Weekends are for “family time”

[HarrietHairbrush]

I have read this a couple of times in the last couple of days on here.
What do you all do as a family at the weekend?

We usually divide the weekend up into quarters. Now things are reopening one quarter is dance class, one is swimming, one is soft play/museum/national trust/beach etc and the remaining quarter is just playing at home/garden/local playground/seeing friends.

Each parent gets one free morning while the other takes DD to her activities, and we spend the rest of the time all together.

This thread makes me sad because DD12 rarely wants to spend time with us. We live in a beautiful part of the country & I would love it if we could go off together for picnics, paddle boarding, trips to NT places etc etc. Hoping she will come out of her room more in the holidays

For the past 14 months, every day has been “family time” 🤪🤯

Seriously though, Friday and Saturday nights are a bit more special in our house. We all eat together, take turns in choosing the film and cosy up in front of the fire with the cats. Other dayswe tend to do our own thin, even in the house with the restrictions if lockdown.
Feel privileged that our youngest (18) still wants to spend those evenings with us. Now that things have relaxed a bit, our eldest and her family can join us to which they sometimes do. It’s lovely.

(Reading that back, we sound like the Royle Family 😁)

If you don't want to ferry your kids to activities all weekend, don't book them.

My kids do 2 sports activities each after school during the week, for childcare mainly but they also enjoy them and get exercise. I have never given them the option of 9am clubs on the weekend because we would all prefer to relax. Swimming is done as an intensive course in the summer holidays.

Our weekends consist of lazy mornings, trundling to the bakery or to M&S for some treat food (not a full weekly shop). Watching films, going to the beach, inviting friends round for a bbq or going out for lunch, cinema, swimming at the fun pool with waterslides, pony riding lessons every few weeks, adventure playground, baking, gardening. We do some stuff all together and other things are better suited to one child so we split up.

DS has a party to go to tomorrow so I'll drop him there, go for a swim on my own then collect him. DD and DH want to build lego so they'll stay at home. Sunday will be driving to a new park and getting a roast at a pub. Home for a film.

(We’re much posher than they are 🤣)

We live in the countryside, so we see the seasons changing. We gather berries and make crumbles and pies.

I live in inner London, we have seasons too.

CurryLover55
If the 12 year olds I work with are anything to go by, most don't spend their weekends doing wholesome family walks, national trust trips, and baking cookies.
Some do mornings out or a day out, many spend half their weekend either at their own hobby or at home/waiting whilst their sibling does theirs, playing on their games or doing their own thing around the house, seeing their friends, and have at least one think to report back that could make you believe their parents are the worst, most unreasonable, most embarrassing creatures to ever walk the earth.

The people who've spent the weekend at home and done fairly typical family things won't be on Mumsnet or social media talking up their weekends.

DH works Monday to Friday and I'm a sahm so we usually do something just the three of us on one day a weekend like go to the park, farm, beach etc then on the other day we visit my mum and the in-laws

This thread makes me sad because DD12 rarely wants to spend time with us.

If it makes you feel better I was clubbing at 15 but back loving family trips/days out in my 20s & still partake.
My dc are young, I wouldn't expect them to want to do stuff with me at 12 either.

Ours are teens and still fairly family-oriented. We tend to have a lazy Saturday morning and head out somewhere in the afternoon, maybe shopping in the nearest big town, NT property, country walk. Sundays are mainly devoted to sports and hobbies for all of us.

But quite often we split and one parent will take one DC to a football match or cinema (pre Covid). Or one or both of us will go out on our own somewhere, shopping or whatever. If we are going to go out in the evenings it tends to be on week nights, including Friday.

At the min we just chill. We both have weekends off so we chill as a family a lot the last few weeks as the weather has been shit.

We've built a bar and hot tub room so my DD has been playing in that and I've been sitting at the bar or getting in with her and watching a film or whatever while we are in there.

My DH sits with us and watches football if it's on and I read. It's nice. Warm enough to sit out but we're not in the rain.

I mean really if some families like “family time” that’s great. If others like time with friends, time alone, time doing clubs etc that’s fine too.

Really odd there’s some vague eye balling at what others do in some comments.

Family time for us is either a breakfast/lunch out, early morning beach time (live in Caribbean), pancakes, hanging out in the pool, spending time with family friends.

There’s never anything specific that we do, some weekends lots, some weekends fuck all.

I don't care what other people do but if you book clubs at 8am for your kids, get on with it and don't spend your life moaning about it. You didn't have to do it.

