1 child families + holidays + I don’t want to watch your kids

He was about 9. At a pool, with no lifeguard and multiple signs asking for children to be supervised at all times.
Now, I personally think that’s too young regardless of what the ‘rules’ say (our local pool says that children under 12 need to be accompanied at all times and I would never leave my 8 year old at a pool and then leave, as you are saying is allowed at your pool) but taking my personal belief out of it, the issue was he was encouraging my 6 year old to swim out of sight into an area too deep for him to be in alone. This meant that I had to take on supervision for both. When his parents were nowhere to be found at lunchtime and our food arrived, he literally stood staring at us while we ate.

this is a really sad thread, some nasty opinions and ways of thinking about other people. No, parents shouldn't allow their kids to muscle in where they are not wanted, and no they shouldn't then abandon them to your care, but...

kids having other kids to play with on holiday, whether they have siblings or not, is nice surely? it's about having fun, and meeting new people? and if you do happen to be an only, it's more fun than playing on your own or with your mum.

I absolutely despair at some of the comments here, what a nasty society we are becoming if this is how most people think 😥

Why do children with siblings not want to make friends? I have a brother and we used to always make friends with other children on holiday, none of the parents were expecting each other to watch their children. I have a friend in Germany to this day who I met on holiday as a 12 year old, we stayed pen pals, both practicing the others' native tongue. We met up a lot when I went to live in Germany for a while, and lived near to each other when she came to London to do an MSc, so socialised then, as adults the internet has made it very easy to keep in touch, we've met each others husbands children etc.

Just do the same thing as them. And if the kids are getting too rowdy, just stare at her parents and shrug. First to blink has to go intervene with the kids.

It was aimed at anyone with one child who lets them play with other children.

Why is it nasty? Unless you’re trying to fob your child off on others, it isn’t aimed at you.

Yes, agreed. Some see mums of multiple kids as self sacrificing martyrs who are happy to take on any children because it’s their raison d’être.

I have three and am more than happy to have them playing with extras. Your kid/s enrich the experience for mine. Not everyone is as spiteful or insular as that PP XXX

I can't see a problem with this at all. Kids often attach themselves to my children and as long as they are older than 5/6 (where more active childcare is required) it doesn't bother me since I don't need to watch them like a hawk.

If we need to leave or do something else, I just send the kid back to mum or dad. As long as my kids are happy playing with them, I can't see why it's a hassle.

But then cue the crying ‘I can’t find mummy’. Do you then leave the distressed lost child on the beach to wander cafes in swimwear to find where mummy is? Or just lost? At 8?
It happens often, parents sneak off.

If you don’t want more kids fine but don’t expect others to pick up the slack

What a nasty and ignorant thing to say. Many of us would've loved to have more than one but couldn't because of secondary infertility.

Some people are very very good at ‘protecting their mental health’ and ensuring they have ‘me time’ I find. Generally these people don’t go and have loads of children. I’ve never had a mum of a large family push a child into my care.
Obviously many many only parents are highly involved, even helicopter parents. However, all the ones I’ve met who create the pressure have chosen to keep to one child to retain their child free time and protect it at the expense of my well-being. I’ve had on caravan holidays children constantly sent to my caravan because mum needs a break/ shower/ to cook in peace and they just think there’s no difference to me already having a group of kids.

I really never minded mine playing with other kids. Why not? It's good for them. I'm not taking responsibility for the other kids though.

If it's time for me to leave the beach, the other parents better notice their child needs watching. I'm not responsible. If there's ever a 'situation' of any kind, my first responsibility is to my kids, so you better be on the ball.

I get this sometimes (I have two), not on holiday but there is a (lovely) one child family - my daughter is friends with her, at a group we go to. Often both parents are there…their child attaches themselves to my kids, which is obviously fine, but then I end up supervising 3 rowdy children on my own while the 2 parents of the one child have a coffee and chat to the grownups, enjoy the activity, completely relaxed and oblivious…I don’t really know how to stop it! 🙈

But what age was he @HelenTudorFisk ?

At our pool, children are allowed to go in unaccompanied at 8 years old. The parent doesn't need to be on site.

It’s all well and good to say they aren’t ’asking’ you but sometimes you are left with no choice. In my most recent experience, a child whose parents fucked off and left him unsupervised at the pool for several hours so couldn’t be found to be told to take responsibility for their child near the water in a foreign country, and kept encouraging my younger child to break rules he had up until this point been following so required additional supervision.

We find plenty of healthy friendships with the kind of people who say ‘hi, if you want a break I’ll watch them for an hour? We could switch then, I’d love to use the steam room…’
Or just joint watch even.
I’m done with the people who think it’s all so lovely and I’m there to facilitate the lovely time for their offspring. There’s kids clubs if they are looking for a play worker to supervise their child.
I went away recently and a few adults rotated in the sauna etc so we all had a turn whilst the children played. I even had a nap one day.

Agree it's about parenting here, not the number of children per family.

And there's a whole spectrum of parenting out there from the helicopter extreme at one end to the neglectful at the other end, and everything in between.

So an additional toddler with no parent in a pool is neglect, but actually once the dc get to 7/8/9 it isn't lazy/neglectful parenting any more, often that their parenting is less helicopter than yours, which is fine, fostering independence.

And with regard to soft play, my dc are long out of that, but actually I found the grown up sized person charging round the soft play area meant for children, far more irritating than the ones sat down for coffee allowing the kids to play independently.

No, she just doesn’t want to take on the job of supervising/facilitating because they’ve attached themself to her family group.

I’ll be a bit flamed for this I expect but I think it’s part of a wider expectation some parents of onlys have that it’s everyone else’s duty to make up for their child not having a sibling. We had it on holiday, as one of 4 kids an only would join in with our games (fine) but then come over to share our food, then want to come on any trips we were doing to nearby beach/park etc.

I also have cousin onlys, their parents have always pressured us to include them over the years as ‘you’re the closest thing he has to a sibling’

If you don’t want more kids fine but don’t expect others to pick up the slack

This is more about parenting but seems to be targeted towards 1 child families.

Reading in between the lines, you feel you have gone to the effort of raising 4 children and one benefit is they can keep each other entertained and you don’t want 1 child families to get any benefit from playing with your kids as they have had it easier with ‘only’ raising 1 child.

I don’t mind at all, It’s not the child’s fault and my kids like to make holiday friends. Don’t think 1 more makes much difference. My 2DS behave better (less arguing amongst themselves) and need less attention from us when we have a tag along. We keep an eye on them all and prefer that they hang about with us rather than our DC being out of sight with their friends family. They often keep in touch via gaming when they get back too.

There’s an easy solution. Stay in a villa so you don’t have to encounter any nasty one child families and your kids can entertain each other and each other alone.

I don't think this is about single child families as such although it's possibly slightly more likely than an only child is actively looking for buddies. It's about parenting.

We've never gone on holiday with SIL but we are 100% certain she is that parent. In her defence, if a child attaches themselves to her and her DS, she's vey happy with that and is really happy to add one. BUT she's totally oblivious to the way her DS can impose himself on other people because she thinks his confidence is great and because both her and DS genuinely don't mind additional children tagging along with them. So she comes back from holidays telling us stories that even hearing them from her perspective, we can tell the other family was getting a bit cheesed off as he'd force himself into their holiday. We've seen it at smaller levels in restaurants - he'll go ove and start chatting away to a family eating their dinner. She thinks its adorable. It's not adorable.

I remember in the 90s befriending an only child at Eurocamp who then had a sleepover with us in our tent! Unimaginable now.