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

I don't get why you think you have to watch them. The parents are there in the vicinity for the purpose of watching their child. My DC love making friends on holiday but I don't expect anyone else to watch my children for me and I've never felt the need to watch anyone else's children.

If your kid joined in with another family, as you wish he would, would you then roll over in your sun lounger and relinquish responsibility for watching him? If not then I don’t think you’re what the OP is complaining about. It’s not “nasty” to not want to be responsible for an unknown unfamiliar unrelated child while on holidays yourself.

I mean I'm in two minds here. I come from a family of 5 kids and we had a blast on holidays, even if other kids didn't want to play with us we had each other. My dh only has one sister and their holidays weren't as fun. If his sis didn't want to go to the pool, he'd by swimming by himself, where the fun in that. I have no problem with children playing together. Do you have a problem with people joining in for beach volleyball or cricket or whatever. Tbh I've never been on a holiday where any game only involved my nuclear family. People always join in. And our parents certainly didn't hover around and 'watched'. And definitely weren't responsible for watching all 20 kids that were playing volleyball in the pool . So in that I think yabu to dictate who can play what in a pool.
However if you're kids are 2 ,4 and 6 and you're throwing a ball to them and making sure they don't drown and another 4 year old joins in without his mother standing around watching, sure, that would be irritating. Or if the kids were following you to your hotel room and you had to feed them etc. But playing together in a communal area, don't see the issue honestly.

Meanwhile many families with 1 child actively engage with them. They're not the problem here, people not parenting in general is the problem. 🫣

OP - you say that you ‘had 4 kids so you wouldn’t have to entertain them all of the time’, so just let them get on with it then!

Yanbu OP. I find the whole child making friends thing awkward as my kids actually play very nicely on their own have their own games they like to play. If they get a tagalong they are often happy to play with them a bit but don't necessarily want them latched on the whole time then it is awkward if they don't want to play with the kid and I don't see why they/I should feel guilty about that.

I always find this at soft play! Mine is not 3 yet so I often charge around with him at soft play having to be a dinosaur or whatever. Nearly every time, another kid whose parent is enjoying a coffee and a sit down will think ‘hang on, that looks great, I’d like some of that!’ will join in so I’m charging around with them too. Sometimes I can then leave them to play together but not always. But it’s just how it is with kids, and occasionally I’ve left my son (still supervised obviously) kicking a ball about in the park with another parent and their kids as he’s run to join in and no one seems to mind. I mean if you bring a ball to the park or their kids are playing in the pool on holiday do they really expect no other child to want to join in?

Ive got an only child & have the opposite problem, they make friends & I seem to end up with other peoples kids palmed off onto us. Same happens in the park - because I actually supervise/engage with my kid while others are on their phone, I end up entertaining theirs as well.

Basically comes down to lazy parenting whether you’ve got one kid or multiple, nothing to do with ‘1 child families’ 🙄

But if you were watching your own kids and they were playing with another kid whose parents weren’t watching and the other kid gets into difficulty and starts drowning are you going to go “oh well that’s not my kid, I’m only watching my three”?

I understand your point.

But I don't think it matters how many kids you / they have. Even with siblings kids like to make friends on holiday.

I think this post is unnecessarily harsh on single child families. It isn’t always a choice and, even if it were, it has nothing to do with you.

Clearly your kids are in on the “joke” so just be more direct with them and explain that we don’t play with children from single child families. You could even go a step further and explain that you only kept having them so that they would “entertain” one another.

Your kids could ask people as soon as they meet them “do you have any siblings?” and, if the answer is no, (with your permission) they can push them in the pool / call them names / punch them on the nose and run away.

This morning, I’m going to be having a word with my kids and telling them that if we happen to be taking a “summer / beach” holiday during term time and they should come across a family of 4 children with just their mum, they are not to play with them, under any circumstances because they are busy entertaining themselves.

Do your kids actually mind this child playing with them or is it (more than likely) making the game more fun for everyone?

