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!

I may be an outlier here but I think you are being pretty unfair on the other mum. I agree with the other poster who says that you should all agree to cover it one weekend in four, so if you don't want to do it (and I may be a martyr but personally I'd pick them up myself), you should pay for the full cost of the taxi that week.

It's not though, as at least one of them (the one with the disabled husband) really can't do it.

I assume by train? But most stop by midnight.

Re: the driving mum - she messaged about this today for tonight?! That's short notice. Although i totally understand she's fed up with it ...

Everyone saying 'do the share' idea. 1 mum can't cos she's got a disabled husband (?) and the other mum hasn't replied. Personally i would worry about trusting a rota system with people who weren't really on board.

I think you should book your daughter a taxi and leave the other Mum to pick her own daughter up. Good idea. You don’t need to continue taking the piss out of this Mum then and your DD will know you have sorted her lift home in a taxi too.

I hated having parents like you that is why I have always picked my DS’s up at whatever time when they asked. You can drink wine whenever you want. Doesn’t have to be a Saturday.

BTW my DS’s happily get Ubers now and they live in big cities for Uni. We have Ubers here now too. But if they asked me to pick them up, I would. In fact they did so on NYE as taxis were hard to get.

How times have changed. I'm only 36 and yet I would never have expected my mum to pick me up from town when clubbing at 18.
Yanbu. Agree with those saying the girls just need to get a taxi home together.

They go out in our local town then get the 11pm last bus to the other town so don’t even get to the club until 11.30

Do these young women not bear any responsibility of the cost of getting home? Ever?

When I was this age we took turns driving home. One of us wouldn’t drink. Can they do that?
Or stay over at one house
and change the house each time, get a joint taxi so no one is in a taxi alone.

I think you need to take a turn. It's unfair the other Mum did it for all this time.

I used to pick my DD and her friends up providing that it wasn't much later than midnight. Later then that, they had to get a taxi and share the cost.

None of the girls would even have countenanced asking me or their mums to pick them up at 3am.

We used to sort this out ourselves at 16! Lived in a small town with limited taxis, so you had to get down and book and pay the deposit by mid week. Cost was factored in to the night out. As it still is for me, 30 years later.

They're (broke!) teenagers, I'm sure.
What teenager has that much cash? I certainly didn't.

They only go out twice a month and if all the mums and dads drive, that would be 6 adults on a rota so nobody would have to do the pick up very often.

They may be legally adults but are still young, living at home, probably at college. I think it would be a nice thing to do, to help them out.

I live in a very small town so when dd lived at home, she would go out clubbing in the next town. She could usually get public transport or a (reasonably priced) taxi home but knew that if things went wrong (as they occasionally, inevitably, did) she could phone us at any hour and we would pick her up.

When I was a teenager, back in the dark ages, we moved house to somewhere semi-rural. Public transport was limited in the day and non existent at night. My mum and dad told me that if I went out and couldn't get a lift home, they would always come out to pick me up because it had been their choice to move to somewhere so out of the way.

If you're somewhere so rural that there's nowhere to go clubbing locally and taxi fares are extortionate, giving an occasional lift seems the reasonable thing to do.

This.

The daughters need to work an extra shift to facilitate their social life.

In general I think young adults are treated as children for much longer these days compared to 10+ years ago.

I’m a bit staggered by this.

Why can’t they leave the club at 12 or 12.30am? Don’t they have school or college on Monday?

If they want a lift they need to leave the club a lot earlier. Three o’clock in the morning will fuck up anyone’s sleep patterns for at least 36 hours.

I would happily do this every now and then for my kids, but only if I didn't have other plans. Otherwise they'd need to fund a taxi or stay local.

Taxi all the way!
They are 18 and need to take responsibility for themselves. That includes getting home safely at 3am.

Where are they getting the money to go clubbing? If they don't have much money they need to go out less like everyone else has to budget. I certainly wasn't given cash to go out clubbing.

Though also get the dads involved! Not fair it should fall only on mums (obviously not the dad with a disability)

They need to factor in taxi costs. And possibly pull up their big girl pants about being the last one in the cab. Learning to take care of yourself is part of going out.

I used to book cabs home at 18 for just me if I needed to, especially after uni nights out if I needed to leave early/ go home in the opposite direction to friends or had been out with a friend who lived on campus so I needed to go home alone afterwards . I knew I could ring home in an emergency though - for advice, support, cash or a lift if possible.

If werere you OP, I'd tell Dd to start factoring in taxis but that she can obviously call you in an emergency.

They are 18 -

Old enough to drink, old enough to get a taxi AND pay for it themselves

We are always offering lifts, and are happy to do so, but I would draw the line at a fixed arrangement at 3am!! Especially given at least one of the other mothers can’t help.

The shared pre booked taxi is a good idea. The best option. Anxious mother needs to relax, she has many more years of this and when they go to uni you have to step back, I wouldn’t let her stress be transferred over to me, no.

They are adults. Why is there Mummy’s group chats in the first place?! Odd.

Which is totally normal and exactly what I was doing at this age.

Presumably these four girls won't all be staying at home for the rest of their lives. This is the time where they get some independence and learn to live in the world with the safety net of their parents to pick them up when things go wrong. Treating them like they're still small children who can't mostly sort it out for themselves isn't a great idea in the longer term.