Mammy dropping kids to school in the car

Furze99 · 18-11-2021 2:23pm

Agree absolutely OP, can't recall ever getting a lift in a car to primary or secondary school or third level in my day. Busy streets and roads, we just dealt with it. Rain - leggings and jacket. Snow, ice - walked.

Some towns like Kilkenny now have Park n' Stride, where parents drive to a large car park to deliver/ collect and the kids walk from there. No cars allowed near the schools.

monkeybutter · 18-11-2021 2:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118185891#Comment_118185891

what time were you getting out of school, circa 4, or were you not hardy enough to cycle in December? Be plenty dark enough at that time

See your parents just weren't neglecting enough you to teach you a life lesson with your fancy lights and cushty jacket ( they better have made you buy those out of pocket money) and probably being dropped to school most of the time by the sounds of it

Larbre34 · 18-11-2021 2:51pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118185197#Comment_118185197

Don't you talk about my mother that way, that woman is a saint!!

But yeah they do, so?

BurgerFace · 18-11-2021 2:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118185143#Comment_118185143

The weight of the bag makes it impossible....haha. Don't give me that crap. Is your kid a 3 stone weakling? Doesn't the bike have a carrier on the back? I bet your kid can give his mate a backer on the bike or have his mate sit on the crossbar or even the handlebars when they are mucking around and the mate weighs a hell of a lot more than a schoolbag with a few books, copies, pencil case and lunch box in it. Your kid wouldn't last farting time in the Netherlands where everyone cycles and many carry not one but 2 passengers on the bike. I frequently see young people cycling with a person on the back carrier and another on the front carrier. If your kid can't carry a poxy schoolbag on a bike I'm surprised he even has the strength to lift the thing or turn the pedals.

18-11-2021 2:53pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118185657#Comment_118185657

Dunno - I was being tongue in cheek with the salary comment - but it has always been the done thing in my family never to discuss money too specifically :) Its simply not information you need either. Further I don't even have a fixed answer for you. It varies a lot based on a variety of factors.

I have of course walked the school route with my children. I am not sure what your "seem" is based on above. Not anything I've said I think.

I did not kick them out the door on day 1 of school and send them on their way. I ease my children into pretty much everything in life where possible. I walked with them for a long time - walked behind them for a time after that to observe them doing things correctly themselves like road crossing and the like - and so on working up to the day they first did the route by themselves. The same all repeated for cycling. Together first - observation of them doing it alone next - working up to full autonomy.

monkeybutter · 18-11-2021 3:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118186076#Comment_118186076

so you don't currently walk/cycle to school with your 7 year old, they walk alone

your family seems to have a strange relationship with money if you cant give out this simple info.

Both of the above are very strange

18-11-2021 3:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118186152#Comment_118186152

Don't see any of it as strange at all. I just do not see certain things as being anyone's business. I no more feel compelled to tell you how much money I give my children weekly as pocket money than I do to tell you what my last ESB bill was. It simply has nothing to do with you. Nothing strange about that.

Plenty of children walk to school alone - or with friends. Nothing strange about that that I know of either. Perhaps your definition of "strange" is not the same as mine. For me it means something unusual or rare or unexpected. So far reading you posts it seems to mean "someone who does things different to me" :)

_Brian · 18-11-2021 3:15pm

I think I only see two kids cycling into the local secondary when I’m dropping my daughter off, both live about the town, one I haven’t seen cycling since the weather got wet. School has about 700 students and I’d say half that live within safe cycling distance.

again, school bag weight is a serious problem, my daughters bag would be impossible to cycle with.

Flinty997 · 18-11-2021 3:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118186074#Comment_118186074

In secondary, one of my kids bags is an incredible weight. I would struggle to lift it over my head. The move to a 3yr curriculum, means the books are lot bigger heavier and if they have a lot of subjects in the same day, you have to carry a lot of them. Its far heavier than it ever was in my day. Ironically hes the only one of mine that doesn't cycle, he likes walking with his mates, and can't be bothered with messing around locking and unlocking the bike.

Find me a picture of a busy street in the Netherland where "many" people are carrying 1 or 2 passengers the same size as them on their bicycle. So 2 or three people on a bike. With all them carrying large (school) bags.

