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

Unless they're on holiday in Australia that is probably irrelevant too.

I've spent a lot of time in Australia and yes, the safety level regarding pools is much higher than in the UK and probably European countries too. The homes I know with pools in back yards have sturdy fences with a child-proof gate too.
Australians are to be applauded for it.

Under eights must be accompanied by an adult here in the UK. However, a couple of my DC were extremely competent swimmers by that age.

🤣😂🤣

I have come across this once 😂. I had to take my then 2yo home as couldn't get him to leave the bubbles alone. Now I'd probably tell the parent where to go but I was less assertive then.

But it's the same sort of mindset. Personally, I think that if you're doing fun activities with your children in public, communal spaces, then you shouldn't be surprised if sometimes you have to share those spaces with other children who may show an interest in the activities you're doing in the shared space. You can either encourage that interest or set boundaries ("sorry, we're doing this by ourselves right now") but you've introduced the fun activity (the "honeypot") so I have some sympathy with parents who don't immediately want to spring up from wherever they're sitting to keep their child away from you.

That’s wholly irrelevant to the guidance in my country, the rules at local swimming pools in my country, and also the personal experience I was sharing relevant to the point of the thread 🤷‍♀️

Yeah, this is a much more likely scenario, IMO/IME. My cousin has just got one child, a daughter, roughly the same age as my two. (all now in their 20s.)

She used to live in a street with 4 families with 3 and 4 children, all within 4 or 5 houses away. She would have a little trampoline and mini bouncy castle and a little pool in the big side garden (end council property - so big side garden,) for her little girl when she was small (under 7.) Some days she had them all up, not all.

Every single time, within 5 to 10 minutes anywhere between 3 and 6 of the kids in the street, would let themselves into the garden to 'play' with little Lucy, even though she was only 2 or 3, and they were 6 to 9 y.o.

The parents NEVER asked, and never came across to watch them as well, and sometimes fucked off out and didn't come back for 3 or 4 hours and just left the kids with her. She was feeding them, looking after them, making sure they were okay etc.

Sometimes they would just turn up, and sometimes the parents would call over and say 'they want to come and play with little Lucy. So I'm sending them over.' And then they'd just go off out for like, half a day and just leave them there. Sometimes didn't come back til 9-10pm. Used my cousin as a fucking childminder!

I find parents of 3 or more children, a lot more cheeky, and a lot more likely to dump their kids on other parents than parents of an only child are to dump their one child on someone. I've never known that happen actually. (In fact parents of 2 don't do it much, it's the ones with 3+ in my experience.) Had it happen to me a few times. Happened to my cousin a LOT though, as she lived in a street with families with 3 or 4 children really closeby. There has always been very few children closeby wherever me and DH have ever lived.

tl;dr YANBU @Theseers But I am not sure what you can do about it.

nb; not ALL families with 3 or more children are cheeky feckers who dump their children on others, but some are, and moreso than parents of 1 or 2 children IME.

The only time I do stifle an internal sigh is when younger children come over to play with my sociable older one. He is very good-natured and will play quite happily with littles, but he can get a little over-enthusiastic and forget the size difference sometimes and of course it is on me as a parent to teach him to adapt his play depending on who he is with. Having a toddler sibling helps, but I tolerate a much higher degree of rough play between the two of them (my boundary is "are they both having fun and is anyone actually likely to get hurt?") than the parent of a 4/5yo is likely to accept from a random 7yo. So then I do have to be on high alert, but it's just part of teaching social boundaries.

No. Kid jumps in pool, wants to play with other children in the pool. Mum probably said "They look nice, go and say hello if you want to".
Mother is still by the pool, but reading.

Still able to hear, glance up but not watching like a hawk.

plonks themselves down 20meters away, immediately the kid comes over and involves himself.
20 metres is quite some distance, not right next to you all

kid comes over and involves himself.
What a cheek!! How dare he! 😂

Just ignore all of them. I don't really understand why it winds you up - just let your kids deal with it. If the child starts wanting to join in your family meals, that's the time to put your foot down and send them back to their mother.

I went on holiday with my 2 dgc and their parents. Dgc are 5 and 7 and play really well together. The issue we had was a single child wanted to play with older dgs but not younger dgs. Older dgs was happy to play with the other child, but the other child specifically ignored younger dgs, leaving him out of the game.

My son had to step in and tell his older ds that he had to play with younger ds as well. The other child, continued trying to get older dgc to leave his db out. We eventually had to get up and move as younger dgs was really upset at being left out. The other boy started to follow us but my son told him not to and to go back to his parents.

We then went down to the beach, where a woman came over and asked where her ds (the single child) was. When my son told her that he had told him to go back to his parents, she swore at him and told him she had only came to the beach because we were looking after her ds and if anything had happened to him it would be his fault! She then took off looking for her son. Luckily her son never came near us again.

It’s understandable that her son wanted someone to play with, but not to the detriment of one of my dgc, or so that his mother could just absolve herself of the responsibility of looking after him.

What kind of idiot blows bubbles in a playground full of children and then is surprised that children want to pop bubbles
If you want a private bubble blowing experience you don't go to a public space!

What actually is the problem with this situation though?
How much 'watching' does a 7/8 year old need?

