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[quote=Anonymous]The mom of DD's preschool friend just asked for help with picking up her DD from an extracurricular class that our kids take together.  She asked that our sitter pick up her DD and bring her to the lobby where the mom will be waiting.  Building policy is you leave your stroller in the lobby, mom has two younger LOs and I'm guessing she doesn't want to take the baby out of the stroller and have to wrangle two LOs stroller-less while picking up her DD.

Sitter and I are totally fine with helping this way, but I am wondering if I should offer to help more by having sitter walk their DD home (I'm positive sitter would be happy to help).  Our families live less than a five minute walk from each other.  However, the extracurricular class is a 25 minute walk with a small child through bustling city streets (moderate pedestrian & car traffic).  The other family's sitter was supposed to take their DD to/from class, but is now able to only drop off.  I know the other mom would really appreciate not having to get her two LOs ready to go out and take a 50-minute round-trip walk just to pick up her DD from a 45 minute class.  Our kids love taking this class together and I would want to help out if it means they can continue doing so.

OTOH even though I know our sitter is more than willing to help, I feel like it might be too much of a responsibility and obligation to take on.  First, there's the liability issue; what if something god forbid happened to their DD while she was walking with our sitter?  Even setting that aside (how often do these accidents happen and sitter is VERY careful), the 25 minute walk could easily become more than that.  For ex, when it gets really cold, sitter would have to help their DD change out of her gym clothes into winter clothes.  Or when it's pouring rain, sitter and DD usually stop off at the bookstore or library to wait out the rain, so maybe 25 minutes becomes 45.  Sitter is not being paid to watch two kids and having the other mom hire/pay our sitter is an area I don't want to venture into.  Lastly, sitter and DD sometimes (like half the time) make pit stops on the way home anyway (e.g., have dinner out) and having the friend with them might make her feel constrained to come straight back.

Reading the above makes me feel the answer is "no, don't offer extra help," but I feel like if this semester is too hard on the mom, she might not sign up her DD next semester and I know DD loves having her friend in the class.  I do tend to overthink things so would appreciate hearing other perspectives.  [/quote]

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