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Am I simply a crap mother? views please on school run fiasco

78 replies

kittywits · 06/11/2006 17:31

Ok, my present situation, 5 kids age 8 to 10 months and am 5 months preg.
Relationship with dp not good to say tyhe least, it's a strictly parenting, trying to make things work for the kids but no love or affection involved.
I've had a couple of bereavments this year as well. So all in all I feel tired, emotionally and physically. This afternoon at school run time I not only had all of my 5 with me but was bringing home two friends.
There is a little walk from the school to a pub carpark that everyone uses, it's a village school so every one know every one.

Anyway when I get to the car I'm loading kids in and I hear a mother called my name. She is a particularly precious mother of an only child who can do no wrong, you get the picture. She asks me if I have lost a child and I say not that I know. She then says that I have and she is at school. So I am amazed because I think that I have counted them all in and run off to see dd2 (3) being lead by the hand to the crossing.

I get her, she's fine btw but I feel mortified and so embarassed. I know this woman will be gossiping about me saying I can't cope etc. I have left dd2 once before but went back to get her and she hadn't even realised I was gone.
It was just the way this woman looked at me and the faces she pulled that didn't hide her disdain.
So now I feel shit. I shouldn't but I do.
Anyway, thank for bearing with this rambling post.
Am I really losing it or what, does anyone ele have similar experiences or is it simply me being a shit ,careless and incompetent mother?

OP posts:
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cath29 · 06/11/2006 22:49

why didn't she just take your dd by the hand and bring her over to you? what was her problem?

Booboobedoo · 06/11/2006 22:55

Kitty - you're hugely impressive for coping with as much as you do. I've thought that since we both joined the March thread.

And herding jelly - that's it. Taking kids on school trips is the closest I've come, and they just try and throw themselves in front of traffic.

edam · 06/11/2006 22:56

If this is the first time you've ever 'lost' one, then I salute you! As a mother of one, I'm seriously impressed that you manage to shepherd five plus two friends around while heavily pregnant. My parents managed to lose me when I was three, even though they only had two to look after (I got all the way to my aunt's house, two miles away down a country lane with no pavement, before they found me. See, you are positively obsessively/compulsive by comparison.)

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Rosybumpily · 06/11/2006 23:05

Kittywits the snotty mum HAS to feel inadequate herself or she wouldn't need to do the superior thing. If she was secure in herself she would have been kind to you. She had nothing to give which is sad.

My dh and I are disastrous at the hugging thing. We give all our affection to the kids and not each other. Its so easy to neglect the relationship with babys about. My dh and I were just rediscovering each other and of course managed to create another one!

kittywits · 07/11/2006 08:03

Thanks to all you lovely ladies and your kind words of support, I am able to do the school run this morning with my head held high

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HumphreyComfreyCushion · 07/11/2006 09:02

Go for it, kitty!

arfishymeau · 07/11/2006 09:37

As a mum of one I have no idea how you do it and if I had been that mum I would have just gibbered 'there are 7 of them!!' and fainted clean away.

You cannot possibly be a crap mum. You get 5 children washed, dressed and out of the house each day. I would explode with stress if I had to do that just once.

PetitFilou1 · 07/11/2006 11:58

No you aren't a crap mother, you are a saint as far as I am concerned, 5 plus being pregnant! I left ds on Brum in Mothercare the other day and went out of the shop with dd in her buggy. Was only for about 20 seconds before I realised but I still did it and I only have 2. Couldn't quite believe that I did that but I did .........

SpaceCadet · 07/11/2006 12:19

you sound like a fantastic mum!
ive got 4 and thats hard work enough, blimey you have 5 children, plus another on the way!
i walked ds2 into school the other day and when i got into the cloakroom, i realised that dd2 was missing, shed wandered away as i walked into school, my heart missed a beat and i frantically started calling her, it was obvious to everyone that i couldnt find dd, who is only 2, but no one helped to look for her, 5 mins later, i found her round the front of the school, as wehad walked round to ds's class, shed become seprated and had tried to find me bless, i gave nher a bhuge cuddle, but noticed lots of disaproving looks
i just ignored them..i bet there are very few people who can say they didnt inadvertently become seperated from their chi,kld, if only for a few seconds.
you did nothing wrong.
ignore the smug woman..you deserve a medal..i hope you get a break from time to time.

SpaceCadet · 07/11/2006 12:22

oh and thats the second time ive become seperated from dd2
when i went to a meet up at chester zoo in the summer, we were all stood near a statue of a komodo dragon, dd2 was happily playing on it.
then we all walked over the bridge to another part of the zoo, i looked doiwn at the buggy..and it was empty!, cue absoloute hysterics from me...ds1 ran back to where wed been..and dd2 was still sat happily on the dragon..hadnt even noticed we were gone!

shimmy21 · 07/11/2006 12:30

Kittywits - my friend (a head teacher no less) left home with only 2 of his 3 children on a school run. They only realised as they started to drive off and saw their ds2 waving frantically from a window of the locked house!

Anyone can do it.

mumblechum · 07/11/2006 12:32

Are you sure this other woman deserves all this fury? She was just letting you know one of the kids had gone astray, probably thought she was doing you a favour.

kittywits · 07/11/2006 13:38

She probably did think that, but you really needed to be there to appreciate the look she gave me, not nice.