BurgerFace · 18-11-2021 3:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118185813#Comment_118185813

I went to school on Griffith Avenue in Marino in Dublin. I was definitely walking the 1 mile to school and back unaccompanied by an adult from the age of 6 (senior infants). All of us did. We weren't alone. There were hundreds of kids of all ages making the daily journey on foot. In fact I'm pretty certain me and my friend were making the journey by ourselves in junior infants after our mothers escorted us for the first couple of months. I went to school there from Junior Infants right up to Leaving Cert and just about everyone walked or cycled. I rarely saw any of my schoolmates being dropped off in a car. And they came from all directions on foot or on a bike or taking a public bus. Some classmates walked or cycled from Beaumont down Beaumont Road, across Collins Avenue, down Grace Park Road, onto Griffith Avenue......all busy thoroughfares. Others came from Artane, down the Malahide Road, through Donnycarney and on. Others came up the other way from Fairview or Clontarf, others from Killester....all on foot or on a bike. Primary School let out at 14:30 so I don't know where you get this darkness from. Secondary let out at 16:00...still not dark. And guess what....we had these amazing things called COATS and scarves. The coats also came with these amazing additions called POCKETS. You could put your hands into them if you didn't have a pair of gloves.

In the 13 years that I attended primary and secondary I don't recall a SINGLE instance of someone being knocked down or kidnapped.

At the age of 10 me and my friends would take the bus by ourselves into town and buy Airfix kits in Easons. We also took the bus by ourselves to Dublin Airport to watch the planes take off or we'd go up to the mezzanine and knock on the office doors of all the exotic foreign airlines like SAS, Sabena, Iberia, etc to see if they had any brochures or stickers. Play a few arcade games and then head back home. I took the train by myself from Mallow to Hueston when I was 11. Schooltrip to France, Germany and Switzerland in First Year aged 13 we were running around the ferry all night from Rosslare to Le Havre and then around the streets of Paris or Heidelberg by ourselves.

Today's kids are just fcuking helpless...or maybe they aren't. Maybe they'd be just as capable if only their sh1t-scared mollycoddling parents had a little more faith in children's inherent knack for a bit of independence and self-relience.

Flinty997 · 18-11-2021 3:33pm

I would say I'm lucky that the school is easy cycling distance.

But its not luck it took a lot of effort to end up near a school and lot of manipulating the admissions to get where we wanted to be.

BurgerFace · 18-11-2021 3:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118185961#Comment_118185961

You can't handle the fact that he was independent enough to come and go to school by himself so you have to resort to ridicule. The only person who is blabbing on about walking barefoot in the snow 20 miles with only a rock for lunch is YOU. You can't do any better than that? Do you think it is dark at 4pm in December. This is Ireland, not Lappland. And what's this fear of the dark anyway? If you can send your kid to the local shop to buy milk at 6pm when it's pitch dark, what's the issue with him walking home from school at 4pm when it's bright?

BurgerFace · 18-11-2021 3:57pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118186445#Comment_118186445

It's a daily spectacle on the streets of Amsterdam. If your kid can lift the bag into the car and then transport if from the car to the classroom how come they can't lift it onto the carrier of a bicycle and then from bicycle to classroom once at school?

BurgerFace · 18-11-2021 3:59pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118186445#Comment_118186445

Correction it wasn't you who drives the kid because the back is too heavy for him to transport by himself.

boardlady · 18-11-2021 4:13pm

@burgerface, you have a lot of disgust there for a lot of posters!

boardlady · 18-11-2021 4:15pm

I see back carriers mentioned a lot - you don't see them around any more. I couldn't even fit one to my kid's bike cause of the suspension 😂

Ray Palmer · 18-11-2021 4:19pm

It would be great if the Gardai actually ticketed people parking to pick up their kids. There is an OK cycle lane on the Malahide road outside Mount Temple school. Constantly blocked in the morning by parents and I was even hit buy a car there as it pulled straight into me and I got the "I didn't see you". You know why she didn't see me? She didn't look nor indicate.

Once I was on the cycle lane outside the primary school by the Fairview gym. Three cars parked in the cycle lane which is also a clearway. Garada passing so I point at the cars and ask him to at least tell them to not park there. He told me the cycle lane shouldn't be there instead of doing anything. I have been doored there twice over the years and close calls tens of times on the same small stretch

Policing actual laws in this country is just random.

