that weekends and free time are solely about the dc?

Please don't question yourself based on these other families. You sound like a brilliant mum who's organising an amazing variety of activities for your children.

Spending a day at the weekend shopping and chilling would be fine occasionally but would be dull as dishwater if you did it regularly.

Crack on with what you're doing and enjoy the time having fun with your kids. I promise that you'll blink and they'll be teenagers before you know it!

Some people function better with structure and routine.

Some people need more downtime / freetime than others.

Some people are natural homebodies. Some people have kids who need to be out of the house a lot.

There is no right or wrong.

We have one more DC than the OP and mine are older but this week has been x2 ballet, x3 football, x3 various after school clubs, a theatre trip, a school disco, x3 swimming (plus normal school and workdays). Life is busy with children but we are earmarking a PJ day this weekend as we have nothing planned on Sunday. Next weekend we are back to back all weekend.

There is no hard and fast rule.

Ok... but staying at home, getting their stuff out all over the place ( aka as trashing the house) is what kids love to do...

I’m thinking back to when my kids were two and four - they’re 21 and 19 now but I remember that age well as we’d just moved to a new area.

Dd did swimming lessons on a Saturday morning (ds started too at 3 but at 2 he watched with me). On the way home we did the weekly shop at Lidl. Dh generally stayed home on Saturday mornings as he had health issues. For that reason we didn’t tend to do National Trust type stuff at weekends either, just when we were both on annual leave.

In the afternoon we would sometimes pop to the park or go shopping in town, but generally they played at home/ in the garden. They played together quite well. It was pre-tablets so screen time was more easily demarcated and they usually watched an hour or so on a Saturday afternoon/evening. They always had a ‘pick tea’ on Saturdays which they enjoyed!

We went to church on Sunday so that filled the morning, followed by a roast dinner, with my brother. Afternoons they played at home and then we were back at church in the evening and home for bed.

Definitely no meals out for us! Once ds was 3 we used to sometimes go to the cheap cinema showings for kids. It wasn’t a very exciting life I suppose but it was chilled enough! We did Saturday morning swimming for 7 years so that structured our Saturdays!

You said it Priove it

Love that that's the only thing you've registered from my post. Speaks volumes.

Off to take my child to do something now 😁

Where did I tell OP she's doing it wrong? Please quote me

It's not my job to tell you how you could have done things. The same way it's not your job to tell OP she's doing it wrong because it wasn't your way. Or to pass judgement on whether my family were or were not well off when you know nothing about them.

I simply said that you made a choice, other people made different ones and you've gone in the attack. That's another choice from you.

And I told you we took it in turns to go to events with other competitors and their families. I had kit for birthdays and Christmas. I got sponsored by local stables because I was good. Wouldn't have known I was good if I hadn't been allowed to do it in the first place.

Small northern farming village is where I grew up. We made things work.

Growing up without a car... I spent a lot of time on buses and trains getting all over Kent to athletics competitions, music practice, swimming galas, Guides

Easier for my parents in a way because by 10 years old my brother and I could go in different directions to our things without having to rely on our parents driving us.

And that's fine But then the side effects of that is having no time for other stuff

As I said before my eldest two were into cadets. You still haven't told me how I'm physically meant to have facilitates all this.

So you took yourself to the show jumping then? And paid for the kit as that's at past the means of many working clas people.

I wonder what you think people did with their kids when the majority of them didn't have cars. I grew up in a village. Bus twice a week. No family car. Most of our friends the same. So kids didn't do anything much they couldn't get to themselves

So what did you want from this thread? You like life, don't want to stop the activities but...?

I had a lot more free time when my kids were small. I have 3 (now teenagers) who are all sporty so weekends are spent getting to and from matches (I also coach one of their teams so extra commitments there). When they were 5 and under weekends were free for family activities and meeting friends and family my 5 year old had a sport activity early in the morning but that was it, weekends were lovely.

I am very much from a working class background. When I was small we had one small income and sometimes didn't have enough to buy food for the week.

I got into riding because my dad's family were farm hands and I could hop onto the horses while there with them. And then they made sacrifices to enable me to do it. It turned into show jumping later. But if they hadn't made those sacrifices for me, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

I'm a big advocate for children having downtime but equally if they express interest, you make it happen for them.

How the hell do I get to know the other parents then without taking 3 kids to one thing when 2 of them will be bored rigid. And many sports teams do expect you to turn up every week

You enlist help from other parents of kids doing the activities. They don't go every single weekend, they take turns.

Things like football there will be other parents there. Riding there was a class of 4 of us and another class of 4 at the same time, so 8 opportunities to provide support to one another.

It can't be everything but there is ways and means. There are some pretty famous faces raised by single parents of multiple children who clearly managed to get them to the activities they now excel at and do professionally.

You chose not to. Fine. Don't judge parents who choose to.

My son's father co parented him. My daughter's dad didn't have anything to do with them.

Do there wasn't 2 of us parenting.

What would have happened to your sister while you did the show jumping ( can tell you are not from a working class family lol) if your dad wasn't around and sometimes your mum had to work and leave you 30 miles away with a grandparent?@

And I do t think there was much they would ALL like. Not sure what a 13 year old girl could enjoy the same as a toddler boy

I think it depends on the nature of your child/ren as well.

I have one 3yo (pregnant with #2) and it is hard work being at home for prolonged periods because she doesn't want to entertain herself and just wants me to play game after game with her, even more open-ended art/craft activities don't hold her attention for very long.

She does do one activity for 45 mins on a Saturday morning just to get us up and out, and then our weekends mainly look very much like you've described your friends' - walking round the shops, out for lunch maybe, park if nice weather, just anything to keep us out and about for a few hours. We do the odd bigger day out too but here and there - I'm not sure we could cope with doing NT/softplay-type days every weekend.

That said, I completely get how the things that we do at the moment might not seem to doable or even enjoyable with 2 children to wrangle. I'll update you next year 😂

How exactly do you facilitate 3 kids doing different things every weekend and a job that involves weekend work then? I'd love to know.

And they did have interests that took up weekends. Once they could get themselves to them They also did stuff in the week when they were younger. Just because you don't devote every weekend to kiss stuff doesn't mean they don't partake in anything. When they were smaller they did brownies on Tuesdays for example, one did church club Thursdays etc

And there are also lots of single parents who find ways to support their child's interests. It's choices and just because people's are different to yours doesn't make them wrong.

You chose not to let any of your children pursue interests that took up weekends. That may have prevented them from finding something they loved/were brilliant at. Other people facilitate absolutely everything which might result in children burning out. Both are extremes and there can be a balance.

Yet there are heaps of parents ( both here and irl that are slaves to their teenagers wants

I was a single parent and the only driver. Even when living with my DDs dad he worked most weekends.. Lots of people are in similar situations