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Help with carpool problem



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amother


 

Post Thu, Oct 31 2013, 6:23 am
I'm relatively new to the whole carpool "scene."

I drive a carpool for my son and four other boys. I only knew one of the other carpool mommies beforehand, and the others didn't know each other either. We found each other through mutual friends, a message board looking for one more kid...

So here's the issue. There's one mom in the carpool who is COMPLETELY safety conscious. She double checks every single morning to make sure her son is buckled in well, etc. She pretty much sums it up as "I know I'm paranoid, but please could you let me buckle him or check that he's buckled okay? It's my 'thing.'" This is her oldest, but actually four out of five of the kids in the carpool are oldests. I treated the whole thing as her idiosyncrasy, and I was fine with it. Whatever.

One of the other moms, though, is completely the opposite about safety. It really seems like she doesn't care. She would tell her kid to put the strap behind him or under his arm "so it would be more comfortable" (um, less safe?). But that first day I said "No, it's actually supposed to lie over his shoulder, like this," she seemed fine with that. I figured she was just clueless. A shame, but okay...now she knows. Naïve, hm?

So the "careful" mom in the carpool calls me this morning, really upset. She said that this other mom is really unsafe...she saw one day that all of the kids had their straps behind them...her son told her that one day the unsafe mom's son and younger daughter were walking around the car with no seatbelts on (!!!), and also the unsafe mom's kid is apparently very badly behaved in her carin the afternoon (I only drive mornings, and he's fine in my car). Throwing things, egging other kids to do things wrong, etc.

I agree with her. This is NOT okay. But what can we do? The fourth mom in the carpool just waved everything off when the careful mom spoke to her. Her dh drives carpool sometimes, and the careful mom had ONE incident where a kid was buckled in improperly in that car, so I think she's tarring them with the same brush. This fourth mom is the one I know from beforehand, and I could probably talk to herand help her see why we're so nervous. But what do we do? Just kick the fourth kid out of carpool? Give the mom a "warning" first? (I seriously doubt it would do anything, and it would also strain things tremendously...and it wouldn't really help if her kid is causing problems in carpool.)

But neither one of us feels comfortable keeping our kids in a dangerous situation. And I guess because I haven't seen any of this firsthand, I'm nervous to take a really drastic action based on it. The only thing I saw was that first day in carpool when she buckled him in wrong. Loshon hara l'toeles, yes, you can be choshesh for...but I don't know what that means here, both halachically and practically. If you were in this situation, would you "drop" the unsafe mom? Is that "allowed" in carpool? I just don't see any alternative...other than giving her a last chance, but I don't know if that would do anything...
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oodlesofnoodles




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 31 2013, 6:29 am
I would never risk my child's life by putting him in a carpool where one mother is not careful about safety. All it takes is one stupid driver......
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amother


 

Post Thu, Oct 31 2013, 6:42 am
oodlesofnoodles wrote:
I would never risk my child's life by putting him in a carpool where one mother is not careful about safety. All it takes is one stupid driver......


I agree. That's why I'm in this predicament right now.

Can you please only respond if you've actually BEEN in a carpool before? It's very easy to say that you'd just drop a mother when you've been spoiled with bussing your whole mommy-life Wink And I do agree with you -- in theory. But what would you go about doing now? Driving both ways myself is just not an option. I could maybe squeeze in one more morning drive, but it's really stressful on my end, with a baby who's schedule is thrown off by carpool and a preschooler who would need to be dropped off early for an additional day (and he really doesn't like those days).

But there's got to be some protocol for how to "drop" a carpool mom for an extreme reason like this. It just seems wrong to leave her high and dry...
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mamommommy




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 31 2013, 7:13 am
I've been in quite a few carpools in my day, and while I've never had a situation exactly like yours, I have carpooled with mothers who have very different ideas about the appropriate use of car seats and seat belts, so I can understand where you're coming from.

