PTA mum with bad attitude or AITA?

[Mama7]

School festive celebrations today after school being run by the PTA. They were selling hot drinks, sweets and crispy crème donuts with some songs performed by the school choir. Email clearly states that the celebrations start at 3:30 however all donuts (which were billed as the main event) were already sold by the time we got there at 3:25, 5 minutes BEFORE the celebrations were even due to start.
I asked if there were any donuts left and was abruptly told no, my autistic 6 year old started to cry as I’d promised her one (absolutely my mistake there!) I (politely) replied “oh what a shame, the email said it didn’t start until half past, there’s going to be some disappointed children” The PTA woman then went into a rant saying “if you don’t like it maybe you should volunteer for the PTA, source the donuts, collect the donuts, organise the event and it started at 20 past so you should have got here sooner!” I replied that I wasn’t criticising the PTA, just merely pointing out that the children who didn’t manage to get one would be disappointed and the email clearly says it starts at half past. She said NO, maybe it’s the choir that start at half past. I said “I'm not lying, I’d be happy to show you the email?” She then turned to another PTA woman where they were both clearly talking about me.
My bug bear (as well as being spoken to like an idiot) is that people were walking away with huge boxes fitting 12 donuts and other people just had disappointed kids to deal with. Surely there should be a limit to make it fair.?
Im considering writing to the head and asking them to consider having a limit per person next year to avoid this or AITA who should have managed my child and mines expectations better.?

Because you don't have a autistic child

I have volunteered for a PTA and it’s always gutting to get complaints when you’ve worked so hard.

However I think she was unnecessarily passive aggressive. It does seem unfair for people to be walking away with boxes of them too.

I was involved with PTA for years (very busy working single parent - I did it because the school needed money). It’s bloody hard work, all of it. And one of the hardest parts is knowing what will sell and what won’t. The aim is to make money, so it was always a disaster if we spent money on stuff that didn’t get bought.

I remember one Halloween party, everyone asked for hot chocolate (which we didn’t have). So the following year I bought plenty of milk and hot chocolate powder - and the evening ended up being ridiculously warm, the kids just wanted cold drinks, and the milk went to waste. I felt bad so I paid for it out of my own money.

We’ve bought doughnuts in the past that didn’t all sell. You have to take a guess at how much you’ll sell. Sometimes you have stuff left over and it goes to waste, sometimes it sells really fast and you wish you’d bought more. It’s really hard to get it right.

OP the woman you spoke to will probably have been planning this for weeks and working at it all day, and you having a whinge because your kid didn’t get a doughnut (which, incidentally, you can buy any day you like from the shop) would have been the last straw.

Bottom line is this - if you don’t like the way the PTA run things, do it yourself.

If I had a child for whom getting a doughnut was the difference between joy and misery, I’d have bought a doughnut myself in advance, just in case.

I mean it's a difficult situation.

These events are a right PITA to organise and deal with. Unpaid and criticised. Often people end up spending their own money to do it. I know I did - and I wasn't even a PTA member, just someone who got guilted into doing charity/stalls/working on them. I would never go near such an organisation again.

Re your comments about having a limit for purchases as people were just buying a dozen at a time - probably it would be the last thing on the minds of the PTA people. They are just trying to get the event actually going and done. That is squarely the fault of the greedy people and you can't really expect unpaid volunteers with their hands full to think of this kind of stuff. I don't think you can really even expect them to have the right amount of donuts as you can't tell what the weather is going to be like, if people will attend/not attend, siblings/not, parents not wanting kids to eat shit...you just don't know. It's all such a pain in the arse.

I do think that your comment about the fact there were going to be some disappointed children was a bit much. Her response was worse though - but really if you are going to say something which definitely falls into the "negative" category, you are going to have to expect a mouthful like the one you got. Just because it was a factual observation, doesn't mean it's not going to upset/irritate/annoy someone - especially someone who's been put upon to do this kind of shite.

I do know what it's like to have an autistic 6yo and well it's bloody hard. So overall it was a difficult situation and there were going to be no winners.

@MumblesParty I have a child who would struggle with that (if I had told him he was having one) and yes ideally you plan ahead and have a back up or go and buy one after.

It just makes it harder and if the child had a meltdown there's the fact it's on school grounds infront of all the other kids and that their emotional resilience has been depleted making life a bit harder.

I understand the op's frustration

Being on the PTA is a thankless task. I say that as someone who wouldn't dream of being on the PTA. I imagine it would be very difficult indeed to predict how many doughnuts were going to be sold. At our PTA summer fete they were giving away tubs of ice cream at the end because no bugger had bought ice cream and they had nowhere to store the excess.

Yet another poster who has completely ignored the fact this young child is autistic or has no idea what that entails.
It's fucking exhausting having an ND child and the ignorance by others about it make it so much worse.
Sounds like a bad day OP, this time of year is always really hard with all the changes to routines at school.

PTA mums seem to have two speeds. They’re either polite, good natured and kind or they’re intense, rude and highly strung.

Her behaviour seems rude but but don’t let it get to you. She’s not worth ruminating over. Hopefully you’ll find a nice donut this weekend for your little one! (If you’re in London I suggest DoughnutTime or CrossTown)

What kind of selfish cunts think it's acceptable to buy 12 donuts at a school event where kids are all going to want to buy one?!

It's on a par with parents that bring 10 family members to watch the nativity and take up the entire front row

Not ignoring it. If you have an autistic dc you don’t make promises you can’t keep and you give an alternative - we will go to see if there are any doughnuts you like the look of but if there aren’t, we can get a treat afterwards from aldi that you can choose. (Or something like that to help the dc be clear). The op set her dc up to fail here. I understand why but it’s a lesson learned rather than something you bitch about volunteers about.

