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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to dislike it when I call a friend and a child answers the phone?

242 replies

hambler · 15/07/2009 00:04

Tonight called a friend whose very bossy 10 yo dd answered with "Hello who am I speaking to?"

She has been doing this since she was about 5 or 6.

I HATE it when kids answer the phone. It's not like the call will be for them.

It never crossed my kids' minds to pick up the phone when they were young and I would never have suggested/encouraged it.
AM I alone?
BU?

OP posts:
cat64 · 16/07/2009 00:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

puffling · 16/07/2009 00:17

Agree with OP. I hate it. It's disrespectful and a pita.

cat64 · 16/07/2009 00:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Greensleeves · 16/07/2009 00:23

Disrespectful?!?! They live here!

I'm amazed by the things some people seem to be able to get huffy about

MrsSpringsteen · 16/07/2009 00:28

they can have a great phone manner...

just leave their mum to answer when i ring her

not heard of caller display - excellent for their numeracy skills

life's too short to make smalltalk with six year olds

DracoDormiensNunquamTitilandus · 16/07/2009 07:26

Disrepsctful?? How on earth is it disrespectful for a family member to answer the phone in their own home??

My children aren't 2nd class citizens.

DracoDormiensNunquamTitilandus · 16/07/2009 07:29

I suggest that if you don't want to run the risk of making small talk with a child you
a) don't have any
b) don't phone someone who has.
and, in my case,
c) phone my mobile instead.

foofi · 16/07/2009 07:30

Op says 'It's not like the call will be for them.' How ridiculous! It's much more likely to be a call for them in this house.

Even if it wasn't for them, I'd say they're perfectly capable of answering, especially if they're checking who they're speaking to before divulging any information.

YABU and a bit stupid.

piscesmoon · 16/07/2009 07:47

I am amazed on lots of fronts! Disrespectful?! How can it be disrespectful to answer the phone in your own home? Very probably, if like me, the mother has been up to her elbows in water etc and yelled 'will someone get the phone?'
Secondly it is a life skill they need, I would rather think that a 2 yr old would have a go at phoning the emergency services than let you die on the floor because she hasn't been allowed/told/shown how to use the phone.
Thirdly it is very good for the DC to be able to talk to different people and have an appropriate telephone manner.
Lastly, I presumed that people who had children liked children! I find it very odd that you only like your own. I can't see a problem with talking to a DC on the phone-you only have to ask an open ended question such as 'what have you been doing today'. If they just have silence or you don't want to talk to them you only have to say 'I'm in a real hurry-can you rush and get Mummy please'.
Children are capable of a lot more than people give them credit for-if they are allowed to show it.

saintlydamemrsturnip · 16/07/2009 08:07

ha ha at disrespectful. Is this mumsnet parallel universe again?

KIMItheThreadSlayer · 16/07/2009 08:10

YABU her home her phone

cluckyagain · 16/07/2009 08:17

No problem as long as they don't have the following conversation (which my friend's ds does!)

hello?
Oh Hi 'bob', is you mum there please

Yes - who is this

It;s clucky

Oh clucky, can I come to your house soon, it's been ages since I've seen your ds

Well perhaps bob, but please can I talk to your mum now.

Now when would be a good time to come around.......then lauches into long speech about what he's doing for the next 3 weeks and no matter what I say will not put his mother on the phone until he's finished and I've been nagged/pressured for 10 minutes. he recognises my voice so no chance of a bluff either.

Clucky considers putting down the phone and never ringing again!

I don;t have the gumption to tell my friend how annoying it is, especially as she thinks it's cute.....he's 9, it left cute behind about 5 years ago. Sorry.

saintlydamemrsturnip · 16/07/2009 08:26

ha ha at disrespectful. Is this mumsnet parallel universe again?

saintlydamemrsturnip · 16/07/2009 08:28

Oh I already said that.

moffat · 16/07/2009 08:29

To the OP, YANBU, I find it such a drag having to go through this when the children don't hand over the phone when asked. The worst is when I call friends and they ask if I can speak to their dcs - so annoying.

WynkenBlynkenandNod · 16/07/2009 08:31

I don't mind as long as they are trained properly to do it and do go and get their parents instead of wondering off and leaving the phone which means you can't ring back for ages as it is engaged.

And I don't mind them ringing here if they've been taught to do that properly as well. But a phone call at 7.15am as I had recently which I answered panicking that my Mum had fallen, to be met with a little voice saying "it's me, what do I wear to school tomorrow" was pretty rubbish. I did refrain from asking who the hell was me and how on earth (polite version of what I was thinking) should I know what she should wear from school but was quite hard pushed at that time in the morning

blinder · 16/07/2009 09:39

Cat61 my friends are odd you say? Fair enough (some of them are a bit strange in a certain light I s'pose) but not entirely sure why you think so . And you also think my post is odd. Which one you silly billy - I'm not the OP, I'm merely agreeing with her, like lots of others on this thread.

You're odder .

By the way, the 'huffy' posts seem to be mostly from the mothers who force their children to run around getting and screening the phone calls. Sorry, some of us love kids but we generally don't phone you specifically to undertake your child-socialising duties.

And it's piffle to suggest that a child must routinely answer his parents' phone to develop manners and the ability to converse. My DS is always getting complimentary comments about his easy polite manner too. I just don't use him as a personal secretary.
Pick the bones out of that.

Nancy66 · 16/07/2009 09:49

I don't like it either - it's annoying.

Even worse when parents get their kids to record some cutesty greeting as the outgoing message on their answerphone.

MrsSpringsteen · 16/07/2009 10:16

clucky - i am with you

sameagain · 16/07/2009 10:21

If I'm not expecting a call I'll ask DS to answer - the telesales brigade decide it's not worth their time pretty quickly and if it's for me he will swiftly and politely pass it to me .

nappyaddict · 16/07/2009 10:27

The parents probably didn't make their kids do it. The kids probably wanted to do it. I remember doing all of our answerphone messages from about 8 years old - but I was never asked to, I just wanted to.

nursenatty · 16/07/2009 10:37

Dont see what the problem is. Surely its a good thing for kids to be familiar with phone, in an emergency for example?

puffling · 16/07/2009 10:42

Course it's disrespectful. It shows a lack of consideration to put a small child on the phone before even answering yourself. Worse when they're on speaker phone. You feel like your on show and the child never gets off the phone. Having said this, I don't mind if the child asks to be put onto me or dd and will always have a chat then.

crokky · 16/07/2009 10:48

My 3yo and my 1yo both answer the phone! I hear it ringing, but often one of them is right by it so they pick it up and say hello. I didn't teach them to do it, they saw me doing it and copied me. They enjoy it! Anyway, I am always there about 5 seconds after them so there is no problem - I can see who it is on the display anyway before I take the phone off them and I can pick the other phone up anyway if it is a grandparent or whatever so they can chat as well. I don't see the problem.

gorionine · 16/07/2009 10:56

I do not mind when DCs answer the phone, they cannot exactly guess the it is you calling, it could be another member of the family calling and very happy to talk to them!

But, I do HATE so called friends who are to busy to give me a call and ask their DCs to call me to leave a message from their parents! Had that several times in the last few months and as you can imagine, the message is hardly ever complete and a lot of missunderstandings/ arguments follows!