To not reciprocate 3am pick ups by other Mum?

[bringmetolife]

DD and three friends go clubbing in a town 13 miles away about two Saturdays a month. There isn’t a great nightlife for teens in our town, there are several pubs, some are open late, but it’s pretty tame and I understand why they go further afield.

DD’s friend’s Mum started collecting them in October when her daughter and her BF broke up (he used to do it for petrol money and the others would contribute, there were three originally but now another has turned 18) I was incredulous when DD told me she was collecting them at at 3am, sometimes later, I gave DD cash to give her for petrol but she wouldn’t take it, I get that, I’d probably feel awkward about it too. So I bought a voucher for a local restaurant that I know she and her DH like, and put it in a Christmas card for her. Based on what I know about the other two, I think they have probably not offered anything.

For context, there is no Uber where we live, and a taxi home is about £50-£60.

So here is the AIBU - yesterday the driving Mum sent a WhatsApp to me and the other two Mums (no Dad’s mentioned or included) basically saying (nicely and reasonably) that she’s had enough, and that she’d like to be able to plan more things for herself at weekends (perfectly reasonable) She said about how we all know the risks to girls (I don’t disagree) and that to keep them safe, perhaps we could start a rota so that we take it in turns to collect them. I can’t think of anything worse, after a long week at work giving up my Saturday night (and my glass or three of Chardonnay) to go and collect three pissed teenagers in the middle of the night.

I replied saying that she’s a bloody hero for doing it as long as she did, and I totally get why she doesn’t want to continue. But that I’m not up for doing the lifts, sorry. I suggested that I can speak to DD about pre-booking a taxi (the service that used to take my DS to school, DBS checked, well known to us and only three drivers, all of which we know) One other Mum replied that she can’t as her husband is disabled but didn’t really suggest anything. Radio silence from the other one. Slightly frosty reply from driving Mum today saying if nobody else is going to do it tonight then she will have to. But then something else will have to be sorted long term.

AIBU? I’m really not up for getting up at that time and doing a thirty mile journey unless it’s an emergency. A taxi would be £12.50-£15 each, the girls should factor this into their night out. I’m happy to pay it for DD while she’s still studying.

YABU- I’m being a selfish ungrateful arse, she’s done it for weeks, now it’s my turn to share the load.

YANBU - the girls can book a taxi, they need to start taking responsibility for this stuff to prepare for uni and nobody should be guilted into getting up at 3am!

Absolutely not being unreasonable that you don’t wish to pick them up at 3am! And that distance as well. They are all adults now. Yes there are obviously going to be risks to young women when they’re out and getting drunk. That is a fact of life and will apply to all the other young girls out there. But I bet they’re not all getting picked up by their parents! I never was and I made it home each night by a taxi! Good suggestion that the girls sleep over if one feels uncomfortable being left on their own in the taxi at the end.

It’s lovely of that mum to pick them up but she shouldn’t be guilt tripping you all to follow suit. It’s quite acceptable to pre book a taxi: the girls should be paying for it themselves but the compromise as others have said could be that you all chip in to pay for the taxi. If the taxi picks them up from a certain place then they just go there for that time and they won’t even be waiting outside for long at all

We planned the taxi in with the budget of going out. Ask them to make a decision. Going out clubbing is not a human right, maybe they could go out less, or get a hostel for the night.

Unless it's an emergency or an early flight somewhere amazing, I do not go anywhere at 3am. It's not really up to parents to facilitate their children's nightlife. If they can't afford to get home then they probably shouldn't go.

A 4 way share of taxi home should be included by them as part of their night out expenses.

Can every parent just oay 15 pounds for each trip.'I'd do that for my kids safety

I got called by six drunk 17 year olds on NYE and picked them all up at 2am far better that than having them wondering round in mini skirts

It's awful that happened to you
I'm not saying that it's ridiculous that people get assaulted or denying it happens, but as a grown adult it's not good to be curtailing your own freedom or have people unwilling to let you make your own way home/unhappy to have you take a taxi.
Where does all this thinking stop? Us only being allowed out with a chaperone because "it's not safe for women out there?"

That's not the same at allthough - they rang you asking for a lift.

I'm actually surprised so many people don't care enough about the safety of their kids to do this for them. In my family we don't just do this for teenagers we do this for each other as adults.

