My friend has driven off and left her toddler with me after I refused to babysit…

[DojaPussy]

I have been friends with “Claire” for 10 years, I have no children and she has 4.

Claire struggles with all the children and her DH left her when she was pregnant with the youngest “Barry” who is only 2.
He didn’t want more than 2 kids but a mixture of pressure and “contraceptive failures” led to number 3 where he tried to cope but issued an ultimatum about any more and booked a vasectomy as he said he couldn’t risk Claire getting pregnant on the contraceptive injection again.
Before he could go ahead with it baby Barry was on his way so he packed his bags and left, he sees the two eldest but not the youngest two now.
Claire has only ever half heartedly tried to deny it was on purpose and just said she was 40 and desperately wanted another and was nearly out of time.

Claire is constantly asking me for help with childcare and I’ve helped a bit over the years but I hate it because she’s very soft with the kids and they are a nightmare to look after and I didn’t choose not to have my own to help raise someone else’s!

I’ve been off work this week and have been having a lovely relaxing time with long lie - ins, going to the gym, the hairdresser, seeing friends, hiking and just enjoying free time.
I was supposed to go away for a short break but finances wouldn’t allow it so I’m trying to make up for that with other little treats.
I have a pedicure booked today at 3.45 at local spa hotel round the corner and bought a day pass to use the gym and pool facilities then was meeting a friend for dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Claire asked yesterday if I could look after Barry today because she “has an appointment” I suspect its meeting someone she’s been dating because she’s mentioned before that he works from home Friday mornings then finishes early and she wouldn’t elaborate on the appointment except to say “it’s important”.
I said no I wasn’t watching Barry and told her my plans, she said he could come along and I said absolutely not it wouldn’t be allowed!
She begged me to change plans but I said I’d lose money and I won’t get a chance or have the time to go for a long time - plus I just don’t want to.
Claire slammed the phone down and I thought she had got message.

She turned up at my house about half an hour ago to apologise and I let her in and we had a little chat and after 15 minutes she started begging me to babysit again, I said no again and she started crying hysterically saying she can’t cope anymore, she’s then walked off to her car and got in it and has driven off!

I think the whole performance was planned and I’m not wasting my plans being manipulated into childcare.

I have a few options and looking for advice on what people think I should do next…

I could take Barry to his dads at work but that seems unfair on him,

Take him to her sisters who works from home (another frequent reluctant target for babysitting) in the hope she is in,

take him to my neighbour who is a childminder and see if I can pay her to mind him (and get reimbursed off Claire) I know Claire would normally be against this as she usually doesn’t like leaving kids with people she doesn’t know but after today’s antics I’m not sure she’ll care.

I have so far text Claire and left messages saying I’m ringing the police if she doesn’t come back and if the other options fail how unreasonable would it be to do that? I thought I’d give her half an hour where I have typed out this post and I’ve text her parents and I’m waiting to hear back from them in the hope one of them might be free to collect him.

I’m guessing all the people above have been asked and refused so that makes it trickier.

I’m seething with anger and can’t believe she’s done this. It’s the sort of thing that’s in cheeky fucked legend but you don’t think anyone would do in real life!
It’s lucky we live in a small village where I know most of Claire’s friends and family because if I don’t track someone down Barry is getting dropped at the police station. I’ve wasted so much time on this already.

Changed my name not to be outing but tbh I don’t care if the situation is outing because if Claire didn’t want people to know what’s she’s done then she shouldn’t have done it.

Well if OP is to be believed a ‘sperm donor’ is exactly how her friend saw him.

Claire sounds fucking selfish. She's probably gone to her boyfriends to produce baby number 5 as from what I've seen on the original post she doesn't seem to care as long as she gets to keep producing kids that she can't or won't look after. No point paying the childminder to look after him as her selfish act indicates that she wouldn't even bother to reimburse you the cost, if she was happy to pay a childminder she wouldn't have bothered to cook up a plan to dump her kid on you free of charge to herself. Honestly I'd have probably called the police and then they would have had to call social services. Those poor kids deserve better

It is for many on MN, where everything is the man's fault!

Yes. Because it draws what’s happening with all of the children to the attention of the authorities. Which is what needs to happen. This woman is parking her kids with the nearest person, regardless of their willingness to oblige. Social Services need to be involved before there is a tragedy.

I have a lot of sympathy for him too but Jesus Christ he does know there are such things as condoms, right?

Claire is a prisoner of her own decisions. She wanted 3rd and 4th, how did she expect to brong them up, mind boggles.

