DH missing parents evening to play football tonight

[HannahU]

DH was supposed to be accompanying me to parents evening later. He messaged me this afternoon to say his mate is short on numbers for his 5 a side football and asked him to do a favour, so he ‘didn’t want to let him down’ he said yes.

He says it doesn’t need both of us at parents evening and I’ll be better at remembering what was said to update him after!

AIBU to feel a bit peed off at how casual he is with this?

I don't even think one parent is needed, from Year 5 onwards 😂

Unless the kids are massively struggling, it's all "yes you are doing well (I know, I can read a report and the weekly stats about work/behaviour/ attendance/ extra)
if you want to go ahead, do this and that.

My kids really do not need me around to listen to that. One of us go, its polite and it's funny to put a face on the names, but nothing to do with being involved in their education.

If we were not involved, they wouldn't have the results they have.

Both parents aren’t needed BUT I think one parent not being able to attend due to work or caring responsibilities is very different from a parent choosing a non-necessary event with friends last minute over his child.

It isn’t about needing to be there, it’s really about sending a message to your children that you are interested and involved in their lives.

Or maybe he just doesn't care about Parents Evening and doesn't care if OP goes either.

Loads of parents never go to Parents Evening. It's only on MN that I see people make into this massive issue.

I don’t know why there are so many comments about whether two parents need to be there or not. The fact he said he was coming with you and then chose to do something else last minute without checking if you were ok to do it alone is the problem. Also, whilst they may not always be the most informative, I think it is important to have touch points with the teacher and to be actively involved in your children’s education. That’s on all parents - not just the ones who don’t have something “better” pop up.

The only 10 minutes you get each year to discuss your child’s education with their educator… yes, you should probably value that time.

In all of primary, and in secondary, we are specifically told at booking to book a different meeting if we do have concerns to address, and that parent-teacher is too short for that.

Do children really care about Parents Evening?

Of course it's not. You can ring or e-mail and make an appointment whenever you like!

Well firstly the questions he may have about his child's education may not come as a direct result of the conversation held at parents evening. For example French is never mentioned by the teacher but he wonders if French will be taught at anytime during primary school. He can ask that without having been involved in the parents evening conversation.

Secondly after his wife tells him what was discussed at parents evening if he has any questions he can ask the teacher at another time.

I am really surprised by these responses. We have both attended almost all of both our DC parent's evenings. And most other kids have had both parents in attendance at all the schools they have been to.

I would be very disappointed with my husband if he prioritised football over this.

This is the kind of thing Man Who Has It All parodies …

”My husband is annoyed that I’m skipping parents evening to play netball with the girls , but I did explain that blokes are so much better at these kinds of things and I didn’t want to let the ladies down” Sarah, 40, engineer

I don’t bother, personally for us we find parents evening a waste of time. Sadly as we aren’t invested in our childrens education we are volunteer reader listeners, attend parent learning lessons so we can mirror the learning going at home particularly in maths, volunteer at boostee club to support children who are less able and have parents who struggle to support them academically, help with school sports clubs, deliver music lessons to our children and worked hard to ensure they are all tri-lingual and proficient at BSL.

13 years in on parents’ evenings and we’ve never both gone

Little ones do I think. The youngest are quite proud to show off their excellent work to their parents.

Sadly, they soon get bored of it, and as far as I can see, no most of them could't care less -even worst when they have to miss a club to attend that evening 😂

Issue is, he’s available but choosing not to go. Prioritising his hobby & mates over attending. That is telling

My parents didn’t go. They were busy, or it was wasn’t important or any other thing but they weren’t there.

As a child, that just made me feel like they didn’t care. I’d worked so hard at school and wanted my parents to hear from the teacher how much I’d be trying.

You don’t do these things for the parents. You do them for the children and I can’t believe you’ve never really considered that!

Our primary asked for only one parent to attend if possible due to space reasons. No teacher is sitting there judging who turns up. Having 20-30 kids parents to go through, I can promise you they don't care if you are a "united front". They won't be giving you dirty looks in the playground because dad or mum turned up alone. I doubt they'll even remember in a week.
The most memorable parents evening I went to was at secondary when DD teacher spent 5 minutes talking at me about another child -while DD sat next to me. I had to stop her when it became clear she was talking about about a totally different child. They didn't even have the same name, we sat down and she took off talking, clearly in a rush. It's always been a pretty pointless part of the year. If your kid has an issue, you'll be told. They won't wait until a ten minute general chat to bring up anything important.

So you expect them to take time out of their extremely busy schedule to respond to ad hoc queries when you don’t value their time on parents evening? Maybe just prioritise parents evening 🤨

Aren't you interested in what their teachers think?

My parents never attended parents evening either @StormyPotatoes - I really didn't care in the slightest.

They showed they cared in other ways - helping me with homework, spending time with me, teaching me about their hobbies, taking me on holiday and doing all sorts of other things.

The fact that they didn't attend a pointless 10 minute chat with my teacher didn't even register to me.

Nice way of wasting the teacher's time 🙄

Just asked my two (now young adults) and they don't remember any parents evenings, let alone who went out of me and DH and what was said. They do remember us coming to plays and concerts though.

Who knows how much better they could have done?

I'm not even a parent @SoOriginal but my education seem to survive unscathed without my parents wasting their time sitting in a school hall listening to Mr Smith and Mrs Jones give them a generic update about my education.

I'm genuinely surprised so many parents think it's actually important.

Yeah, I think they're different in that you're actively performing so of course you want your parents there, but parents evenings just seem like a total waste of time IMO.