working pattern it would make more sense for her to bring them home.

I must say, I never felt the need to count how many lifts we'd both/all done to make sure it was completely even.