What are your top tips for making family life work ?

I don't need to negotiate stuff that far in advance though. Not necessary. We see each other every day.

Why though maidamess? Why does it mater? What difference does it make?

Seriously, I'm interested.

Talk
Be affectionate
Do fun stuff: all together; with DP (if you have one); on your own

Loving the objectives and negotiations, but no management consultants in this house...

No, it's not regimented because it's not decided from the top. Everyone participates in the process - lots of discussion and negotiation and compromise.

But yes, I do think family life works really well that way, all the best-working and happiest families I know do it that way... so I copy

Ah, it's another world...

I mean, if you want you and your children to actually have proper opportunities in life and go places, you need to think ahead. Eg you don't just wake up one day aged 18 and say "Hey, maybe I should go to university in the US" and apply and get in.

You know that much.

Living day to day / month to month just doesn't cut it.

And when each member of the family has medium and long-term projects and ambitions, the rest just falls into place IME.

I would schedule my marriage....if I was a completely different person...(probably a better person with more money)

Oh yes, housework overrated. Move next to your kids' school. Drink wine.

what do you mean?

Not wankage Cod. Unless you want you and your children to rot in middle England somewhere

I think it matters if your kids draw on the walls! I'd be flipping fuming!

When I say manage/negotiate, obviously that means 'have frequent rows that degenerate into swearing a lot'...

I agree Hassled. Explain stuff to your kids.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

A tidy house is not important. It doesn't matter if your kids draw all over the walls. It doesn't matter if the sofa gets sticky marks on it. It doesn't matter if the beds aren't made. It doesn't matter if your DC decides not to wear a coat one day. IT doesn't matter if you ignore them sometimes. You are allowed to put yourself first.

LOLOL at you lot anf forward planign objectives
waht wankage

I do think, seriously, that quite a lot of the time in practice, for a lot of us, it doesn't work. The key thing is to try and manage/negotiate, day by day, something that is vaguely workable for everyone. And yes, in practice that also means that not everything is a compromise or a team effort; sometimes one person loses.

Don't care what anyone thinks about the way you manage your family, especially not your in laws.

Keep your MIL at arm's length from the outset and make up your mind very slowly indeed as to whether you wish to get closer to her or not.

Oh I know that MisDemeanor, and I'm enjopying the fact that my life is far less stressful than people with spouces, it was just the wording in carrie's OP that made me rather annoyed.

It was the assumption that all families involve a parenting partnership, or at least everyone with tips for making family life work would have a parenting partnership.

My tip? Ditch the waste of spase husband. Then family life will work.

You might be able to have it all, but you can't do it all. If doing it yourself is important to you, you won't be able to have it all simultaneously (but you might not care, either)

Does anyone make it work?

Cor.

Ah, OMDB, just think of it as one less stressful element of family life you don't have to negotiate! Of course you are a family, but in many families, difficult/useless/wellmeaning but annoying blokes are a real issue. My own mum was a much happier, better parent as a single parent.

Explain stuff to your kids. Try to never say "Because I told you so". If you explain it thoroughly enough, drawing diagrams if necessary, they'll fall asleep, thus resolving the issue.

or are we not really "families"?