To think that it's a bit rude that the dad turned up to playdate instead of mum

[Zscalent]

I am a single mum and have a 5 year old DD, she has made friends with another little girl in her class. My daughter was begging me since the start of September to organise a playdate so I got talking to the mum at the school gates last week and invited her and her daughter over to ours for a playdate on Saturday.
Saturday afternoon the child turned up at my door with her dad who explained that his wife was unwell. I felt wildly uncomfortable sitting there with a strange man in my house (I had literally never met him before). He was a nice man, but due to a previous trauma I generally try to not be alone with men especially behind closed doors and I found the 2 hours to be unbearably awkward and triggering.
Of course this family wouldn't know that about me and there was certainly no ill intent from them. The kids had a great time so I guess that's all that mattered but I just feel like if the mum couldn't make it to the playdate the right thing to do would be to give me a heads up that her husband was attending instead (in which case I could have suggested rescheduling or moving the location to a soft play or somewhere more private).
Aibu?

What are you on about? I literally said in my OP that i didnt expect them to know.

"Of course this family wouldn't know that about me and there was certainly no ill intent from them. The kids had a great time so I guess that's all that mattered but I just feel like if the mum couldn't make it to the playdate the right thing to do would be to give me a heads up that her husband was attending instead (in which case I could have suggested rescheduling or moving the location to a soft play or somewhere more private)."

I just thought it would have been polite to give a heads up about the change of plan.
I'm unreasonable fair enough.

Again I meant public obviously not private

I would be curious to hear your therapist view on this situation.
They should be able to provide you with some insights on how to navigate common situations like this one. Chances are you going to be in proximity on men in many different scenarios, so knowing how to react is crucial.

You are curious to hear what a therapist says to a someone who has experienced complex trauma when they get a flashback?
That's a weird thing to be curious about someone else's therapy sessions but if it eases your curiosity my therapist will always respond with empathy and unconditional positive regard. She reminded me of all the tools I have to help ground me when I am triggered. She pointed out that i managed to get through the 2 hours without a full on panic attack and to be proud of my resilience.

Ffs I hold down a job, I go out in the world to events and shopping centres and i largely manage it without issue. I was temporarily triggered by a man i had never met unexpectedly being inside my home while I was alone with my child. This was the first time this had happened since the attack so i reacted with panic and let my trauma inform my thoughts with flashbacks. But I got through it I'm proud of myself for that.

I think it's rather insane to think I'd drop off my 5-yo at someone's house for a few hours after having just chatted to them at school gates a couple of times. No way I'd leave them alone at a stranger's house.

The mum should have let you know OP, I wouldn't have been happy to have a strange bloke in my house, whatever the situation, if there were no other adults present.

I don't care if it sounds uptight or uncool, there are too many instances where women are at a disadvantage in these situations. But I find it hard to trust men I don't know. I think you have to trust your instincts.

OP you are absolutely not in the wrong here… in fact if you’d shut the door and said I’m sorry NO that would have been fine too. If there is an upfront expectation that only a man will be coming you have the chance to decide, if a couple (male/female) turn up you have a buffer.. I have never suffered the trauma you have, I am in a marriage and would possibly therefore have my husband in the house while a play date was happening, I would absolutely still feel incredibly uncomfortable with a man I did not know at all turning up at my home and expecting to stay for a few hours without my prior knowledge if I was alone. I’m not afraid of men, I’m not overly sensitive but I am sensible, and yes before someone mentions it we have male “service providers”, gas engineer etc… but that’s an in advance arrangement all through recommendations.. we have two dogs, I would be able to let my husband know I’d be alone incase anything happened and we also have cameras for the dogs. I would never in a million years send my husband on a play date prearranged with me, without asking first…

Fuck that.
Until men stop ruining (if not actually ending) so many women’s lives, I would gladly err on the side of sexism if I felt ill at ease about being in the sole company of a man I didn’t know, and I wouldn’t be in the least apologetic about it.
Its not ‘sexist’ to be of the opinion that men can be very bad news indeed for us, in one way or another ( usually at least three ways, all at once, according to many posts here). Rather, it’s plain common sense born of grim experience.