You cannot tell this mother what to do with her own children, but you can, and should, tell her what to do with your child. Tell her in no uncertain terms that your child must sit in a specific seat with his seat belt just so and that you do not allow your son to sit any other way. On the side, also explain to your son the correct way to sit in a car and why that is the safest for him. Tell him that sometimes other people don't realize the importance of safety in a car, and that you know it's hard for him to do something different from his friends or something less comfortable, but that he'll be doing the "right" thing.

Ultimately when you carpool, you really have to trust the other people who are driving. If this mother proves that she is untrustworthy (ie, she does not respect your wishes regarding how your son gets buckled) then you should definitely not carpool with her.

Regarding etiquette: I think it is perfectly okay to kick out a person from a carpool if she ignores your instructions regarding your child. I do, however, think that you must make it very clear to her your wishes regarding your son before you decide that she is ignoring them.
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anon for this




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 31 2013, 7:25 am
I wouldn't want to carpool with someone who can't drive safely. If the fourth mother isn't buckling children in properly and allowing her children to be unrestrained in a moving vehicle, then she isn't driving safely. (Unless the child unbuckled while she was driving, and he pulled over as soon as she could safely do so, this is very concerning).

What does the careful mother want to do about it? It might be a good idea to talk to the other carpool parents before approaching the fourth mother, to make sure you all agree on how to handle the situation. Perhaps one of the parent could approach her and explain that you appreciate carpooling with her but are concerned about these specific safety issues. The parent should make it clear that she's speaking on behalf of the rest of the carpool, and that these issues must be resolved so that you can continue to carpool together.

If she can't follow basic safety rules, then she's not a good fit for your carpool. I don't think you need to worry about leaving her without a carpool.

Yes, losing a carpool member will mean extra driving, which is annoying. It might mean rotating her shift among the other drivers, or rearranging the entire roster, depending on the other parents' schedules. You might be able to find another driver to join your carpool, though it's not likely you will.

I've driven carpools for over a decade, and I know it's not simple to rearrange a carpool. B"H I've had wonderful carpool mazal, and only once had a serious carpool issue (not a driving safety issue).
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amother


 

Post Thu, Oct 31 2013, 7:46 am
OP here.

The whole "It only matters how she buckles in your son" doesn't really work here. If her kids are walking around the car unbuckled, and she's cv's in an accident, guess who her kid could go flying into?

I think that's really what we need to do. The safe mom was considering backing out entirely, but she would need someone to drive mornings when she's working...and she wanted to touch base with me first to see if we could work something out. I think I'm going to talk to her once again and tell her I'll call the fourth mom, and hopefully I can make her see reason. Then I can call the unsafe mom and tell her the issue, and give her a chance to redeem herself. (Although I'm still really nervous to trust her...)

Thanks for letting me talk it out with all of you.
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amother


 

Post Thu, Oct 31 2013, 1:31 pm
Ready for an update?

(OP here.)

The fourth mom said that she doesn't know if we can trust the kid who said that there were kids running around without seatbelts. She said we should talk to our kids first and see if they corroborate what safe mom's kid said.

I heard that...So I talked to my son about it a bit, and he didn't take the bait. I obviously didn't ask right out about it, because I didn't want to put ideas into his head. We were just talking about buckling in in general, and how some kids don't buckle in in the car, and some parents let them do that, and how it's still dangerous...and I told him that I once saw kids in the back of a car in front of me who weren't buckled in and were turned around looking out the back window. He just wasn't taking the bait, so I finally said, "Have you ever seen any kids like that?" And when he said no I threw caution to the winds and said "Not in carpool or anything?" And he said no, all the kids know to stay buckled. He was looking at me like I was crazy, why would I ask a question like that, of COURSE he's never seen kids unbuckled in the car.

Weird.

I'll have a talk with him about wearing seatbelts correctly next, but I'm not quite as concerned about that. He buckles himself correctly in my car, and he's five, and very trusting...He always talks to me about things that concern him, and I'd be surprised if he didn't mention this to me.

Hm. Even when I think I have all the facts, it's important to investigate more, hm? Can't wait to hear what fourth mom hears from her kid. Maybe this was all made up, after all?
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