that weekends and free time are solely about the dc?

We have one 7yo boy.
DH works full time
I work part time.
I take son to martial arts three times a week after school and he has footie once a week after school.
He has martial arts Saturday morning and swimming Sunday morning.
My DH does martial arts three times a week including Saturday lunch time and I do the gym three times a week and choir Wednesday evening.
The rest of the spare time is out for meals, seeing friends together or separately. Going into the city, park etc or just chilling if we can fit it in!
If we had more than one child, there would be less activities I guess or more together combining the time!

Hmm I do try and do stuff for myself on the weekend yes, otherwise I’d go mad. Last weekend for example was this:

3 kids aged 10, 8 and 3 so a broad range of needs. Pretty typical weekend:

Sat:
Me - parkrun am, DH had kids
Home for an hour or so of family time.
DS1 - to London with a friend
Me - to work
DH - took other 2 swimming
5/6pm onwards - all home, hang out, bedtime, chill

Sun:
DS2 piano lesson and family time am
PM: DH oversaw the boys - DS1 had friend over. DS2 went to a friends’.
I took DD aged 3 to a birthday party so had to stay due to her age.
Evening: family time

Sunday I was meant to go for a 4 hour training walk and then to the osteopath but had to cancel both for the kids’ activities.

I have FAMILY TIME recurring every Sunday in our calendar. We do a good job of it around everyone else’s commitments and social lives. I feel like I see the kids far less than I did as a SAHM but DH sees them much more since I went back to work.

"Do the things our family enjoys instead of the things yours does, that's good parenting cos we're good parents".

That's what those posts say to me.

If your toddler enjoys dancing, take her dancing. That's good parenting. When you have small children I think the majority of your life does end up revolving around them, because they need you to centre them. It'll pass.

Make sure you manage to find some time for you and your relationship, even if it's just daft things like watching a film together after bedtime or playing a board game or a video game (we like mario on the switch). But don't put too much pressure on yourselves to do "special". Take what you can get and enjoy it. You'll be fine.

I don't know anyone who doesn't do some sort of extracurricular at the weekends tbh... its not just football. Music, drama, art, dance, swimming, Parkrun, climbing, Martial Arts, Scouts, cadets l, watersports etc... especially as teens when evenings don't cut it and they want to do stuff with friends.

Ballet and football you sit and watch them. If you do some more free flow activities you and your kids do something together. Who will have the happier childhood memories?

Such is life. My kids do other sports which don’t rely on me being stood on a windswept pitch freezing to death every weekend. We go MTB with them and other friends, geocaching, orienteering, park run, wild camping, wild swimming. Think outside the box! Join in with your kids and their friends and their friends families. That’s good parenting.

If they’re sporty then it might be when they’re 25 😁😁 my fil comes along to my sons games now when he can.
more seriously, I feel when high school sport takes over it’s more drop and run, and it depends on the activities. Competitive basketball here requires at least 3 parent roles per game- videoing, scoring and spotting plus team manager as a permanent role, so that could go all through the teens. Junior athletics requires parents volunteer for 60% of the afternoons, but they’d be doing senior athletics in their teens and that might be less.

If you refuse to do weekend activities basically your child can’t play football or any competitive sport. All the good leagues play weekends where I am- eg the weeknight leagues are nowhere near the competition level for basketball, and of course football , athletics and cricket are only weekend games. I would never cut my child off from that, I can’t call it good parenting either. If you need weekends to be about what you want to do, don’t have children.

Never liked structured clubs at the weekend. Did a few years of weekend swimming and just going back to water polo on Saturday for 12yo. Hate having somewhere to be. Prefer park, coffee shops and seeing friends

I refuse to do weekend clubs . They do after school ones. Never have in 21 years of being a parent
Weekends are for relaxing or days out. Not tied to being places imo

We don’t do classes at the weekends. Just say no. You’re a person too OP, not just someone’s mum!

It stops revolving around the kids when you decide to revolve it around other things. Of course they'll still need looking after, but you are choosing to spend virtually all your time doing things that are focused on the kids, and that's your choice, not the way it has to be. Your friends sound like they have got a better balance.

We've also purposefully kept our weekends free of regular activities.

Main activities are - swimming after school during the week, piano lesson during a weekday morning (at school), dance lesson at lunchtime on a weekday, French club after school on a weekday, 2nd instrument on a weekday at school.

Weekends tend to be DC friends parties, park visits and sometimes days out and weekends away. Last weekend we spent Saturday walking around a nearby city admiring the churches, followed by a matinee theatre visit, Italian restaurant for dinner and then back home and bed. On Sunday we pottered around the house.

This coming weekend we don't have any plans for Saturday, we'll probably go to the park and on Sunday DC has a play date at a friends house. We're always a bit quieter at the weekends at this time of year and we really enjoy it after the busyness of December.

I also share your stance on swimming lessons OP. We pay £20 per lesson (between £80-£100 per month). If we had to, I'd cut back on everything else before giving up swimming lessons.

At weekends both children have activities like swimming, sports and so on on both mornings

When mine were little we didn't do clubs at the weekend, only ones after school. If you think this is too much, then stop some, but I presume you are happy with them or you wouldn't have signed up!

Mine never had private swimming lessons. They had lessons weekly at school from reception to y6 which was handy, and then we took them swimming as a family.

But yes, families with one child, will have their weekends much more like they did before kids and the more kids you have the more it swings towards kiddy stuff. We had more than your 2.4 average...!

I’m a part time worker as well with a young dc and a baby on the way and even I just don’t really understand what your OP is about.

Seems like you just want reassurance you have a great life just because you work 2 days a week and have 2 kids and do lots of activities.

I’ve noticed a common theme of “oh it must be so easier with just 1”

You haven’t given much info about your friends, maybe they work more than you and have less free time?

Your life is always going to be different to others because you’re a different person. Not better not worse just different

I absolutely agree with you. I don't think we do kids any favours by not showing them that parents are humans with needs and wants too. Having all and every weekend centered on just the childrens wants is unrealistic. It's healthy for kids to be bored sometimes and it's healthy for kids to see their parents enjoying themselves with other adults.

I honestly think the going to friends houses and drinking a bit of wine while the kids run riot is a godsend. Children need unstructured play and also to see adults enjoying socialising with other adults.

We mix it up. Our son (5) has Stagecoach on Saturday mornings so we take daughter (1.5) shopping or to the library during that time.

The rest of the time is split between house chores and either playing games indoors, going to a park, museum or National Trust or visiting people.

We do our own hobbies in the evening when the kids are asleep.

With limited childcare options the kids sometimes have to do boring stuff like come to B&Q or ‘help’ with DIY and, honestly, we also can’t afford to do fun activities every weekend but… eh… that’s just life sometimes and I don’t think it’s a bad thing that the kids learn that sometimes we need to dust or paint a wall or do the gardening.

I have one DD who is 3 and so high energy it feels as though all day we are running to keep pace with her lol. DH and I don’t have luxurious weekends where it’s easy and lots of brunches and relaxing with movies. On top of full-time work for both of us, we really are quite occupied at the moment. I wish we had family support but we don’t.

I’m one of three and my parents made sure we had the basics, but didn’t really entertain us on weekends and such beyond that (weird, I know).

That’s such a bold statement and it’s not one size fits all.

It’s not easier to carve your time out with just one kid if you are a single parent
its not easier if your child has SEN
it’s not easier if your child is disabled
its not easier if you are working full time, compared to a mum of 2 or 3 who only works part time
It’s not easier if you have zero family or friend support network, vs a parent with multiple kids that has grandparents who want to babysit whenever you need them too