If your kids are happy playing with their new friend then let them get on with it. Do you actually have to do anything

Mentioned it to DH - an only child - he think it doesn't happen to him when out when the kids were young because he male - he thinks it the old - lone woman with kids - ie low status - so everyone "resource" mindset.

Mil says they used to check it was okay and offer to watch the kids so other parent got a break or take turns in day- they didn't just assume.

I think OP you need better strategies if it keeps happened and you really don't like it - though such people tend to have thick skins and a lots of justification - but refusing to take on the responsibility mentally and making that clear without endangering other kids is probably only way.

And tbh if you engage in a certain sort of "involved parenting" in public places, you are going to attract extraneous children - it's inevitable. But that doesn't mean all the other parents should get up from the benches and come along and play football or pretend to be sea monsters - most playgrounds/soft plays/swimming pools aren't big enough for all the parents to parent in that way, for a start! If ever parent throws diving counters for their kids in the pool, it's likely to get cramped quite quickly.

Just out of interest, has anyone on this thread tried blowing bubbles for their DC in a playground but then been inundated by other annoying small children who have the temerity to also want to pop bubbles?

As a parent of a single child I've found the opposite. It's usually a family where there is two children, with a younger toddler/ baby and they send their older child to play with mine so they can focus on their younger one.

By 11 my oldest was competing in inter-county galas and could probably rescue me if I fell in.

It’s like everything in life isn’t it.

Some only are lovely well rounded children. Others are spoilt… same as children in a household full of children. That’s why you get the scapegoat, golden child yada yada.

If you on either side of the coin notice more traits from a particular group that’s how it’s going to feel like that group is.

Lots of people would say a house with four children must be a noisy house and how horrible that must be. But maybe they are four children who love to read and do arts and are gentle souls.

Maybe that only child came over because of your bundle of 3/4/5/6 was looking left out so they where being kind rather than lonely.

Maybe the one child is lonely and that’s why they came over. Maybe the game just looked fun.

But parents who effectively dump and run using strangers as child care are arses regardless of 20 kids or 1.

Ps I wasn't an only but my siblings were much older so by the time I was 8 or 9 they no longer came on holiday with us.

I usually found a friend and often the parents would then pal up too.

Don't be upset oatmilk4breakfast

Yes, I have do have more than one but I know people who have struggled to have one and are so grateful for that blessing. That remark was needless and thoughtless.

I entirely agree, OatMilk. It is shit, but (as demonstrated on this thread) if we call it out we are accused of having a chip on our shoulders.

Whether or not you have an only child or not, having a child who is brave enough (or has had enough practice) when on their own to go up to other children and say "can I play with you?" is a good thing.

Of course you then need to teach them how to deal with rejection gracefully and they need to learn to amuse themselves without relying on others, but these are no bad things either.

It's the children who have limited opportunity to challenge themselves in this way - either because of hovering parents or because they've always had their "gang" with them and never had to put themselves out there - who I feel a little sorry for. We don't do our kids any favours encouraging them to be insular in outlook.

If you don’t want more kids fine

It's not always a case of not wanting more.

It's not always as easy as putting an order in to Tesco. "I'd like four children, two of each kind please, nicely spaced".
☹

I feel the same @oatmilk4breakfast. I was told a second child would be impossible. OP's sneery post was clearly designed to invite a mass punching down at only children and their parents. I hope they're proud of themselves.

The more I think about this the sadder I get and it's really distracted me this morning. Wish I'd never looked at it. The mass call out "1 child families + holidays + I don't want to watch your child". Why not just say this about any child if you hate it so much? Why target 1 child families? I always thought I would have more than one child and couldn't. Your comments have really upset me this morning. Risk you run looking at a forum I guess, but I just wanted you to know that you've opened up a lot of hurt for a lot of people this morning, no doubt. Hope it made you feel better.

Of course not. I've even had to call the police over a toddler I couldn't find a parent for near water. I've never known a parent to actually abandon a child but I'll not hang around beyond making sure someone is watching them.

''oatmilk4breakfast
Don’t watch them. It’s not your job, you’re right. But have you considered that parents may not be having the ‘child free’ time of their life but just stepping back a bit to let kids play without helicopter parenting. It’s what children do, and no surprise that children want to play with other children. Luckily yours seem kind and inclusive, so well done for raising them like that, but sad to know that some parents actually just feel that they only want their kids to play with each other. Lucky you being able to have so many.

Such a good point!!!

In my experience the amount of time children get to be alone, or with other children, without a hovering adult these days is next to non-existent. I'm often seeking opportunities to let my children have freedom in an environment where I feel safe letting them explore/play away from me a bit so they gain experience of autonomy and a sense of self. I'm genuinely not doing it so I can absolve myself of responsibility and am usually trying to seem nonchalant whilst actually trying hard to be aware of where they are and what they're doing. Society makes me feel like I should be within arms distance of them at all times but I feel like that is seriously detrimental for their own personal development! You genuinely can't win!!''

Absolutely all of this.

There's lots of sneering towards the more hands off parenting style from helicopter parents as lazy, but I've only ever seen it as a considered option of making sure you're not writing a post saying 'what do you do for childcare in secondary' in x number of years.