To be crying at this

I can’t stand it. I am 55 and my kids are at University. I have no regrets about cleaning up ‘right away’. I would not do anything differently.

Time with my kids now is still special. It is different to when they were little, but important just the same. I don’t waste my time in sentimental regret and nostalgia. Today counts.

Absolutely naff

Yup - like my Mum who struggled so much with my brother and yet is still repeating the same mistakes, and attempting to teach me her ways, with my own son who has similar attitude. So frustrating. She’s happy to preach and quietly forgets I witnessed her struggle!

Cam be all summed by Carpe Diem! Wise two words but nothing new!

I really think I’ll look back and think these days were the best of my life, having a young to look after. But I don’t treasure every moment, some of it is hard and some of it I won’t miss.

My Mum obviously doesn’t miss it. She’ll do absolutely anything to avoid playing with the kids.

I honestly don't read it that way at all. I read it as a reminder to be grateful for the things we might take for granted, e.g. the narrator's parents are still alive, her husband is still alive/healthy (unclear how he is in present day), she has the joy and love of young children (even if the day to day reality is stressful), she is young and beautiful (how often do you look back at a photo when you were 18 and thought you were fat or ugly and realise you were very pretty?). But that's writing/language, it evokes different emotions in us all.

Oh, I agree with you. This doesn't reflect my own life. At 32 I was living in the west of Ireland and having a total ball. I was contentedly childfree at 35, too, living in London and having a great time, and though I did in fact have a child when I was 40, it didn't in fact change my life much, I continued to be career-focused and I was never some kind of mummy martyr. I enjoyed parenting him (well, I'm still parenting him in his teens), but I certainly don't ache with nostalgia for when he was small. He's great now, bloody-minded and independent, figuring out the world.

My 35 year old self gets to live this life (pain and wrinkle-free) because I made the decision not to have children... just saying.

Actually yes I agree with this. Many older people have rose tinted spectacles about their own children's childhood and c their own parenting so that rather than thinking ' oh how I wish to have that time again' they judge young parents and young people because they remember them/ society/ their own children/ parenting to be the best way.

Ahh I read it as glorifying the “young children” days and I feel it’s always that chapter that people are urged to enjoy. Rather than other chapters which might be just as lovely.

I believe that a Scandinavian study looked into whether parents of children, or childless couples were happier.

The study concluded that, as a whole, childless couples were happier. For parents of children, most of their happiness was derived from their child/ren - that they lived for them or vicariously through them; other things that provided them happiness were forgone or delayed in favour of gaining their children's happiness... Then, when the couples reached old age, those that had grandchildren were, by far, the happiest.

So it sounds like parenting is the long game, the real rewards come when your children grow up and you (hopefully) get to be grandparents. That is all a risky investment for a very delayed reward!

I have to admit that old age sucks, so I better get some grand babies.

My 32 year old self got to spend a day as an 80 year old and decided that a few aches and pains and more wrinkles were amply compensated for by leisure to lead my life exactly as I saw fit, drink a freshly made cup of coffee when it was still hot, decide to go for a walk in the fields by moonlight at 3 am if I wanted, to start drinking with friends at brunch and continue into the evening without having to worry about having a hangover at work the next day, to pick up an absorbing novel at 9 am and just read it straight through to the final page without being interrupted etc etc. 32-year-old me was deeply envious.

You can love your children and call out terrible writing simultaneously.

It actually bugs me how easily some older people forget how worrying, tiring and mentally stressful, working and bringing up kids is. It's fine to do on odd days, but year after year? Would they really want to repeat it all?

I appreciate my family, I'm proud of them and I enjoy my kids. But I'm not going to pretend it's all been sunbeams and laughter.

Who writes that garbage? Fuck that shit. At least you reached your 80s you silly woman!
Not addressed to you, OP, but the author of that turd.
I think your hormones are tripping you up big time.

Only on Mumsnet, where everybody is keen to prove how cool and unaffected they are to a group of internet strangers. Sentimentality is a perfectly normal human emotion in the real world.

Personally I thought that was the exact point of it. I didn’t see it as looking back, but more that if you focus now on all the boring bits, you might miss the lovely bits too.
I don’t think it’s meant to be some super deep commentary that women have to enjoy the drudgery - more that yes, the drudgery is there, but there are also moments of beauty and love that we should appreciate at the time.

Surely this is exactly the point of this piece of writing? Sort of 'smell the roses', 'you don't know what you've got till it's gone'? It's a cliché yes, but it's a cliché for a reason. A way to reframe the everyday.

Btw, I'm childfree and have a poor relationship with my parents, but I can still see the meaning behind the writing and why it could stir emotions despite being dry-eyed myself.

Yeah, that was a load of old bollocks as well. 😆

Clearly in the minority here but I really liked it .

God yes. I hated the lockdown so much. Though I know so many loved it here.

Agree. ^ Terrible! 😖