Does anyone have weekends like this anymore?

@Ranoutofideasfortheelves

do you ever go out with your friends at the weekend, OP? @Ranoutofideasfortheelves

@AmateurDad they will always be little boys in my head lol .i should correct it to young men....🤣

Teenagers…? :-)

Normal weekend I'd say... I'm not on Instagram so can't really see what people are up to there.

No true, it didn’t say that you’re right- and of course you could have been making chilli and lasagne and walking the dog with/ for an arsehole of a husband.

It’s just the juxtaposition of the cosy, homely activities you describe against the social media instagram stuff - it’s just so peak mumsnet.

For the record your weekend DOES sound lovely and it’s perfectly possible that the amazing looking activities that get posted do not accurately reflect what’s going on in those people’s lives. I’ve done it myself - posted some pictures that look amazing from what was actually an incredibly stressful day. I’ve also posted things that look amazing because they actually were amazing. But we also have a lot of weekends where the most exciting thing is a trip to the park and that’s just so normal that it’s really hard to believe you genuinely thought NOBODY has quieter and less expensive weekends anymore or that your DD really is genuinely missing out. But if you really did think that then hopefully there’s been enough people telling you otherwise to reassure you.

The thing about social media is, @Ranoutofideasfortheelves - say you’re following 30 friends on Instagram (and it’s probably more than 30 let’s be honest). Out of those 30, 15 might have a quieter weekend like you had this weekend- and they don’t post anything about it. Out of the other 15, they have a busier weekend- some of them, maybe 10, usually have a quiet weekend but have had a one-off long awaited big plan this weekend such as seeing Santa, going to a light trail, going to the pantomime. They post about it this weekend but hadnt done anything last weekend and won’t again next weekend. The other 5 are maybe the busy types who do something every weekend. But when you scroll through Instagram while relaxing in the evening, you see those 15 people who have done something big this weekend and in your head “everyone” is doing “loads”. When actually some people are doing some things.

I am sorry that I obviously touched a nerve with you

I think you have projection issues, judging from your rather rude response.

the real world, my dear, is the world we are living in right now, not your vision of the world as you remember but conveniently forgot some very important details to fit your narrative.

Or maybe, it's your real world where posters living at the time complain about being awfully bored and dreading weekends because they were doing nothing and only knew boredom while mummy was cooking and cleaning and daddy napping on the sofa 😂

If that was their experience, thank god they moved on from that and have an interesting life for their children.

Grand ideas are funny, just completely ridiculous and not appropriate for actual kids.

Careful. My post got deleted for only saying precisely this.

So you stayed in this weekend. But you also have Christmas activities planned so presumably you will be out those weekends. And yet people who have posted on instagram do nothing other than go out? Well done for staying in this weekend. Hat and a balloon to you

But it isn’t relaxing you? It’s stressing you out to see what others are doing and compare yourself?

Everyone is different, OP. If you are happy with your weekend and they are happy with theirs then no one is better or worse than the other.

Sorry but I agree it was a little braggy, like you want everyone to say what a wonderful engaged parent you are with all the crafts and wholesome activities.

People do weekend like this all the time, they just don't put it on Instagram 🤷

I know v few people who have ‘big city’ weekends.

Homebody is ‘in’, everyone seems to have the kind of weekend you do and be on about ‘protecting their peace’ etc

I think weekends are a bit different when you have multiple children though rather than just 1

I think you know precisely what your original aim was. You just got busted.

true, but from posters who do NOT have children, or had theirs decades ago so posters with a lot of grand ideas and no clue about the real world 😂
What kids actually do like to "go on walks"? Or enjoy the National Trusts walks? even I am bored out of my head 😂

Please explain to me how someone who had their children decades ago 'have a lot of grand ideas but no clue about the real world'?
We've been there, done it and lived in the real world longer than you have!
Or did The Real World only start when YOU had children?

Surely people can do both if they have the money and want to? We have plenty of weekends like yours, but have also done London theatre and Lapland this year. People are hardly going to be Instagramming about watching Home Alone, sewing and faffing about with a computer – they post the noteworthy stuff.

The small stuff really IS the big picture!

There absolutely is a certain mumsnet sensibility that holds that children should be outside on bracing walks, they need to be 'run like dogs' (bonus, there's even a dog in the OP!) or otherwise doing quiet crafts at home. Anything else is just not the done thing you know?

true, but from posters who do NOT have children, or had theirs decades ago so posters with a lot of grand ideas and no clue about the real world 😂
What kids actually do like to "go on walks"? Or enjoy the National Trusts walks? even I am bored out of my head 😂

Same posters who insist that "kids must learn to be bored" after their bracing walks 😂

Back in the real world, kids go to clubs, sports, hobbies, parties and the one half day parents have free during the entire weekend is a Christmas activity and everybody is having a great time. Not punished by being stuck at home in your kitchen to be a good wifey. No one likes that.

That's why I think the posters who call the OP smug are funny but don't have a clue.

I disagree, where I live all the events are mostly booked up and they’re full of families having a nice time, not taking a load of photos for instragram.
When my DC were growing up we did multiple Christmas activities every year so this is normal to me.
I think lots of people do really want and need to get out at the weekend and making a lasagne etc isn’t enough for them.

A lot of those posts and pictures where families are out doing pretty things are just that, pretty, designed for the Instagram etc., I think that the majority of families will relate to. and/or envy, your weekend. When ours were small they maybe got a Santa visit in the Co-op and a pantomime between Christmas and New Year.

Previous posters have explained exactly what it is in the original post that feels smug. It's not the activities. It's the loving husband, the crackling fire, the cosy snuggling up watching Christmas films before tucking into the hearty home made lasagne etc etc.

It's exactly the type of thing written to appeal to mumsnet sensibility that hates anything they deem as tacky, commercial, any newfangled Christmas traditions which are, shock horror, 'Americanised'. There absolutely is a certain mumsnet sensibility that holds that children should be outside on bracing walks, they need to be 'run like dogs' (bonus, there's even a dog in the OP!) or otherwise doing quiet crafts at home. Anything else is just not the done thing you know? Notice her DD wasn't on a tablet, they were watching Christmas films which is still screen time but the acceptable, wholesome family kind. And adding in that these have been seen on Instagram is perfect, because then everyone can tell OP that every other family who does these things is only doing it for the shallow social media likes, that her weekend is actually the perfect one. And if you look, sure enough she's had plenty of those posts which is exactly what I was expecting when I opened the thread and was easy enough to predict if you hang around mumsnet too much like I do for any length of time.

I'm more surprised that people called out the possible smug tone honestly, I felt it but was only expecting the praise and social media bashing, and it's very possible that's what the OP was expecting too. I'm not saying it was deliberate, and it's a shame if it wasn't because the OP maybe did need a little bit of reassurance/ validation and it's not the worst thing in the world.

I'm at a place right now where the weekend described in the OP sounds totally normal and not particularly aspirational to me. It's not about the activities particularly. I've been through some really shitty things in the past though, and times when the weekend the OP described would have seemed like nothing short of an out of reach idyll - a loving partner, a child and a dog, food on the table and general cosiness - that's still absolutely incredible good luck in this world honestly. And of course you can post about it, I'm glad the OP has that and I'm generally happy that other people are happy, but to post about it in a 'this is all I've got, what a shame, am I really so unusual?' type way is just plain disingenuous.

Oh dam, we only had 2 hours to practice our Guatemalan nose fluts before putting on our hand knitted organic gnats wool jumpers , if only I could take my daughter to aldi to sit in the car while I spend my benefits on shite , like other people , feel soooooooo inadequate!