What small things make a family?

[DahliaLoveMe]

I was a very, very late surprise baby, and although my parents were good in their way, they were long past the small child stage. Consequently I was quite lonely and bored, knocking around in a house that was more like that of my friend's grandparents than one where you'd expect a small child to live. Trips and family/child friendly events didn't happen either, everyone else was an adult.

I used to feel jealous of my friend's cosy family homes. I remember thinking that in "proper families" they had the following

Bunk beds
At least three rusted old bikes lying around the garden
A biscuit barrel
Those brightly coloured posters with the alphabet or numbers stuck up in the kitchen
Plastic children's plates and bowls
A clothes maiden
Smell of baking

Some of these are obvious, some are a bit odd and I have no idea why they fall under the Proper Family list!

Does anyone know what I mean? I was thinking about it today because I was looking for one of the alphabet posters for my own kitchen

I don't know. You're probably right op but for some reason all these examples make me feel like I can't breathe. Baking, shoes everywhere, mum at home after school, fridge magnets...
I get what you are saying about the school play thing, and eating them to be as exited as you were, and I agree with that. But the other stuff just feels ..I don't know..like Mum disappears into a chaos of primary coloured mess and packed lunches. To me family is just about having each others backs. That's all.

I’d literally just climbed into bed feeling sad, frustrated and defeated at the state of my house and reading this has made me feel all warm and fuzzy and I’m smiling tat actually, what I have is s family home 😊
There’s the smell left lingering from the roast dinner, there’s ‘art work’ from today’s rainy day drawing on the dining table. There are wellies piled up by the back door, bags of apples from the tree and a fridge full of left over crumble. The washing basket is spilling over and there are puppy footprints all over the floor...I could go on.

This thread is lovely 😊

@DahliaLoveMe I understand completely! My parents loved us in their own way but they’re not really “kid” people and nothing was really geared towards us. If you had looked in any room other than our bedrooms, you wouldn’t have guessed that kids lived there at all (bar the odd family photograph). It was their house and their lives and we just slotted in around it. I was always jealous of families that felt more homely- it’s not the alphabet letters per se, but the warmth and thought behind it.

I was talking recently about taking my DD to soft play and swimming and my mum commented “oh we never did that sort of stuff with you”

Like a pp, I’m planning my career so I can hopefully work part time hours and be available after school at least one day a week, partly because I never had that as a kid.

The whole family gathered around the TV watching something together, like Saturday night TV. It happened very rarely for me as a child but when it did, I loved it. Just a small thing but lovely to do.

I don't think children are a necessity to be called a family at all Purple, the thread is just about what individuals consider to be a sign of a family and that is going to vary from person to person.

It is quite heartwarming that a lot of the things mentioned are the small, everyday stuff and not large or expensive items/trips.

Nicknames and little family codewords - you know, where little Susie mispronounced spaghetti and that version has stuck for years.

Art work and crafts on display. I used to dream of a beautiful aesthetically pleasing house but in reality I have the crafts from art club and cubs on the mantelpiece.

Sweets on a Sunday in church. Always a packet of fruit pastilles and we had to be ever so careful not to make any noise. We don't go to church but we have a sweetie box that the kids get to pick a treat out of on a Friday after school.

My children will probably say shoes everywhere and nerf darts in unusual places. Places in the house...not in the body!

This thread has cheered me up after a stressful day
For me it’s:
Sitting at the kitchen table doing homework and chatting to my mum while she cooked dinner
Getting into parents bed for cuddles on a Sunday morning
Sitting round in pjs watching a film and playing a board game/ cards.

Looking at my welsh dresser with all my beautiful homemade treasures!!

Nerf darts in unusual places. Nailed it sunnysidegold

A fleet of bikes in the garage, school/club notices pinned to the fridge, fish fingers & pizza for tea,
Shoes & school bags under the hall bench, too many chargers for Nintendo’s and laptops, plenty of noise.
I love it

I think it's about children being "centred" in the family, somehow.

Dh and I are still a family as the two of us.

The OP is clearly talking about ways of centring children in family life, so if you don't have children, you don't have to worry about whether or not they're missing out on this (seeing as they don't exist).

That doesn't mean a couple is any less of a family.

People are being a bit disingenuous.

Along with nerf bullets, I'd add random lego.

Yes lego creations dotted around the house and the odd random brick to catch out barefoot victims.

I don’t know. Probably baking? I had a fucked up childhood.
For DD...I’ll have to ask her. But I’m afraid I’m one of those parents who kept mess to a minimum, my house has always been absolutely pristine and DD has always envied her best friend’s messy house, think 5 kids, beer cans, loose rabit in the house, piles of washing up and half hanging kitchen doors. She loved it there.