We don't use the phrase but we definitely have the concept, we have a toddler and a baby and both work full-time, so weekends are the only time we have together that isn't dominated by the getting ready battle/breakfast battle/dinner battle/bedtime battle (ah, toddlers...).

In the mornings we go all go for a walk to the local park, beach or forest. Saturday afternoon is for the weekly shop and other jobs, Sunday afternoon we see grandparents or do an activity that's too long or involved for a weekday evening - baking, painting, something like that. We don't live near enough to most of our friends but we'd quite happily meet up if we did.

I'm sure this will change as the DC grow, but for now we think it's important to spend time together as a foursome (plus extras by all means). And ours are young enough that a few hours solo parenting isn't a price worth paying for a few hours off.

I usually see family time used on here as a shortcut for "I'm fed up with DH being out at golf/cycling/football all day Saturday, and no the answer isn't just to spend as long away myself on Sunday as otherwise we'd spend no time together as a family". Which is perfectly reasonable IMO.

Not sure why some people are so arsey about the idea of family time.

Yes it's new Vs many of our childhoods because back in the day far fewer mothers worked and for those in cities, commutes and hours were often shorter, so there were better options for family dinners etc during the week.

And for people complaining about working, well that does almost always mean you have days off during the week, which has positives too.

Prior to becoming a single parent I used to try to insist on 'family time' because like a pp said,a planned activity made it a bit more likely.for then DH to get involved. It is a bit hard when you're alone with DCs as most people want either family time or to meet as couples - but then he'd never want to come out anyway so that doesn't make so much difference. But if you have a single friend with kids, I can almost guarantee that she (/he) would love to be asked out for an afternoon together some time, it can get very lonely!

Depends on the age. When they were younger it was various activities on a Saturday and a walk on a Sunday.

Now... no activities for a while but slowing resuming. We still tend to go for a walk on a Sunday.

Not something we did. Our children had parental contact and involvement every day. Sometimes one of us, sometimes both, sometimes something fun or silly, sometimes going to their activities or working.
It might be hearing their reading for school, cooking, a walk in the rain or visiting granny. We couldn’t afford nor had time for paid for outings every weekend and not allowing individual activities for each person would have resulted in resentment and conflicts that didn’t need to happen. Our son wanted to go to rugger, not to a farm park. Our daughter wanted to dance not be made to join a cinema trip
Not sure we needed to specifically and artificially create memories- they just happened and evolved as children grew older.

Actually, I suppose we did do church on Sunday mornings and that was a family activity, but not always universally popular.

@katy1213

When was 'family time' invented? I can't think of anything I'd have wanted less as a child and especially in my teens!

Really? Fair enough when you are 15, but wouldn’t most 8 year olds like going to family swimming or for a walk in the woods or on a picnic or something? We definitely did that when I was in primary school (thirty years ago), and I remember having a good time.

We live in the countryside, so we see the seasons changing. We gather berries and make crumbles and pies 😅😅😅

This is probably the most MN sentence I've ever read!
Although I suppose you could 8have said you live "rurally" 😁

Mine are older (20). They went through a phase mid teens wanting to do very little with us, but they seem to have come through that. They love a meal out, or brunch. Or cocktails now the pubs/bars are open again.

Most of our outings are food/drink related. One likes the cinema or a country walk.

If you don't want to ferry your kids to activities all weekend, don't book them.

My kids do 2 sports activities each after school during the week, for childcare mainly but they also enjoy them and get exercise. I have never given them the option of 9am clubs on the weekend because we would all prefer to relax. Swimming is done as an intensive course in the summer holidays.

I'm guessing your DC are younger than mine. Swimming here is training several times a week with galas taking up a whole day some weekends. Football is practice on weekday evenings but league games are every Saturday. They do sports clubs at school either before or after school as well. The pandemic was a welcome break from it all but I'm happy to encourage my children to prioritise exercise, and we've only got a few short years left of taxiing teenagers around.

All the people who dedicate their weekends to spending time with their immediate family, are you still wanting to do this after a year (give or take) of seeing only your family?

Maybe a takeaway or low key meal out, watching a film or tv together, playing games, walks and picnics. When it was open, the occasional parkrun as a family. We always have at least 20 minutes outdoors with our two aged 9 and 11, even if it’s just a quick trip to the local park. We deliberately avoided organising too many regular things at weekends, they just do music lessons. This means we can all relax and have mix of time doing our own thing and doing things together.