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?

FWIW, I had no idea people hated school fairs so much. One poster described them as "TORTURE". Come on.

I quite like them. They're a bit of harmless fun. I particularly like the Christmas ones. There's mulled wine and my kids get to see Santa for next to nothing, when everywhere else I'm paying about £20, at a time when money is scarce. What's not to like?

ETA, I have just remembered that I know one family that not only goes to her kids school fairs, but will look for ones in other primary schools to go to because they are a nice, relatively cheap and easy few hours entertainment.

When looking for a primary school to send her DD to, she went to six different summer fairs, just to get a feel for the school.

Not judging? Yes you are!

Parents these days are under more pressure than ever before. Cut people some slack.

I agree. All that happened is that a woman didn’t know it was a school fair but did know it’s a non uniform day.

Being baffled by this is either worrying because being confused by something like this can’t be a good indicator of your own mental health, or ability. Or it is an attempt to be contemptuous about another mother.

Woman forgets school fair.

She didn't slag off one single person. Plenty of people slagged her off though

@Thechaseison71adopting that argument would
mean people calling black people the n word should just merrily continue because others “don’t have the right to tell them what to say”.

Exactly. I never took a blind bit of interest in the school fayre

Yes, we have a few families with no kids at our school that come. Also people who just live locally and have no children but want to buy a slice of cake. All welcome!

Oh and at our school, the PTA kids get to see Santa for free 😜 So come join us and that's one Christmas expense ticked off too! 😀

I reckon from about the ‘70s.

It reminds me of the way that Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em used to say harassing (like har-ASS) - “Ooh Betty, the cat’s harassing me” etc. It was a joke. He was meant to look comically silly with his mispronunciation.

But it caught on and is now everywhere.

"Once upon a colonial time during the Raj in India, off-duty British military leaders adopted a subjugated culture’s ceremonial clothing as their informal attire.
It appears that officers started dressing in robes and slippers that they slightly mockingly thought resembled garments worn by Mufti. This happened at a time when, with the objective of rendering them obsolete and powerless, the authority of Mufti in India was being extinguished"
h
ttps://thespinoff.co.nz/society/12-02-2020/a-mufti-day-is-enormous-fun-but-time-to-give-it-a-new-name
"British soldiers in South Asia casually referred to their clothes in the manner of a problematic cosplay. In fact, they were quite literally mocking the fashion of the same people they were subjugating with their guns"

No, not derogatory at all 🙄

If the use of 'mufti day' is that important to those of you who see no problem with it, crack on. Just don't bother with the faux bafflement at how it could possible be offensive

With 4 children across 3 schools as well as their various hobbies and clubs the amount of emails and newsletters I get in a week (on top of work, home admin and...well life in general) I have one occasion missed stuff.

She's probably busy?

That's very reasonable. You get to look around the school and see the displays etc.

I don't mind them if I had nothing better to do with my time but don't put myself out to go to them. The secondhand uniform stall was useful, even if I'm sure I brought some ofDDs lost stuff back lol

‘I’m not judging’ 🙄

Difference is that is universally unacceptable now whereas it's only from this thread that I've ever heard anyone whinging about the word mufti
And that's only a few people.

Hey OP, at the risk of being lynched on this thread, I was on the board of governors AND on the PTA (for 5+ years). I’m quite the school mum wanker 😂

Ironically I now home educate so somewhat of a flip 😂

It’s very weird how lots of other parents view the PTA in a negative way but not anyone on the board of governors 🤷‍♀️ My own DM views the PTA dimly; when I was at school my DM used to be quite quite dismissive of another bright student “she only gets those grades because her mum is on the PTA” 🙄

People don’t like being “hassled” by PTA stuff - and by that I mean raffle tickets sent home, requests for cakes/tombola items etc. And that’s all well and good but many schools rely on PTA income because their budget has shrunk. As a governor I’ve been privy to financial data and it’s not pretty.

Just on the off-chance you’re serious about switching, I would say that depending on your role, a governor can be a huge amount of work. The PTA is more episodic - mad just before an event but less intense in the previous months. I guess it depends how often you have big events. The other thing is that - if you’re inclined - you can phone it in as a governor. Much less so on the PTA. The PTA is much more fun - as a governor you are almost always dealing with pretty heavyweight stuff. I loved being a governor - I was the SEN governor and then for a while the acting Chair - but it’s a huge amount of responsibility. You’re basically there to keep the head and school in check.

