Anonymous wrote:What if you were going to the movies?

"I'm so sorry, we can't get together this afternoon -- I promised Larla we'd go see the matinee of Monsters UNiversity and we already bought the tickets. DO you want to come along? The mantinee is $6 kids $8 adults and we're leaving at 2:00."


What if you had plans to go to 6 Flags?

Why do you need to pay if you invited a whole family to join you?

This is a totally different situation...the key word here is that OP INVITED THEM

I'm so glad I'm lowbrow enough to use the free DC pools. I don't mind hanging with the homies.

Too bad that somewhere along your path on life you were not taught mannets. What you did is rude and has branded you as cheap and vulgar. You can count on it that the other mom has\will pass this story along to other mutual acquaintances.

If it's a one time thing, I will pay (although my guests always offer. If they want to buy the snacks, I'll accept). If it's friends who we go with on a regular basis, those friends always INSIST on paying.... Even for that though, I usually just let them buy the food versus getting cash from them!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

New poster. Honestly...yeah. If someone told me that we were invited to their pool but had to pay $5 I would laugh and decline the invite. How cheap are you?

If I invite your family to go with us the an amusement park, do you expect I'm paying for that too?

That is totally different. We are talking $5 as opposed to $20+. Its a POOL!

$5 total is one thing; our pool charges $6 per person as a guest. If the whole family of 4 comes, that's more than $20.

Anonymous wrote:I like what you've done. "Welcome to join us" is perfect.
And since you aren't paying their way, they won't feel obligated to return the favor. Just friends getting together.

Perfect.

I agree with this. The entire exchange began with the other mother issuing an invitation for a play date, the offer of joining at the pool was the alternative to declining their invitation. So it was more of a mutual agreement to do this activity-- very different from hosting a party at the pool, for example. I think it's especially fine since it seems that the other mother is accompanying the pool family. If the pool mother picks up the other child to bring to the pool, it may be more appropriate to pay for the child. Same as if going to the movies. I'd probably pay for another child's ticket if he or she came with us to the movies, but if the other parent were there also, I'd expect them to pay for their own.

I also think it depends a little on the relationship between the two families. With people we didn't know as well, it would feel more like hosting and we'd more likely pay their guest fee. With close friends, it would feel like a mutual activity with each family paying for themselves.

Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher/mom and I always let my friends/family know that they are welcome to come to the pool this summer. I would be broke very quickly if I paid the $10 guest fee for everyone. Maybe in DCUMland, $10 per person is nothing but it is a lot to me. None of my friends/family expect me to pay for them either. We invited my son's friend to the pool last week and his mom sent him with $15. $10 for the pool and $5 for a snack. I told her I always pack a lunch and I packed something for him. We stay for 4-5 hrs at least too b/c $10 is too much to be there for only an hour or two.

I understand where you're coming from, finance-wise, but I do think that if an invitation is issued, unless the issuer mentions the fee in the invitation and asks the guests to pay, they should be paying for their guests.

As a politeness, I would send fees with my child, too, although I'd be surprised if the inviting parents didn't decline them and pay for my child. If I knew they had financial issues, that, of course, would change my response, and I'd be respectfully insistent about paying.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

New poster. Honestly...yeah. If someone told me that we were invited to their pool but had to pay $5 I would laugh and decline the invite. How cheap are you?

If I invite your family to go with us the an amusement park, do you expect I'm paying for that too?

That is totally different. We are talking $5 as opposed to $20+. Its a POOL!

$5 per person makes for $15-20 for the family.

Then dont invite people. Its cheap and rude. Enough.

I guess one way to look at it is if the exchange were done with you as the guest and the person inviting DD for a playdate as the pool member. How would you have felt? (No biggie to pay? Or completely offended? Or somewhere in the middle?)

Honestly, if we had been invited for a playdate and already had plans, regardless of what the plans were, I would have asked for another day/time for the playdate.

My take on the pool situation is that it's a little rude to be invited as someone's guest and then being expected to pay for attendance. Note I said a LITTLE rude. It's not going to be something I'd complain about. I also wouldn't expect both parents to attend.

Would inviting the DD friend alone be an option? Are you able to watch both kids and feel comfortable? (I don't know the ages or swim abilities.) Pay for that child. Give the parents a couple hours off.

Anonymous wrote:

I am already paying $500 a summer for membership and that is the full extent of our pool budget.

I'm sorry, but that is the most ridiculous excuse I have ever heard. If you are in a situation where you can shell out $500 for a pool membership, I am guessing that you can find $15 from another part of your family budget to pay for your guests. If you don't want to pay because you feel you shouldn't have to, that's one thing, but don't pretend you don't have the money.

Not the OP, but we do not have $15 in "some other part of our family budget" to host guests at the pool. My kids don't go to camp, we don't eat out, we don't pay to go to kids' shows or movies, we don't take family vacations, we don't have cable TV: the pool is what we do in the summer and there is no "other part" of our family budget to host guests on a regular basis. Believe what you want to believe, but not everyone just writes off the pool as one more thing among many that we're spending our enormous piles of money on. We do have one couple with whom we are longtime friends and with whom we regularly get together for dinner; in the summer those get-togethers often happen at our pool and we do pay for them. However, that relationship is one where we are often sharing the buying of food or beer/wine, so that is already built into the dynamic of our relationship.

I am happy to offer someone access to our pool that they would not already have, but I'm clear that's what I'm offering, not a "playdate" in the sense that we have an obligation to pay. Truthfully, the kids are hardly ever in the same place at the same time when we're at the pool, so it's very different than hosting at someone's house.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

New poster. Honestly...yeah. If someone told me that we were invited to their pool but had to pay $5 I would laugh and decline the invite. How cheap are you?

If I invite your family to go with us the an amusement park, do you expect I'm paying for that too?

That is totally different. We are talking $5 as opposed to $20+. Its a POOL!

$5 per person makes for $15-20 for the family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

New poster. Honestly...yeah. If someone told me that we were invited to their pool but had to pay $5 I would laugh and decline the invite. How cheap are you?

If I invite your family to go with us the an amusement park, do you expect I'm paying for that too?

That is totally different. We are talking $5 as opposed to $20+. Its a POOL!

Yes.

How is it different than going anywhere else that requires payment for a playdate? i.e., if I asked if you wanted to go with me to the movies or to lunch or to a waterpark with the kids, should I pay for all those as well?

Anonymous wrote:Once or twice, the member pays. every week - guest pays. Sort of the difference between issuing an invitation and couple of friends mutually deciding to go to the pool.

Exactly.