SAMTALK · 18-11-2021 4:20pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118185902#Comment_118185902

There are 2 schools near where I work and just down the road are 2 car parks, smallish shopping ind estates. Loads of parking available and only a 3 min walk to the school, but no we that's still not good enough for some

Parking up on footpaths right at gate so the little darlings dont need to walk , therefore holding up traffic coming behind them and also causing a hindrance for anyone on path with buggys.

monkeybutter · 18-11-2021 4:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118186506#Comment_118186506

Look i'm sure you never wore a seatbelt in your life too and sure you were grand and if you did have an accident, sure weren't you thrown clear of the car saving your life

You might have had a few shocks off the 2 pin sockets in your house too, but sure twas all great fun

Kids are jut as capable, despite all the love and affection well someone from your roddy doyle story seems to be missing

i mean from a generation who left their kids be secually absued left right and center cause they coudnt give a shoite

griffin100 · 18-11-2021 4:52pm

Some of my sons mates drive themselves to school in tractors which they park outside the school. Where do they fit in to this?

hardybuck · 18-11-2021 5:01pm

I have to laugh when I see these kids moaning about climate change and turning up at protests when most of them couldn't be a**** to walk or cycle to school. Similar to the people who want something to be done about climate change as long as it doesn't cost them a penny.

While this won't be possible for some kids due to where they live, people have generally become a lot softer over the years and will opt for the easy option whenever it's available. More Mammies and Daddies need to be leading by example, and more kids need to get walking and cycling rather than being chauffeured around everywhere with their heads buried in their phones.

I have one set of obese neighbours with heavy kids who drive to school every morning. I have another neighbour who send kids to the same school and they mix it up between walking and driving - they look much healthier.

monkeybutter · 18-11-2021 5:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118187046#Comment_118187046

the stats would disagree with you I'm afraid

monkeybutter · 18-11-2021 5:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118186978#Comment_118186978

perhaps the fat kids don't care about climate change and the skinny ones do, perhaps thats why they are skinny

wotzgoingon · 18-11-2021 5:44pm

Kids today. Back in my school days I used to climb over a snow peaked mountain on my way to school while this oul lad followed behind me with a whip. And gave me a few lashes every five meters.

18-11-2021 6:00pm

I was born in 1961, lived in suburban Dublin, always got the bus to school and occasionally walked the 4 kilometres home as it was downhill. For a start, back then the norm was one car in each household, and my father used it to get to work and indeed travel around the country in the course of it. My mother was busy running a business from home to fund my private schooling and pay the mortgage etc. Neither parent would have had time to be bringing me to school in any case! Also I was very proud and independent and never wanted my parents to be anywhere remotely near the school! I cringed on the handful of occasions when my father would have a day off or be travelling in the direction of my school anyway and would give me a lift. I certainly didn’t want him driving to the school gate!

freshpopcorn · 18-11-2021 6:10pm

I think we like car use in Ireland and it will take a good while to change to be honest.

Especially when your in a smaller town, rural area it's generally much faster than cycling or walking.

When I was going to school I knew some people if they were to get the bus they'd have to get it at 8am and if they got a drive they could leave at 8:45.

Younger people aren't as pushed about the climate as the one's on social media in my experience.

monkeybutter · 18-11-2021 6:14pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118187238#Comment_118187238

Some amount of sins in one post

Downhill to school, soft
Bus, soft
PRIVATE school, well...

Billgirlylegs · 18-11-2021 6:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118184819#Comment_118184819

You are correct, but "if" they would apply The Road Traffic Act properly, it would stop a lot of messing on the road. Far too many people are misinformed or ignorant on how to use the road/footpath/lights and junctions. Even upgrading the Lollypop Men/Women jobs to authorise them to ticket/film/photograph lawbreakers would be a start at little expense. Added infrastructure might be required in a few places, but it is striking the narrative is that it isn't safe to cycle on the road. Either make it safe, or correct the mistaken impression.

18-11-2021 6:37pm

In my day we walked the mile to school, there was a bus operating but we didn’t use it, most of the children from outside the town used to get a bus in. Everyone getting dropped off in cars must be the new thing. Where have the buses gone.

Cdemess · 18-11-2021 7:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118186069#Comment_118186069

Well, you failed

Mammy dropping kids to school in the car

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