to be annoyed with one mum making a card for nursery card competition?

[MiaMamma]

There was a christmas card competition at nursery and nearly all kids took part. Lots of cards full of scribbles and smily faces, 3 and 4 year olds kind of drawings, really sweet ones. But there's one mum who 'helped' her DD (she told me herself) and this one looks clearly more advanced. I'm quite annoyed now because this card won and don't think it's very fair to the other kids.

To be clear - my DD didn't make the card, so it's not me being upset about her not winning.

AIBU?

I'd be annoyed with whoever was judging the competition rather than the Mum who helped.

What was the prize?

This happens all through school, it's very annoying. But on the flipside, I remember spending hours making a poster for a comp at primary school, I was a total perfectionist and it was clearly something of a materpiece. I think it must've got lumped with the ones which parents had evidently helped with, because it was heaps better than the charmingly scribbly one that won.

gagamama - that happened to me too with an Easter Bonnet competition. I spent ages making mine and it was completely dismissed in favour of one made from a plastic policeman's helmet with a few strands of yellow tissue paper stuck to it. Grr.

And no - I wouldn't be annoyed with the mum - she probably enjoyed making the card with her child and didn't expect it to win. I would be very at the judge of the competition though.

It's a card making compo not the Nobel piece prize

Wouldnt be arsed about something that tivial myslef

I think teachers were the judges and think I'm annoyed with them too, yes. Feel like saying something to them.. It would have been lovely if all the children got little something..
Oh, the price was a big floor puzzle and big chocolate. Do you think this mum really wanted this chocolate? I would have

Let it go. You have many many years ahead of competitive mums 'helping' their DCs in hat competitions, painting Easter eggs, poster designs etc etc etc.

In the last design a hat competition at our school they had a special category for kids who very obviously didn't have any help. The overall winner with a fantastically chic birds nest creation got a certificate whilst the kid with an explosion of glitter and paint on his head got a bag of sweets.

Gagamama, Same happenned to DD1 with an Easter Egg competition. She had worked her socks off on it and on the advice of a well intentioned person, was dismissed as not possibly be her own work! DD has not taken part in any of these school "crafty" competitions since!

YANBU but try not to let it get to you.

I once came second in a cake-decorating competition at primary school and was surprised and delighted cause I didn't think my entry was nearly as good as the others. Only years later did my mum tell me it wasn't - it was just that mine and the winner's were the only ones that looked like a 7 year old had remotely had anything to do with them. One 6 year old produced a large chocolate fort complete with drawbridge apparently.

Ah, I know this will be happening in school too, so I'm not letting it get to me.
That's why I'm just annoyed, not upset

I think I read it on here but there was a mum who was absolutely mortfied after the hat/poster/cake she her DC made won a competition on the grounds that it was one of the few that looked like a 6 year old had actually done it!

My friend was like this in nursery school. She always made really over the top elaborate designs for the weekly show and tell. Ds used to be sad because his didn't look anything like his friend, I used to point out to him that it was very unlikely that his friend had any involvement in the project. The sad thing is the teachers were always impressed they saw it as being an example of an involved parent.

I think it's a bit bad of the judges to give the prize to an obviously 'mature' design, but as others have said, you just have to get used to this. There will be parents who help out in art competitions, school projects and the like and even parents (the Year 6 teacher informed me) who email her demanding that their little darling have a lead part in the school play. Comfort yourself with the thought that their children will one day have to make their own way in the world and probably find it quite hard without mummy by their side (either that or comfort yourself that they will tell mummy to off when they are 16)