Working Parents & Childcare

13 yr old does his brother's daycare pickup twice a week. now he wants out when his friends are around

quiet_compass_539

tuesdays and thursdays i have parent meetings after school and my partner can't leave before 7. so since april the older one walks to the daycare at 5, signs the little one out and they walk home together. daycare has our written permission, it's 8 minutes from the house worked fine till about two weeks ago. now his friends play football at exactly that time and every week it's 'can someone else do it just this week' i get it, at 13 i wouldn't have wanted to walk a 3 yr old home in front of my friends either. but there is no other 5 pm on those two days. is it fair to keep it as his job or do i need to sort this some other way

3 comments

  • sage_notebook_8038

    In our house it is my daughter, 11, who brings her brother home from the school gate every day. Some days she also complains that her friends are going to the canteen and she has to wait for him. I tell her ghar ka kaam sab karte hain, everybody in the house does some work. But one day in the week I go myself and she goes with her friends. Maybe one day off for your son also?

  • cobalt_notebook_785

    At 13 the friends matter a lot. My son is 11 and if his cricket practice gets cancelled he sulks the whole day. Can the pickup move to after the football? If the daycare allows 6 instead of 5 on those two days, he plays first and then goes.

  • olive_tiffin_810

    The written permission with the daycare is the part I'd hang on to, that can't have been easy to set up. Our daughter is still tiny, so we're a long way off this, but I was the one who walked my cousin home every evening as a boy and I remember the 'not today' phase very well. What changed it for me was being asked instead of told. My aunt let me choose which days, and swap one if I gave notice.

    • amber_diary_225

      The swap only works if there is another day to swap to. If both parents are fixed on Tuesdays and Thursdays, what does he swap with? Asking because we have the same gap on Wednesdays with our two.

    • apricot_moon_3486

      Ma akka did this for me for years and she still brings it up at family functions, half joking. We ended up paying a neighbour aunty for one evening a week for our two. Not the same as family, but nobody holds it against anyone later.

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