I have the opposite experience as a 2 child, 2 parent family. The 1 child parents are generally more responsive and responsible and better at interacting with their children as they have to be. Friends in this boat have invited my children to holiday with them (only ever 1 or the other of course) as they say it’s easier and more fun for their child to take a pal. I feel guilty that we can’t reciprocate for logistical reasons!

Stereotype alert but I also find 1 child families more involved as the parents can be older and that child has often been longed for. It’s the parents of larger families who tend to want to offload guy or understandable reasons.

Op doesn’t sound very congenial. You should be encouraging to children to socialise and make new friends rather than teaching them it’s okay to ostracise others based on the number of siblings they have. Just bizarre.

I have 4 DC too OP and we get this ALL THE TIME! It’s so, so annoying. I frequently take mine swimming (private pool so no age restrictions on child:adult), I have had an almost newborn, a 2 year old and 2 other young school aged children of my own, and had other children abandoned with me while their parents use the sauna, swim lengths etc etc.

It got to the stage that we had to just all leave the pool when it happened as it was too much for me.

It happens almost everywhere we go, and my DC are still little so I like to still supervise them closely.

Funnily enough on our last holiday with our only child - my husband would happily play in the pool with them and for whatever reason the 2 of them playing always attracted other kids. Their game for 2 would end up with about 4 or 5 other kids. So aye, us selfish folk going on holiday with 1 geet expect superior larger families like to you look after our kid. 🙄🙄

I love when my 3 make friends on holidays and wouldn't feel responsible for an 8 year old tagging along.

Different if children are Knocking on the door all day, that d be annoying on hols but playing in the pool together, don't see the problem.

DD is a single child. Yes, she committed the crime of approaching others in the pool and they played together.
Yes, she may have sought them out the next day.

No - we don't dump her on other families, we look for her when in the pool, we play with her in the pool (and shock, involve other children as well) and we teach her how to see if others don't want to include her and that this is fine as well.

Actually the older she got, the more we find that siblings do stay together and have less external children involved, it was more the 7-10 age we found they would mix with strangers.

You’ve just met poor parents that’s all.

Im used to children gravitating as we have three, one of mine I regularly get calls from a particular parent inviting mine out as an occupier for her single. But all the parents of the children we have come across still keep an eye out, come over and tell us to feel free to tell them bugger off when we have had enough / it’s food time etc and to feel free to send ours over to theirs for a bit too as they have (whatever game)

1 child family here.
DS was quite happy with us, we didn't want to attract your 2+ child family either, thanks very much.
What would be wrong with kids playing with other kids, within earshot/line of vision of both sets of parents though?

How do your kids feel about it. Do they enjoy it or not? Can you teach them strategies/phrases to extract themselves if they want?

You’re right, perhaps all parents with
only one offspring should all holiday at a separate resort or compound, or have designated swimming times.

i mean come on. I get that you don’t want to be responsible for someone else’s kid (don’t be!) but kids have been befriending other children on holiday since holidays began. Great that they have the confidence to go and try and make friends! I’d only really find it an issue if your kids didn’t want to make friends but just because they have siblings it doesn’t mean they have to give any kind of social interaction thé cold shoulder. I feel like if you go to a family oriented resort or camping holiday or whatever this is par for the course. I would never dream of passing off responsibility for my only child to another adult on holiday but I’d absolutely never stop him from trying to forge holiday friendships with other kids.

You're cross that a child wants to play with your kids? And your kids want to play with them? Or do your kids say"mum, please make X go away?" What exactly happens?

It's hardly like you're actively babysitting or expected to, kids are just playing. Unless it's like a tiny toddler or something? But it sounds like you have older kids and a 7/8 year old probably isn't interacting directly with you or needing complete 100% supervision most of the time, except by pool, sea etc (which isn't your responsibility anyway)

You say you had 4 so they can entertain themselves and in the final para you say the other child's family seem to be having a lovely relaxing time which implies you aren't, so which is it?

She hasn't taken the child swimming. He was already in the communal hotel pool. When they went to the beach, the other family also turned up to the beach

OP, yanbu. It happens to us too. Not exclusive to one child families either. We can happily be playing with our kids then another child suddenly joins in. We look around and their parents are off in the distance. They're like boomerangs too - you send them away and they keep coming back.