Anyway, MN can be a weird place. Don’t take comments to heart. There are parents who roll their eyes at a school fair or event and children who have zero interest. But as you’ll have seen from your events, there are also plenty of children - and parents - who absolutely love it. Sounds like your event on Friday night was fab and earned loads of money for the school - and that’s what matters!

Just to make you feel better, our PTA had a longstanding name of “Friends of Xxx School”. As PTA members we had to wear a green jumper with the word “FRIEND” emblazoned in big black letters. Like some kind of Inbetweeners superfan. Because apparently just being on the PTA wasn’t punishment enough 😂😂🫣

One Christmas we had real live reindeer come to the school as an adjunct to Santa’s grotto, a snow cannon, and Spider-Man wandering around. It was packed! I loved doing it 😊

Absolutely. I abhor the faux innocence, I’ve much more respect for someone if they just own it, you want to be judgey and mean about another woman, then crack on, but at least don’t pretend you’re just a confused little woman. Stand up and be counted, don’t hide from your own behaviour.

i didn’t really engage with our pta at school, don’t get me wrong, they were lovely to me, the lead one, always trying to make conversation, invite me for coffee etc but I was genuinely busy much of the time, although always friendly in return albeit slightly aloof, I am the archetypical career woman, and what I do isn’t a secret, plus supremely confident, but I saw women getting excluded, less confident women, catty comments, and when I did chat to them or go for coffee, which I did do a couple of times, they felt like what they were doing made them really important. Like I was the cool kid who should join their clique. Whenever I held a party for my daughter they’d all front up cooing about the house. I felt uncomfortable.

I think everyone it’s important, and honestly can’t be arsed with any pettiness or shallowness . Tombolas, second hand uniform sales, teacher gifts and hoodies wasn’t in my roadhouse to be overly interested in at the best of times. I will attend for my daughter , pay what I need to, enjoy it whilst there, and give it no further thought,

we moved overseas for my career and I saw the Same thing again, some of the trailing spouses, all on the pta, raising money for charity and filling their days and the same behaviour and as much as I can like them as individuals, collectively it can leave something to be desired. And when ever I see that sort of behaviour again, like this thread, it just takes me back and makes me think cmon now. Aren’t we better than this.

@Thechaseison71argument doesn’t stack up: use of the N word will at one time in the past had a cadre of folk bleating “there’s nothing offensive about it” - just as Mufti does today.

I can’t quite believe there are posters defending it, to be honest - even after having learned its negative connotations from this thread! Both arrogant and ignorant.

The ‘negative’ connotations are got up by the professionally offended. The term was never one of abuse.

TBH I don’t care if it falls away. I just don’t believe there’s anything unpleasant about the word.

Ah but surely that’s only a benefit for a couple of years at most until the children realise he’s not real?

Many families bring younger brothers and sisters along as well, or have several children in the school,all of different ages and stages of believing.
My own family is set up so that I've had a child believing in Santa for approximately 10 consecutive years.

The "friend" hoodies do sound horrendous - maybe I'll pitch that at the next meeting, see how that goes down 😅

PTA is really fun, but it's constant. We have a Christmas Fayre in late November/early December so planning for that starts as soon as the new year starts in September. Then planning for the spring fayre starts in January, and it's usually the last Friday before the early may bank holiday, then straight after that, we plan the summer fayre, which happens in the last week of term, in July, along with a sports day for each year group, that we sell drinks and ice creams at, and year 6 leavers events.
Plus other events like leaving discos, sponsored stuff and school trips.
I am told by a friend on the BOG that it's basically just attending the odd meeting and keeping the school in check.
At ours, you're not allowed to be on both.

In our lifetime? I'm mid 50s and it's never been accepted.

Some people are looking to be offended on here

That’s a long time! I guess it depends how old they were when they realised!

I know exactly what you mean about people being totally unaware of things going on. Yesterday I was chatting with a friend about our earliest childhood memories and I said that one of my earliest memories was of the moon landing in 1969, when I was 5. She looked at me blankly and said 'The what?'. She honestly didn't know what I was talking about. She defended herself saying that she was born in 1976 so of course she wouldn't remember it. I said my DGD was born in 2006 and knew all about the moon landing! I was totally perplexed that someone of nearly 50 had no idea about it!

YABU to use the word ‘mufti’. It’s not the 1950s