Reply to How to tell these parents I can’t help?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]“I know.  This has been crazy.  Let’s take turns walking the kids to school.  Sue can take Monday and Wednesday, you take Tuesday and Thursday, and I will take them on Fridays. 
Let’s just meet in my driveway at 7:55.  You and Sue can leave your car here on your days to walk the kids in.”  
  
[/quote]

I think it would be fine for OP to just say no but I kind of want her to suggest this just to see if they take her up on it. Because this would be precisely the kind of "community" solution that people on here are complaining that OP is opting out of -- parents helping parents. OP would still be helping and these parents would still get several mornings a week where they could drop their kids and go. But they'd also do OP a solid once or twice a week and walk her kid in so she could work.

Also something no one has mentioned as they berate OP and others for not wanting to do this is that if this were a community where people regularly helped each other out wouldn't OP have already benefitted from that thus making her more inclined to help. Like all these people saying "just you wait until you have an issue and need help" seem to be overlooking the fact that OP likely has had issues at some point but has solved them without getting help from these folks. This is how I am. I have a "village" but it doesn't involve school parents I only know through my kids because I'd feel awkward asking. I had a medical emergency over the summer and we called our closest friends for emergency childcare while DH took me to the hospital not a fellow school family. And last year when my DH had to have surgery we figured it out ourselves. It did not occur to me to reach out to school families in this situation because we don't know them that well and just don't have that kind of relationship with them.

It sounds like OP is in a similar situation -- this isn't a community that she turns to for help. But here she's being asked to pony up to help others. I would question whether that will be reciprocal or if this is just desperate people looking for easy answers. It's odd to me they asked OP before reaching out to each other  because you'd think the bus families would be more likely to already have relationships based on walking kids to the stop when they are little and being neighbors who do playdates and stuff. OP is only being dragged in now because she happens to live close to the school. It just sounds like user behavior not a village of reciprocal helpers.[/quote]

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