We've sold these at our PTA event. One year we sold out the next we have 30 plus left. It's really hard to balance plus you are restricted to how many you can buy from the company who offer them at a discount for charity events.

I'd also agree with others saying being in a PTA Is a thankless task. Almost no one volunteers but plenty moan like fuck when things don't go to plan.

We've made loads of errors and tried to get better at every event but it takes time and we are all doing it for free.

I remember one incident when we asked for donations for a cake sale. All Cakes were donated. A mum came late and asked if we had any allergy free cakes and we didn't. She complained bitterly about her child not being about to take part and buy a cake. When asked if she had donated any allergy free cakes she said she hadn't be use she was too busy.

@buttonousmaximous but it’s a PTA event, not Tesco! It’s a group of exhausted parents doing their very best to raise money for the school, with usually no retail experience, no management experience, no crowd control experience, rushed off their feet, probably trying to keep half an eye on their own kids, and their priority is to sell doughnuts and make money to fund the school. Of course it’s frustrating if a child is disappointed, but it’s not the fault of the PTA. Surely as the parent you have to find a way to manage and mitigate such disappointments, rather than resorting to having a go at innocent bystanders?

This 100 times over!

I've been on both sides - PTA committee running events for 5 years (and treasurer and website builder) and parent to autistic child now teen.

PTA committee can NEVER get it right - it's impossible to purchase the right amount of anything unless it's pre-ordered, you either end up disappointing people or with huge amounts of leftover stock that massively reduces profits (margins being stupidly low).

It's one thing to volunteer an hour on a stall, it's quite another to be involved in the organising, purchasing and admin. These are parents, not experienced business owners in catering and event planning.

Your child is 6. You will have many, many years of having to cope with unexpected situations. Learn to manage expectations now - just enough information to prepare the child, not too much detail in case things aren't quite as planned. And an armoury of tools at your disposal, from simple distraction to sensory toys, to swerve or shorten the resulting disappointment. You need to go into every situation expecting something to go wrong and be ready to handle it (yes, it's exhausting).

PTA member who may work FT and help out at PTA and has possibly shifted her work schedule to do so was probably upset and frustrated by your comment does it warrant a harsh response ? No but does running out of donuts warrant comments from you? No
Both were in the wrong
As PTA you give up your free time if in higschool you lack volunteers you have no teachers support but your funds need to be raised.
We have an event next week for our school we will be setting up and selling before the 1st event hang out and sell before the 2nd event there are only 3 of the 5 available 2 of us have our children in the event without selling refreshments we wouldn't be able to raise money for the funds we then provide to school which last year was 9500. This year we have already spent 4000. This is on essential stuff to support our children's education it used to be for items that would be the cherry on the top but unfortunately funding for schools is crap ( unless in inner city deprived areas then you get boat loads more. Or it feels like it as they have brand new all singing all dancing school and facilities where as ours is 60 years old with a leaking roof and very poor facilities inc for sport so can't even get extra income renting out facilities)

I apologise i digressed then my point is we try and raise money whilst having families of our own and in the case of our PTA we all work FT plus there is only a handful of us. We try our best we may miss calculate on what we are selling we may advertise when we are selling but that may get missed as not everyone looks at the PTA page but we try our best and yes whilst trying to do it we get complaints but those same people who complain aren't willing to step up and help even for a night our kids are usually involved in events and if not we rope them in to help. We have in highschool limited ways to raise funds so again was she right to get defensive in a way that may appear rude? No she wasn't but on the flip its not right you call it out especially at the event if your not willing to help

Where are the polite parents? As far as i can see, OP was rude and not volunteering. At least the volunteer was helping. An overall successful fundraising event doesn't ride on whether there is one disappointed child and mother.

There isn't a test to go on the PTA because there are so few volunteers that they can't be choosy. Everyone seems happy enough to buy the refreshments, habe their kids take up the subsidised school trips, and play on the new equipment, none of which would exist if noone ran the PTA.

There is possibly no more thankless job than PTA volunteer...you are being massively unreasonable

And like any business, parents have the option of boycotting if they dont like the service, but for some reason they never do, they just moan instead of accepting that someone is trying their best and being grateful for someone giving up their time when they can't or won't.

Happy for their child to attend the organised events, get the subsidised trips and enjoy the new play equipment but also think they deserve Harrods levels of management and service at Poundland prices.

“Having a go at innocent bystanders”…? You’ve just literally made that up… how bizarre.

And people say kids aren’t resilient anymore, seems like it’s the parents who are causing most of the problems. They sold out too bad you miss out. It’s a donut not a winning lottery ticket. Do a drive through at KK on the way home if it’s that important.

I'm a PTA Chair, & this is one of my nightmares - not only underordering so some children/people miss out, but then dealing with passive aggressive/aggressive/upset comments, when all were trying to do is raise funds & do fun stuff.
We have an event next week - new event - & I'm stressing about how much I've bought - is it enough, too little, or too much??? I don't want anyone to miss out - we have allergy options etc. But I don't want us to have stuff unsold as we'll lose some of profit margin. it's so hard to judge.

@Mama7 but she was a bystander. Yes she was running the stall, but as far as your child’s disappointment was concerned, she was a bystander. Your child’s distress is nothing to do with her. She was just selling doughnuts. If you wanted to complain to anyone, you should have complained to the people who bought multiple doughnuts, which was rather selfish and greedy.

But ultimately you need to be aware that PTA stalls aren’t supermarkets, with endless supplies of food. If a particular food is essential for your child’s happiness, you should bring a spare just in case.

@APurpleSquirrel I feel your pain. It’s so bloody stressful. I’m glad I never read threads like this when I was doing PTA stuff.

autism or not its not normal behaviour the child wont stand a chance in the real world with this pandering