18 years olds and the mums whatsapp chats organising the playdate lifts. Stick with your no OP. If the girls are old enough to be out on the town they can figure this conundrum out or knock it all on the head.

At 3am? On a regular basis? Because they want to go clubbing..?

They would assume and so would their DD. It began to make the friendship awkward as she would constantly ask DD if I could drop her home or alternatively to stay over at our house. Public transport and taxis are simply non existent at that time of night where we live. I wasn’t going to leave a 17 year old girl alone in the middle of town at 2am.

People care sbout the safety of their adult children but they don't believe taxis are unsafe. Do all your family live nearby and noone has ever been to university?

Clubbing 2 a month. What this really brings to their lives apart opportunity for worsening general health due to alcoholism. Take your daughters to take a grip

Surely if the issue is one girl alone in a taxi, then they take it in turns to set off from a different persons home each night and then they can all sleep over there, or at least two of them can having dropped the other two off first.

At that age I used to get a train or two trains, to a different city in a different county, to spend the weekend with mates and go clubbing. I doubt either of my parents knew which county I was in let alone whether I was getting in taxis (sometimes) or night buses or trains, with friends or by myself!

The world has not got significantly more dangerous in the last 25 years, it always has been dangerous - life is learning how to negotiate that and evaluate whether what you want to do is worth the risk.

My parents did until I was much older and then my partner and I would take turns for each other until I grew out of clubbing. I picked my partner up at 5am once. Not all taxis are safe and even without that, it isn't always safe waiting around for one. I was spiked once and had bouncers trying to look up my skirt - thank God my mum got me. I also had a family member who worked in the legal sector which informed the view that picking me up was better than the risks. We are just a family that picks each other up.

Pay for a taxi when it is your 'turn' if you don't want to drive.

They did at the time. We went to university but parents didn't. Friends did designated driver at uni. We did use taxis from time to time but didn't have the best experiences all the time and it does only take one time for it to go wrong - it was more the waiting for taxis though than the going in them. Long queues and not that great experiences perhaps impacted the though process.

I get others may not be as funny about it but we will carry on doing turn taking. It's not a great burden really if taking turns.

To be fair if we ever did taxis then we would do this- trusted friends and sleepovers.

I would absolutely do the lifts and I'd split it with your dh so you're actually only doing one every few months. I think it's fair not to want her dd taking a taxi given that while you know the drivers- she doesn't. I also know plenty of back ground checked taxi drivers I wouldn't want a young person left alone with and I've been made to feel extremely uncomfortable by dbs checked taxi drivers in the past.

I think she's done a lot up to this point so I think it's your turn.

Did you not go to University? Do you all still live together? All sounds bizarre. Is your partner male? So you picked him up at 5am as you were worried about him getting a taxi?

People have a really warped sense of risk on here…

For me - staying awake and picking my DH up from a club at 5am would be far more risky to me - tired/late at night/accident risk . Than for him to hop in a cab home.

I have done this for ages dor my then teenage daughter, sometimes even picking up her friends to get there but always for the drive home - often driving around for +1 hour to get them all safely home, waiting in the car untill I saw that they went in their houses. Then once I overheard another parent say " ask E.'s mother, she's the crazy one driving around all night for the children". That's when I decided to continue driving for my own daughter but not for the others. Literally. I let them standing there outside [whatever place they had partied] and took my own girl safely home. And yes, she agreed. Untill she asked me to make a one-time exception for a friend who's mother had to go to the hospital and the father would go with his wife so please mom can you pick her up and take her home this one time? I did - but saw two cars and lights on when I took the girl home. Later I asked my daughter about that sick mother. My daughter was really upset because her friend had lied to her : the mother wasn't ill at all but had a routine appointment at the hospital. The parents would've been perfectly capable to go get their daughter themselves. I never did any favors again for that crowd.

You did take risks though. Your post demonstrates that there is probably more risk with being at the night club itself rather than how you got home. Whoever spiked your drink could have taken you from the nightclub. . I am not sure that you driving at 5 a.m. to collect your partner was particularly safe either, given that you would presumably be very tired and could have had an accident.

What people don’t realise - there’s more risk in the club (drinks being spiked etc) than a group of 18 year olds sharing a taxi home with a reputable company. They can do a sleepover if they don’t want to leave one girl. But the taxi journey is probably the safest part of their night…

I’m with Sjs42 on this one ..