You're doing amazingly, but your question was 'is it rude for the dad to come instead of the mum'.

To which the obvious answer is no, unless the mun was aware of the trauma.

Good luck with your continued recovery.

That was the title but the actual post explained that the question was more around whether they should have given me a heads up regarding the change in plan. Which I don't think is unreasonable. But each their own.

but surely you can see now that they weren't at all unreasonable in not giving you a heads up, not knowing your history? It wouldn't occur to me to do that if a parent is still bringing the child.

I find this odd.. the five yr old is not independent, so you’ve actually invited the mum plus her child. So take the child out of the equation.. You invite “Jane” for a coffee.. She can’t make it last minute so instead, without any communication, she sends her husband, mother, brother, friend, colleague in her place.. You wouldn’t find that rude or at the very least extremely odd?

But the OP has only met the Mum once. So this is a 'get to know Jane's parent' rather than a 'have a coffee with my best mate' thing.

That is simply not true. Me and the mum chat at the school gates most days since the beginning of September and I like her hence why I invited get over for coffee along with the playdate

OP you said yourself you felt uncomfortable due to your own issues, that's not this man's fault or his partners. I get you were a bit thrown but I don't think you can be angry with anyone else here. For me 2 hours of small talk would be equally awkward with a woman as with a man, I wouldn't enjoy it either way. I think that kind of overly supervised play date is silly anyway, a child of 5 should be able to cope with an hour otherwise they probably shouldn't be going at all. You obviously had in mind that the parent was going to stay before he arrived so your only issue is that he is a man.

Maybe he wanted to drop and go but saw the OP was a woman of a particular age, skin tone or stature and reminded him of a woman that was abusive to his child. He was triggered by this so was afraid to leave the child with OP in case she was abusive, therefore he had to stay. OP should have instinctively known his history and cancelled to avoid upsetting him.

If you think that's irrational, that's more or less what OP has said.

OK, sorry that wasn't clear - but this is still an acquaintance, surely? I think it's great that we're moving away from the assumption that women do all this stuff....

Absolutely.
Your home is not a public place.
People are not interchangeable when invited for a coffee and a play date.
A quick text to inform and give the opportunity to reschedule is basic good manners.
As per usual, MN posters like to give a kicking and make it an OP problem.
In my circle this would have been considered very rude.
When you know better, you do better situation.

I extended an invite to the mother for coffee and playdate for the kids at my house. That was the invite.
There was an agreed location (my house) an agreed time (2pm) and agreed parties (This mum, her daughter, my DD and I).
If the parameters of that agreement change I think it's basic good manners to inform the person who invited you.
You disagree and that's fine.

They should have rang you beforehand just to let you know.

I think the important thing now is to work out how to protect yourself in future no matter what you think is right, enough people think otherwise so this could happen again. So you need to think about if it would be better to avoid in home play dates for a while or if it would work for you to be very clear at the onset that you cannot be in a house with a man… whatever works for you.

I am terribly sorry you were hurt. I can’t imagine how hard that must be for you but now it’s important to work out what parameters you need to set for your parenting.

Yes I've certainly learned a lesson. I think for a while playdates in a public park or soft play are the way to go.

And that’s totally fine! My kids have plenty of friends who prefer not home hangouts. Soon it all becomes dropoff and then maybe easier for you, though appreciate tricky the other way round.

I think the reasonable / unreasonable difference here is that the two parties almost certainly had different terms in mind.

Yours were as described. The other parent quite likely had ‘time, place, child, parent’ as the terms they’d understood.

So neither party thought the terms had changed. In two parent households, for pretty much everything in life, the relevant descriptor is ‘parent’ rather than a specific one. To you it mattered, but that’s unusual given the context of a generic play date so for the other to not realise that the details of the terms was important to you isn’t unreasonable.