How funny...and refreshing!
All the things I berate myself for are actually the things that make our house feel a home. Things like the ever present clothes horse, the dining table that is always covered in stuff other than food, the cluttered hallway etc.
This has got to be one of the best threads in a long time. It has completely refrained my perception of my home.

*reframed not refrained.

Loose rabbit in the house

Love this thread. I was always obsessed with these types of families growing up. I had a happy childhood but our house was very quiet.

I always thought that families like these had 3 or 4 children who all had nicknames. Lots of good natured teasing. Lots of traditions "we always do this every Christmas" type thing. Biscuit tin. Basement or attic. Kids have lots of Independence and freedom but parents lovingly in the background. Car has a name.

Also it was probably exactly this type of family image that led me to have a third DC. Out of the list we have

Snack drawer
Fridge full of magnets/photos/ school notices
Kids artwork up in kitchen
Bunk beds
Clothes horses
Baskets of washing everywhere
Big piles of little shoes/ hats/gloves
Lots of random bikes/scooters/balls etc
Plastic plates etc
Arguing, laughing, teasing all day

Thanks for making me feel better about the utter chaos/ sibling fights etc

Cake mixture and licking the bowl

You cut I choose

Running down a cold hall to turn on electric blankets (although we don’t have any)

Sneaking up for bedtime cuddle (we didn’t but my 9 year old does)

DH said the other day that we really need to get a biscuit tin

My mum was always pulling random things out of her bra - famously once a pair of nail scissors that she’d stashed away from tiny hands. She did it while stirring a pan on the hob with my baby sister on her hip and my toddler brother trying to crawl up her leg - I always thought she was super woman.

I have happy memories of baking - everyone piling in to “help”
Birthday traditions - we could choose a special cake design and she always surpassed our biggest hopes and we made a birthday chair
Dad making things in the basement and the smell of wood dust, paint and glue
Reading and shelves of intriguing books
Cats
Awful holidays in a caravan in wales, going out in the drizzle to find conkers
Apple crumble and custard for dinner when we were all ill

Interesting thread!
Growing up we didn't have much money and lived in a small messy house on a small estate with neighbours and their kids calling in and out. We also saw lots of our cousins. I have some nice memories but my mother spent a LOT of her life and our childhoods incredibly stressed about just about everything so not always particularly enjoyable.

We have an only child and we live in a far nicer house than either dh or I grew up in. Dd has lost of space in an old cottage with outdoors space and lots of pets. I work whereas my mother did not, but I make far more effort to make traditions and memories for dd than i had growing up.

I cook nice food everyday and make sure to cook things she loves, we bake and the house smells amazing.
She has a beautiful cosy bedroom and I loved putting her to bed as a small child and thinking how lovely her life was. We read to her every night for years and years.

For me I like to think that her sense of family is coming in from being out with friends at the weekend and I am in the kitchen with the radio playing classical music, cooking something that smells delicious. Fire lighting in the sitting room, candles lighting, old dogs snoozing on the sofa, cat on the chair. Dh pottering about. They are happy times for me

My lovely DP are now in their 80s so I grew up in a different era of parenting and I was lucky to have such a happy childhood.
I credit my lovely DP with my being able to parent my own 3 dc all with additional needs.
The things I did differently than my parents, a really relaxed routine, pets, lots of cuddles, more treats and more involvement at school, more 'mess' and always being supportive of their choices then being around to help pick up the pieces if it went wrong.
Pictures on the fridge, piles of books, toys in their room on the floor, a pile of leaves, conkers, pretty stones, seashells on the corner of the kitchen surface ready to be stuck on pictures.
My DC are all adults now and very occasionally I still find a shell behind a bookcase which transports me right back to having 3 under 5s

For me it's:
a cat
plants in various stages of growth (sprouting sunflower seeds, grow your own tomatoes etc)
definitely alphabet on fridge or foam alphabet on bath tiles, spelling silly messages
clean, matching, children's duvet sets on the bed with a posse of cuddly toys arranged
snuggly blankets for watching TV
special drinking cups and glasses
A big kitchen or dining table for doing craft work, sitting up for a biscuit, milk and a chat etc after school.
Lots of craft stuff - paints, paper, glue, scissors, junk for modelling, giant boxes saved to turn into rockets and boats etc.
Lots of story books and a bedtime story snuggle don the sofa every night. We managed to keep that going until they were in Yr 6!

Always put children's art work in pride of place. Use the knobbly misshapen presents they make for you.

Have special songs. I always used to play Here Comes the Sun on the first day of sunshine after long periods of rainy dark days. The DC groaned but they loved it too.

'Family cuds', where the three of us (I'm an only child) would form a circle and just hug.