It’s all such bloody hard work

To your last point, what if a couple really loves travel and wants to do an extravagant holiday because they really want to go to a place or have a particular experience? Should they abandon their passion for 18 years and wait until their kids are no longer dependent? Forgoing your needs for the sake of not spoiling your children - isn’t that just another example of the ‘martyr’ behaviour that parents are expected to engage in these days?

DP and I don’t have kids yet, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to have boring ‘child-friendly’ holidays for 2 decades. If we want to go to Patagonia or Japan or Tanzania, then that’s where we’ll go, child or no child.

I can honestly say it's not like that where I live (but I'm not in the UK). Kids birthday parties are either at home with pizza, cake, sweets in a bag after and games. Or at a hall/ swimming pool for a play in or out, pizza and cake. In the winter it's at the nearest hill for sledging and grilling hotdogs on the fire. Gifts are small, cards are drawings and parents sit around and have coffee and eat cake.

My on didn't want a phone until he was 12, kids just knock on each other, they go to the football pitch on their bikes and come home when they're hungry.

I talk to friends and family in the UK and I'm so bloody relieved it's not like that here!

You are so right! I am 50 plus and I don't think I ever had a birthday party as a child. I remember once going to the local shop with my sister on my birthday and buying a big bag of ready salted crisps! I don't remember ever feeling hard done by.

I loved my childhood and I actually feel sorry for kids today. They always seem to be bored!

I hear you OP. I remember at my daughter's 10th birthday party at a bowling alley. One girls brought her mobile phone along, and because none of the other kids had a phone (yes, it was a decade ago), they just flocked round the phone looking at content rather than doing anything else. Luckily I was able to ask the girl to put her phone away.

Now my kids are older, we struggle so much to find something to watch together, because they can just watch stuff tailored just to them on their devices. ...and I hark back to the 'bad old days' when you'd watch any old shite with your parents, because...well..there wasn't much alternative amusement.

I read this and think when did women get so bloody wet? Why can't you say no to your kids/tell them to sort themselves out/no they can't have a party that costs £500?

I also never, ever did any dressing up bullshit for primary school. I hate everything about dressing up, I was perfectly able to have a conversation with my kids about why I wasn't doing it (we both work FT, I'm not buying crappy nylon superhero costumes off amazon and no I don't have time to go to a charity shop) and they are fine. If they really, really wanted to do something then we might have had a conversation about it, but sorting out nonsense for primary school is fairly low down the list of things I care about at the end of a day.

And since you ask, I do judge parents that go all out. I mean, your holiday of a lifetime shouldn't be before you're 16 IMO. Otherwise it's downhill all the way....

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Now you have to cut bloody veg sticks, have fresh sandwich fillings ready and available, constant healthy ‘snacks’ (I swear my mum never carried or offered me a snack?!). No you don't - I don't. My lunch boxes are generally crap. My kids are ok.
Birthday parties. They used to be straightforward and fairly cheap and now they’re all about balloon arches, ‘wonderlands’, themes and elaborate commissioned cakes. I don't think I've been to any kids birthday like this and I certainly don't do it for my kids.
My husband will watch sport and the kids have to watch it or play.
My six year old comes into my bed sometimes and the amount is reducing all the time. My 9 year old doesn't at all. I'll miss it once it doesn't happen any more.

I do see the points you make but at the same time you don't have to go along with it if you don't want to.

Theme park is the worst possible advice ever...what a bloody nightmare that would be. There is nothing more likely to make kids (even normally calm, well-behaved kids) have a meltdown than the over-stimulation and plastic tat that is everywhere in a theme park. Taking other people's kids as well just adds to the trauma.

Well, yes, the things mentioned on this thread cost a lot of money - big birthday parties with elaborate cakes, endless Christmas activities from grottos to pantomimes etc. Out of the choice of 1 child and being able to afford nice activities and lots of holidays, and having multiple children and being able to afford those things less, people are increasingly choosing the former.

Lunch boxes I do as basic as possible, prob frowned upon what I put in but I don't have time for fannying around.
Parties, only ever done 1. Tend to just do family stuff, days out.
Do agree with the playing, when my kids play they tend to want me to join in so not much chance to get on with anything. But then I feel guilty if they are sat on their tablets.
Rarely have the TV on, we only tend to watch stuff when kids in bed.
Kids haven't been in our bed for years. Occasionally woken up by youngest when poorly.

School, nursery and toddler groups encourage children to ‘snack’ and have lots of snack times so they expect it when they’re at home. There’s nothing you can do to stop them.

It used to drive me made - but did say no at home - or re-directed to milk.

I also got fed up with dress up days - it got expensive fast though usually did amazon or supermarkets - but even red/blue/green/sport top we often didn't have and had to go got often at very short notice - (thank fuck for amazon prime and actual next day delivery in those days).

Did parties every few years - did range of paid for experinces and at home - all were expensive and stressful though kids had fun.

They went to bed rleatively early so I did get to see adult TV.

I suspect if you could sort the 3 am waking you'd get more sleep and it would all feel more managable - I don't know what to suggest - any idea of the cause - food/toilet next door getting up for work otherwise it's putting back to bed every time which if she sharing a room (which we found better for sleep that age) is diffcult.

Yep, and in schools, the kids can't read by themselves, chat to each other, basically do anything without an adult guiding them. Lovely lovely kids, just absolutely dependent on adults

There's a lot of people making a lot of money out of all you parents. Make non commercial things fun again. My friend and I would roam freely, climb trees rtc etc. and I stuffed my face with lollies and cakes from the baker. I grew up happy, with friends and s partner and nice family.. I didnt grow up stark raving mad.

At 11?? I was still collecting POGs! 😂

When Britain achieves "Net Zero". We will be living in caves wearing heavy clothes and no makeup as hairgrowth will be encouraged to keep warm.

No it's money and house prices. Pretty much everyone I know who has limited their families it's been because of space and childcare costs.

What would also be helpful is if school lunches were healthy and nutritious by default. But they are not.

We don’t do elf on the shelf. That was a red line for me. But I am not exaggerating when I say that we are just about the only ones around here that don’t do it. My kids are always pouting around Christmas about the fact that they don’t have an elf.

I refuse to pretend the fuckers are real. I literally will say I just don’t have time for it. And it makes me feel bad that they are disappointed about it but Jesus Christ, it’s about the only thing they don’t get

I presume this is why more and more people are choosing to remain child-free, or having just one child? When I was in school in the 1990s, there were two children in my class who didn’t have siblings. In my nephew’s class (8 and 9 year-olds), about half the pupils are onlies.

Shirt tucked in to long skirt?

Exactly. What do you enjoy about parenting OP? Maybe focus on that and do more of it!

Could you reframe it?
You don’t HAVE to make healthy lunches, you get to. I still make my teenagers packed lunches, because I know they are eating healthily that way.
Why don’t they play outside? Plenty of kids still do…Can they be encouraged to?
oh, and editing to add, sleeping in your bed should be an absolute no, take them back every time.

That's why they invented phones and computer games!

Yes, definitely capitalism.

The other ludicrous obsession with this young generation is over priced water bottles. The Air Up trend, for example, was ridiculous. My DC were in the definite minority in not owing one in their respective classes and I felt like a tyrant, but honestly, I do not want to spend £30+ on a water bottle and then have to go to the effort of procuring flavoured refills when the old ones ran out. Evidently, however, there were plenty of parents who were willing to.

Surely a lot of this is internet and social media driven. It’s capitalism, sparking desire for stuff we don’t need then charging ridiculous prices. Like the £23 lip gloss for schoolgirls.