AIBU to be baffled a mum had no idea the school fayre was happening?

[xAwaywiththefairiesx]

Today my daughter's primary school had a spring fayre after school on the school field. Ice cream van, face-painting, various stalls with games, the usual. All arranged by the PTA to raise money for the school.
There was a mufti day today, and the children were asked to bring a donation to the school as an exchange for the mufti, something like cakes to sell or a teddy for the tombola or a bottle of wine as a prize or something.
One mum wanders onto the field after school, with both of her kids in mufti, looking around bewildered saying "What's this? Is this a new thing they're doing? Will it be every week?"

And this is so weird to me because the spring fayre has been organised for months. We have lots of emails asking for donations, several more asking for volunteers, we've had at least three leaflets home about it, and she obviously got the memo about mufti, the whole point in which was for the school fayre!

My phone own child has been banging on about it for three weeks.

How can she get so unaware? I'm not judging, honestly, I'm just baffled how it got past her.

Is it just me? Could you miss something like this after all that communication?

Probs because most of us are under 40

Just because "we've always said" something doesn't make it any less shocking that it is still used 🤷‍♀️

Is it a specific regional thing? I've only ever known it as "non uniform day" . And I grew up in the north and my children are growing up in the SE

Mufti Day is what I say inside my head whenever DSs have a 'non-uniform day' which to my mind sounds clumsy anyway. I don't think any of their schools have ever called it Mufti (we're in the south) but I know what it is and that's what I call it! My mum was a teacher and still says mufti, and my childhood schools all said mufti. None of them were private or in any way 'posh' schools - it was just a universally recognised term (in the SE, at any rate).

I think those who are seeking to claim that it's a colonialist term and now viewed as derogatory need to really ask themselves if they've ever heard anyone who's Muslim complain about it. As far as I know it wasn't a derogatory word or used as an insult: to say it's 'colonialist' may be fair, in that it probably came into general circulation in English because of contact with Muslim populations abroad in British colonies/protectorates, but why are we trying to pretend that never happened? Given that it's not a rude word or was intended in a derogatory way, can we not, for godsake, allow it to remain in (fairly) common usage as a fossil from previous times, an example that our language is, like any other language, a living one that adapts and takes on new words depending on geopolitics?? It's not offensive, it's interesting. FFS

So did I, most my clothes were hand me downs or second hand. The odd time I got something new I didn't really get much say in it. I used to borrow something of my older sisters clothes for mufti day. But then she moved out so I couldn't. I jigged school in the 5th year because I had nothing decent to wear.

I never read schools comms, had no time and knew if there was something important my DS would say it. He would usually tell me when he didn’t need to wear uniform. If there were some donations anticipated I probably missed them too - he is over 20 now and I actually still don’t know if we had some kind of pta in our school or not. I probably was judged too but to be honest I have no regrets about this - he was pretty happy and when he needed me to do something he always told me.

The thread has gone meandering off in all directions as is the norm on Mumsnet. But, getting back to your original post, I honestly think it’s pretty mean to start a whole thread about a woman who got a bit mixed up about a school event. You sound judgemental, no matter what you claim. You have no idea what is going on in her life. Stress, domestic abuse, sick relative, a neurological issue. Leave her alone and don’t start a thread bitching about her for not being perfect. I know I get the wrong end of the stick all the time because I miss vital pieces of information. It’s pretty horrible to think that people might think I’m a ditzy idiot, when actually it’s to do with how I process (or don’t process) information. My eldest has ASD and ADHD (hmmm …) and is extremely bright, but if I had a £1 for every time he only gets half the story, I’d be very wealthy indeed. Reserve your judgement for people whose behaviour is impacting you in some way, rather than for someone whose engagement with the world doesn’t measure up to your standards.

What you need to understand is that many parents just do not give a shit about school events.

They are pure fucking TORTURE and primaries are the absolute worst for it!

The fucking fetes and fairs and discos and charity nights,,,, it could all fuck right off for me.

Of course, I went along and played nice and donated but did I hang off every reminder email? Did I fuck!

Every other Mum I knew (apart from the 'involved' ones) felt exactly the same.

For a couple of years one of our friends got dragged into the organisey clique and she was all 'come oooon, it'll be fuuun' and we were all like 'No, it'll be a chore' and, as ever, it was.

We repeatedly requested the school charity group send out a letter at the start of every year with a 'DROP ME OUT' option with a set fee to be left the fuck alone.

I would've thrown serious money at them, honestly.

Excuse all the fucks but maaaaan I HATED this shit! SO glad to be in the World of secondary. Literally NO fetes!!! Whoooooop!!!!

Read page 1. Immediately went to last page (8 at time of posting) to see if people were still wrestling with the legitimacy of using the word ‘Mufti’ in 21st Century Britain 😂 My Dad used this word but he’d have been 100 this year if he was alive!

Dh would definitely not realise. He manages to be completely oblivious of that kind of thing.

We always called it mufti day at school but my dc call it non uniform day.

Yes my children’s primary and secondary schools all call it a mufti day same as when I was at school. Nothing unusual here.

Mufti is my .... Your learn something new every day

Why do you care? 🤔

Probably what the school calls it, so a very unfayre comment.

That would have been satisfying.

I think you all missed the bit where she said "will this happen every week? What a fucking idiot. Also people don't read emails.

Probably kids told her about mufti day but not the rest of it. (I’m in New Zealand and yes known as mufti day here! Not fayre though - definitely always fair!)

But yes it does sound like there was a lot of communication, so difficult to miss. I can understand thinking “oh I’d forgotten it was today!” but seems odd to know about it at all.

FFS mufti is of military etymology referring soldiers or officials wearing civilian clothes instead of their uniforms, it's not an offensive term. I've never known a school not to use this term for non-uniform days.

Urgh this would annoy me too op! A fair is a lot of work and effort. Essential for fund raising and fun for kids and a community event. Hardly a new thing I’m 50 and we had school fairs. She sounds away with the fairies.

Also how have people not heard of mufti days? Perfectly normal term.

She has other things going on... Probably alot more important that are on her mind.

I think it might be.

I’m 50 and we never used the phrase mufti day. It wasn’t until we had a casual dress day at work that a new colleague who’d moved from another part of the country (Essex) referred to it as mufti day. I can remember that we were all nonplussed - none of us had heard of the term. It was the fairly early days of the internet too - I’d guess mid-late 90s - so we weren’t as exposed to regional differences as much as we are today.

I’m now in Gloucestershire and none of my DC’s schools have called it mufti day here either.

I know it’s seemingly commonplace in some areas but it’s really not a term that’s used universally.

Mufti...
Day

Ok

Fayre and mufti, forget it, my god are we in medieval times.

I'm in my 60s and grew up in NZ. We used the term mufti when I was at school. My parents who were Irish never seemed to have any difficulty with the term. They did know what it meant though they were probably more widely traveled than some.

Not an accronym. It's been used since forever, army slang, Google informs me. It was always mufti when I was young in the 80s in SE England, had no idea it wasn't universal until reading this thread.