AIBU To resent being asked to get/ make several costumes each year for my two DC at school?

[reeva]

They always involve lots of running around, short notice and spending money.

If I don't then my DC is the odd-one-out

YANBU...World book day is the worst..esp if you are as crap as me on the sewing machine and ingle mum with a job ... argh!!!

I feel your pain!!

YANBU but I suppose it's just one of those things, maybe you could speak to their teachers and ask for a bit more notice of costume days?

YANBU. My kids always wait until 9pm the night before... "oh by the way mum, I need to go to schol tomorrow dressed as an elephant/Charles Dickens/ the back-end of a horse/the Queen"... drives me crazy!

At my school we very rarely ask parents to sort out costumes, the one exception has been world book day. Even then me and my team did lots of work helping the children make costumes in school. For plays, assemblies etc we make do with what we have in school. I wonder though if it's because the school is in a deprived area and the school has accepted that a lot of parents wont / can't sort costumes out.

YANBU though. If children are asked to sort out costumes there should at least be plenty of advance notice and it should really be for one off occasions.

Sassyfrassy:
Why would it make sense to load costs and work on parents in a deprived area?

It is in Surrey so not a deprived area.

I think DS's teacher (young, unmarried and childless) just thinks that the mothers have nothing better to do whilst she is caring for our chidlren. Maybe she thinks we just sort of evaporate at 9am only to reappear at 3!

I think Sassyfrassy was saying HER school was in a deprived area

DS is still in reception so we don't have to take part in most of the dressing up days yet. The rest of the school have one tomorrow (WW2 I think) and that'll be the 5th since September, not including WBD

I'm NOT looking forward to him being in the main school!!

YADNBU! I haven't even got kids but have had a few experience with cotumes! The most annoying was when my 8yo charge last year needed an outfit for 'healthy food week'. I spent all of my (very little) free time making a cape, hat and other little bits for her pink cherry outfit and the cape, which took the longest and looked fantastic (IMHO! ) but was taken off of her the minute she got to school and put into a cupboard!

I also get 'asked' to make costumes for relatives kids, usually with 24 hours notice and a vague idea of what I'm actually making

DD's school PTA has a scheme where the costumes are stored and loaned when necessary. It does involve a 5 franc loan fee (ploughed back in), and the use of a (very) large garage.

My DD has that problem with her DD's always needing an outfit for this or that. She is very lucky as her DH has very good imagination and can seem to think of something he has just bought himself a new sewing machine. He looks in charity shops to see if there is anythng he can use and he has got some lovely things that he could cut up or scale down. He is often on the phone to me how do I sew this or that. DD and her DH both work full time so they have very little spare time but do make an effort for their girls.

Maybe I am odd but I always really enjoyed doing this. I work full-time too but it was the sort of thing I thought was fun to do in the evenings. Not trying to claim to be any kind of super-Mum here, just saying that kind of thing was right up my street.

I don't recall ever spending much, if any, money. DDs school did recycle some costumes too. I remember once turning an old tablecloth in to a robe when she was one of the 5000 who got fed (well there was only 5 of them really but still) Several months later it showed up on someone else at another assembly and DD said it had been put in the box of "Poor people" costumes. It wasn't that bad!

5Foot5 you don't fancy doing it for my children do you? i need an egyptian pharoah for Friday. No pressure...!

I pretty much always cheat and buy a costume or at least the stuff to assemble a costume. I have no sewing ability and not likely to start now.

The infant school iw ork at has 2-4 dress up days a year and it is entirely voluntary. Approx 1/3 to 1/2 of children dress up on each day, rest don't.

I don't mind too much, but thought it was a bit of a bad idea at Christmas, when the whole class had to be shepherds, for the teacher to casually send a note out (and tell the kids) that asda had a good costume, if we wouldn't all mind running out and getting one- bearing in mind that there are 25 in the class, and the local asda had three costumes in their size (I was quick off the mark!) I knew dd wouldn't be happy if she was without the "approved" costume, but I imagine there were lots of frantic mummies touring the asdas!

To add insult to injury, they then sent out a wee note to see if we would give them to the school afterwards!

Joolyjoolyjoo: I think that teacher was a bit of a drip TBH. Doesn't everyone know the standard for a shepherd is a dressing gown and a stripy tea towel?

IIRC a few years ago there was a news item that Sainsbury's had a small surge in tea towel sales around Christmas time because they were selling a particular stripy design that was just perfect for this purpose.