Do you take "collective responsibility" for actions concerning your children?

[UnquietDad]

OK, this is going to be a bit vague, for which I'm sorry, but...

Do you, where there are two parents, buy into a collective responsibility idea?

i.e. if something is done by Parent A which Parent B doesn't approve of and Parent B would have done in a TOTALLY different way - do you back each other to the hilt in public and only have it out in private?

Or do you say to friends, family, teachers etc. "actually that was B's decision, I didn't want to do that but (s)he wouldn't listen?" Or is that unasseptable (sic) and totally disloyal?

Not lashing out as such, but the need not to feel powerless. Because I did, and had there been even 10% compromise (although hard to see how) I might not have done.

UQD - I don't agree with your wife using your children as political pawns but I sympathise with her if she is hopping mad about your public lack of support (going to the head). I imagine the Headteacher will think you're a sap, regardless of her political feelings with regard to the industrial dispute.

Men need to read more Jane Austen.

Bet the poor Head can't believe his/her misfortune being dragged into this ...!

But that aside - what are you supposed to do if your partner flagrantly overrides your view on something? How can UQD's wife possibly expect him to support her position to the Head when she refused to respect his views in the first place?

I'm not saying that you run off to the Head telling tales but you can't expect unfailing support from your partner in public if you completely disregard his views at home, right?

oh dear bs gonna get his arse kicked for this

It does raise a larger question, as stillstanding says. What are you supposed to do?

There must be comparable situations people have been in - which was why I was all general and vague at the beginning.

fallenmadonna - yes, we are, but not very well. I'm sensing that something has happened around this, that it is symptomatic of something larger and it won't just get moved on from.

She is insistent on the need for public unity, even though she paradoxically let several people know I wasn't happy with the decision and didn't mind my mentioning this to other parents. (I just seems to be telling the head that is the problem.)

She's reminding me of social occasions which I didn't attend (because I couldn't be arsed, didn't like the people, had something else to do etc.) and at which she had to "support" me by making excuses. Comparable to actively going against someone's express wishes? I don't think so.

Gosh you sound a bit cross. I think keeping the kids off school was a bit daft, and I would have been cross about it, but there is something funny about it. Misguided principles perhaps from DW but then a quick 'it wasn't me guv' from you.

Lets face it you have to move on from it, so why not laugh about it?

That's a good point sobernow. We do have an unwritten (but occasionally spoken) rule that I have the final say when it comes to anything at all child related. For the same reasons as you. I do the bulk of the care, deal with 99% of the stuff that comes up, take on all the extras. Therefore the final decision is mine.

Swedes, oh I know that re the permission. Our tree surgeon did get permission before he cut the trees down.

What I mean is that I am surprised the council made such a song and dance about your leylandii and forced you replant other trees.

Leylandii are a not a real tree, they're like weed, a pest, destroying all grass underneath etc etc

That would be true of our family too - I would ultimately be where the buck stops on child-related issues.

But in the case of this particular situation - ie school attendance - I would have thought that the default position is that the DCs go to school unless you can agree otherwise.

I think your dw is angry UQD because she was acting, for her, on a matter of principle (however misguided you or I might feel it was)

But so was UQD acting on a matter of principle, no? DCs should go to school ...

I was thinking about this some more ... and, re the letter threatening attendance officer involvement, doesn't that exactly play into B's hands?

So that the attendance officer can tell A off, presumably making the point stick in the way B didn't manage to, thereby being B's champion, as far as the principle at issue here goes?

UNLESS, of course, A would choose not to be present at the meeting/not to defend own position, leaving B to take the rap ... in which case there is a great big systemic issue to address.

Agree entirely, I wouldn't keep my dc's off school.

However, that isn't what UQD did wrong, what he did wrong was to undermine her to the head.

Message withdrawn

We've all been thinking about this some more. When you are married you are allowed to disagree on all sorts of things BUT even though you disagree you must always remain on the same team. Marriage is a team.

When your spouse (or partner) isn't loyal it hurts like hell.

B could have absolutely insisted the children went to school because in so doing he would be merely disagreeing with A on that issue but would not have upset the team. As it happened she absolutely insisted the children didn't go to school and he was perfectly justified and entitled to wholly disagree with her irrational stance. He only upset the team by going to the Head. Perhaps a better way of handling it would have been him saying he absolutely and wholeheatedly disagreed with her stance and she could alone explain to the staff at school the reasons for the decision and to not look to him for support of the consequences of her decision.

I hope you are OK UQD.

oops - I totally supported the right to strike but involving our children went into a decidedly grey area. If their school had been closed because of strike action, I wouldn't have been happy but would have accepted that they'd be off.

But the school - however misguided the "scabbing" teachers may or may not have been - was open, therefore they should have gone in. This was an absolute, undebatable issue as far as I was concerned - the "default position".

Once you establish that there are circumstances in which you can justify unauthorised absence, it's the thin end of the wedge. (And our school has very, very low unauthorised absence, so we have just bumped it up hugely.)

It also may affect the head's discretion when it comes to giving us any absence we request in the future.

Swedes - thankyou.

I wasn't in a position to insist - I was away from home that day. If I had been at home, God knows what would have happened - a screaming match while I pulled the children into their uniform and dragged them up the road, while she simultaneously undressed them and dragged them back?!

I actually did what you suggest above. But I still felt so angry that it hadn't actually changed anything, which was why I overstepped the mark with the Head. (I know that didn't change anything either, but it made me feel better.)

Perhaps best not to call her Milly Tant for a few days yet.

I think whoever was right or wrong (and I think dw was wrong) you still have to get over it. Otherwise it will blow up into something ridiculously big.

She made a decision you didn't agree with. She knows that. Let it lie.

I agree with all your reasons as to why they should have gone to school. I would have been livid if DH had done the same.

But I can also see why your DW is so angry with you given your response to it.

Can you see each other's POV in this?

Oh x post.

Hope you can move on from it all soon.

I think it was probably for the best that you were not at home that day TBH as it stopped an almighty row in which neither of you can win

I think I would book a long weekend away on the next strike if there is one or arrange dental appointments for that day

Has your wife or you made any attempt to put this thing to bed and decide on a course of action that you both agree with for the future

He can't let it lie..she is furious with him for going to the head.