Dad is a prisoner of her decisions, whilst i get he didn’t want more kids, they are here now and washing his hands off is very poor. They are people, real living beings not items to be left.

Very sad situation for all kids.

Friendship is over, i hope Claire gets the help she needs and becomes a responsible adult. Though that seems unlikely..

Why are people raking the OP over the coals for telling the story about her Friends shitty Ex?

So she feels a bit of sympathy.. she isn't the Deadbeat Dad, and she isn't the Friend who's abandoned her child.

People need to calm the fuck down and leave the OP alone... and definitely stop making up bullshit stories in their heads about her being the kids 'step mum'

jesus fucking christ.

By who? Just the mum? Or the shit house of a dad too?

No she isn't - do you realise how much this sort of discourse is patronising and infantilising to men? It is NOT difficult for men who do not want to have any more children not to have them

A woman does not need a mans permission to come off the pill or to have her coil removed.

You mean its exactly how the man behaved.

It isn't as if he's some clueless teenager. He already had two children. He could have taken steps to ensure No. 3 let alone No. 4 didn't happen.

Poor little Barry 😒 I'll take him 😒. She has deliberately had more children, found another bloke, is she making another child with him ? I'd tell little Barry that he can come back any other time you don't have an appointment (just so that he doesn't feel unwanted) 😥 ..... then take him to his aunty or grandparents. Which woman 'cannot cope' but then has time to be entertaining more men. 🤣🤣🤣🤣Please do not open the door to her again. She's awful.

No, but he at least needs to be aware of it so he can make an informed decision about having unprotected sex.

She's not a friend of any kind if she treats you like this, and you taking care of her child is helping her none, particularly if she using it to meet someone for a date.

I'd ring social services and ask to speak to the duty social worker and get them to come and collect him.

When I worked in a school, we had a parent who would regularly turn up 2-3 hours late after the school closed. Eventually the Head took the child to the above Social Services office and let the parent know they had. The parent threatened to go to the Croydon Advertiser - we were all wondering how he would explain leaving the school providing unpaid childcare (there was no After School Club at the time) on multiple occasions.

i don't disgree, i do strongly disagree with the statement i was replying to though.

Those children are being failed twice over. By their mum, and by their dad. Some people don't deserve the privilege of children.

It's a breach of trust and coercive control on the part of the woman (and really stupid).

I think men need to be educated on this or they will continue to be caught out.

If a woman asks her partner about having a 2nd, 3rd or 4th child and he doesn't want any more children, then he needs to get a vasectomy asap or he will end up with another child regardless. Once the child is born, he has to support it financially at the very least.

She regularly puts her “needs” ahead of her dc so agree. Bet she will be pg with no.5 given half a chance.

No-one has said anything about needing a man's permission to come off the pill. That's a stretch and a half.

Women do have an obligation to tell their partner that they are no longer taking contraception so that he can either choose not to have sex with her any more or to use a condom (which is not a very reliable contraception - 86%) or to get a vasectomy which I would recommend to any man who doesn't want children or doesn't want any more children.

Any woman who pretends to be taking the pill in order to trick her partner into impregnating her is committing intimate partner abuse, just as a man who deliberately punches holes in his condom in order to get his female partner pregnant without her consent is doing.

Last minute call from boyfriend to say call round this afternoon (sex)
she wanted to go that desperately and couldn’t find anyone to have son.
she thought you wouldn’t turn her down but because you did and she was desperate she did what she did.

id be texting her later and saying
If you ever put me in that position/situation again
i will not be ringing round your family
I will be taking your child/children to the S/S or police
Do not take me for granted ever again

Absofuckinglutely. Child abandonment is a crime where I am.

This child needs to be referred to social services immediately. His mother abandoned him with a friend of hers and just drove off. There needs to be an official record of this. Child abandonment like this is how kids end up dead. There's obviously more going on in the home and it needs to be officially checked out and vetted that it's actually ok for kids to be there.

Why didn't the mother go to her family? Because they said no. So instead she dumped him at a friend's. Not calling the police and getting social services involved is enabling child abandonment.

While I agree they don’t need permission, it is their responsibility to tell him that the chances of pregnancy are now significantly increased and allow him to make a decision based on that information.

Drop them with the dad. He chose to have sex - he is responsible.

Even though today has been resolved I think you fill in a SS referral. Those poor kids!

Barry’s father is being excused from his duties because he didn’t want another baby. But he still played his part in making him. If he was that adamant about his choice then he should not have taken the chance in making his partner pregnant. Yes, it wouldn’t be very kind to Barry if his father hi a stranger to him but it sounds like he is evading his responsibility completely.