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Mummymonster · 07/11/2006 14:41

DS (3 and 1/4) will not hold my hand in public and this morning he hurtles off along the back of the back to back houses after the postie (he has a peculiar affection for him, think it's the rubber bands he provides)I'm using a crutch atm and DS is wick...anyway, whoosh, he's vanished and he must be walking along the very busy road

Arrrrggghh, try not to panic

Turn round and he'd asked an adult with kids to help him find his mummy!

She was really sweet about it, I felt such a hopeless case.

It happens to as all really

suedonim · 07/11/2006 14:44

I should think most mums have done this at one time or another. A friend of mine, also with five children, went to visit a friend in hospital (not sure about the wisdom of taking five dc's to see an ill person, mind you!).

When she got home the hospital called to say she'd left her handbag there. So she retrieved the handbag, got home, the phone went and it was the hospital again. 'Mrs L, you've left your baby in Ward 12.'

One day she took the oldest four to school and playgroup, then later on decided to go shopping. Her cleaner found the baby, fast asleep, on a beanbag in the diningroom, where mum had put the baby while she was getting ready to go out and then forgotten him!

kittywits · 07/11/2006 14:53

Keep them coming, suddenly I feel quite normal

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nulnulcat · 07/11/2006 15:50

my mum went home with 4 of us leaving my youngest brother asleep in pram outside a shop (apparently you left babies everywhere in the 70s) she got home and only realised had 1 child missing when my dad got home and asked where the baby was!

also had a friend who left her baby on a train, had left it by the door asleep in pram sat down then got off a different door at her stop! train company were very good in reuniting mother and child.

SweetyDarling · 07/11/2006 16:11

My MIL drove my husband (when he was 5)to school and dropped him off at the front gate and left. He walked up into the school to find it totally deserted (Bank Holiday!!).
Poor little sod just sat and waited for hours until a school gardener found him and drove him home.
MIL still feels terrible about it so DH brings it up regularly!!

Bramshott · 07/11/2006 16:28

Mr friend tells a great story about someone who went out with 7 kids and came back with 8, and then had to interrogate the extra one about who it was and where it came from!

tallulah · 07/11/2006 18:54

DH got all the way home from school one day & parked before realising he only had 3. "where's DS1?" "at school" they all said- hadn't occured to them to mention it. He also managed to drive into DS2's school, through the car park and out the other end without stopping to let him out

I was at a friend's one morning and it was only when she said "where's DS1 today" that I remembered I should have picked him up from playgroup 20 minutes before...

DS2 also got left on the platform after the rest of us had got onto a train when he was 2 years old. (DH was supposed to be at the back counting). Luckily I counted heads before the train pulled away.

It's a consequence of having lots of little children. (We have 4 with 5.5 years between eldest and youngest). Don't beat yourself up

kittywits · 07/11/2006 19:21

Thanks tallulah!

That's a great story Bramshott

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nappyaddict · 14/01/2007 22:53

don't feel bad. i took ds to see santa. after the man had taken his photo and said to me if you go to the front desk they'll have it ready for you. i walked to the front desk leaving ds on santa's knee

singsalot · 14/01/2007 23:12

oh kitty, I feel your pain, at least ikwym about feeling awful, ten days ago, at home sick with flu, letting my dd and ds (2.9) run around the house, suddenly knock at the door, my neighbour with ds in arms, her dd had spotted him running away up the street (thank goodness it is a quiet cul-de-sac)

I cannot forgive myself and my ds could easily have been killed if he had made it to the very busy road. btw ds managed to unlock the door, because the key was in the lock feel like endlessly crap mum, only two children to look after and in the safety of my own home

I could recount some friends' experiences with their escape artists.

I keep just being very grateful my ds was spotted, very happy he is still here and that no major damage was done, keep that in mind, please I know it is very easy to beat yourself up about these things, but you are a good person, who in spite of having so much to do you still help other people with their kids and your dd is FINE ?

Anoah · 15/01/2007 08:43

Don't worry about it Kitty. We all lose one of our kid at least once. My 2 year old daughter wandered out of the house because I wasn't paying enough attention. I couldn't find her anywhere. Luckily an elderly lady who knows DH found her at the park and brought her back. I had already phoned 999 at this point as she was missing for 30 minutes. I was hysterical because I thought she might have headed towards a busy road.

Every summer in the USA you can read news stories of parents who forget to drop their kids off a nursery and go to work with baby still strapped in the carseat. So baby gets left in the car for 8-10 hours.

Its extremely hot in the summer and baby usually cooks in the car long before mum or dad realize what has happened. You would be surpised at how often that happens over there. It happens every freaking summer.

bigbird2003 · 17/01/2007 00:15

I've got four and used to forget one on a regular basis.....did only the other night. All jumped out of the car. My car locks as you walk away from it with the key. Got to front door and looked at care to see youngest banging on the window! Locked in lol

When I had my first, he was about 8 weeks...I got him all ready to go out, big coat, sat him in car seat. Got my stuff together, got in car and was about to drive off when I had htat nagging feeling I'd forgotton something.....yep he was all snug in the house

My mum left my sister outside a shop one day in the pram and walked home. It was only when she got home and someone said 'wheres sister' that she realised

So don't beat yourself up over it.....just blame all those braincells that pregnancy is eating up x