What parenting things do other people do that you absolutely refuse to do?

[FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop]

I never bake my kids' birthday cakes. I can buy a very good supermarket one or pay someone to produce something that looks better than what I can do and has cost me less.

I won't do role playing with them. There are no scarier words than "mummy will you play with me - you be the dog and I'll be the owner". I apparently do it ALL WRONG anyway, I usually say something like "instead, why don't we do some painting" or I even say I'm busy. And I thank God every day the days of playing tea parties are over. Me perched on a very uncomfortable toadstool seat pretending to sip tea from a singing Fisher Price teacup for 2 hours and doing it wrong anyway 😂

I second the matching family Christmas jumpers/PJs. It freaks me out.

I never went to antinatal classes as in my view they would come out one way or another.

I am so glad I went to ante natal classes. I had a textbook labour - mostly luck, but helped by the fact that I understood what was happening to me, and I wasn't scared. The classes at my local hospital were brilliant and massively helpful.

I wouldn't recommend not going to ante natal classes TBH.

@EspressoDoubleShot

I see some posters are doggedly defending their habits & preferences Spectacularly missing the point of the thread. The strap line is What parenting things do other people do that you absolutely refuse to do? that’s pretty explicit clue in the title, esp absolutely refuse. Expect to read that one of your enduring habits or preferences is not undertaken by someone else. Expectation is you read it, think oh,really and move on. Not that you rock up and argue and name call , vehemently defending the foible or habit you place so much value in. You’re not really going to convince or disavow someone of their opinion.

But thats how conversation evolves threads move on. You can see it many times on here. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Elf on the shelf
Bake bday cakes - shop bought are much better!

I refused to take DD on holiday to Centerparcs. Holiday parks hold zero appeal to me.

I feel like this thread really separates the stay at home parents from the working parents

Barely holding it together here…

No elf on the shelf (and when asked, I'd give a long lecture about civil liberties and point out the elf is incredibly creepy).
No naughty step - in fact, no using of the word naughty.
No CBeebies (pretty much only let DS watch Thomas and a strict time limit on that)

I don't think Christmas boxes were really A Thing when DSC were little, but WTF would you want to stoke the already nuclear levels of excitement and insomnia on Christmas Eve? The only thing I would have wanted to put in a Christmas box is Valium 😉

Absolutely nowhere in the thread does it state "What do you not do that the majority of parents do?"

Just "What do you refuse to do that other parents do".

Seems like a different focus - not "how special and different am I" but more "what things are you either too lazy to do or disagree with on principle?" - some of them are silly things like birthday cakes! I mean surely nobody actually cares whether other people make their own vs buy a birtday cake for DC? It also implies no judgement on other people doing it, just says I cba with this thing because it's very dull to me/I see no benefit in it.

Some people do allow things that others would see as rude. I probably do let my DC get away with things that some people would see as rude. I don't find it rude and they are perfectly polite in contexts where it matters, so it's not a problem IMO. But I know my standards are different for example to SIL/BIL who have been openly critical at times about the way DC are allowed to speak to us.

Lemon thank you but I was referring to the film set! I'm not particularly fussed about theme park rides (in particular). It was just a flippant example of a day out DS1 and I have been wanting to do but DH has no interest in.

Oh I have one.

I don’t let my six year old out in the estate on her own to go to the park etc. I feel she’s too young for that. But several of the parents here just seem to open the door and let them wander

A lot of these fun things are things my parents didn't do with me and I want my children to have a different experience so I've always played with them, role playing etc. It's easier now they're 13 and 11 and it's basketball/football and video games. Except I'm rubbish at all of them but they still ask me to play! And the cakes have gone from character themed ones (one of them had Minecraft characters that sort of wrinkled so they looked like Minecraft version 15.0: The Care Home. Now it's big chocolate cakes and Victoria sponges. Much easier!

Won’t be kicking them out at 18 or refusing to let them return home for holidays etc. Nor will they pay rent.

We stopped the Elf on The Shelf/Dinovember/Tooth Fairy (just give the £2 now) a couple of years ago. But we never did the behaviour thing with the Elf, just the fun stuff like loo roll everywhere, etc. I much admit it's much easier now not having two months of thinking of scenarios for them!

I love how many posters have now made it a thing to mention wether their child gets a store brought birthday cake or home made I’m actually neither I suppose it’s leaning more toward home made but I go to a lovely cake lady (yes that is what she is saved in my phone as) who makes delicious cakes, and can do any theme you want!

What on Earth is Dinovember?!

Won’t be kicking them out at 18 or refusing to let them return home for holidays etc. Nor will they pay rent.
Surely people don't refuse to let them come home?? That's very sad.
I won't be asking for rent. I appreciate that some people might need to do it if money is tight though.
I think if they are earning then I would encourage them to save the money they might have spent on rent, to go toward their house deposits.

@EspressoDoubleShot

Thanks *@lboogy* i do indeed mean all my dc had their own bedroom (nursery) from birth. Never slept in our room. Christ no

It caught me off guard .. then I thought maybe you're American since I know some parents do put their kids in nursery from just a few weeks old Glad that's all worked out

What on Earth is Dinovember?!
During the month of November the dinosaurs have always come out to play in our house.

I refuse to pander to sleep so if in a hotel we either book two rooms or keep them up late. None of this sitting in the bathroom drinking or sitting in the dark so they can sleep. I cannot believe it when I see parents sitting in a hotel bathroom so their kids can sleep.

Elf on the shelf - CBA.
Snacks. Or even proper mealtimes at weekends. Little bit of hunger isn’t the end of the world.
Nightly bath. No. She has stupidly thick hair, it takes several hours to dry.
After school hobbies & clubs. She does the school sports stuff, £1 for an hour of fun sport, couple of times a week with a teacher. We get to pick her up later. Win/win.

No plate clearing

No 'because I said so' - I will always give an explanation even if it isn't up for debate

No sharing a bath

Yes to gentle sleep training

And no martyring myself! I think kids do better when they see Mummy's a person too

@EspressoDoubleShot hold on, you've just said 'expectation is you read it and move on' but then you retorted to the poster who said about ff that there was nothing wrong with ff? And when she said that she never said there was, she was just replying to the thread, u called her defensive?

You cant have it both ways...

Role playing, thankfully she's never really asked me to do this
Baking, I'm useless, my husband buys the kits instead
Let her watch Peppa Pig
Christmas Eve box
Elf on the shelf
Arts and crafts, she does plenty of that at after school club
We don't go on holidays aimed at children, yet shes loved every single one, Mexico being the favourite as she loved Chichen Itza
No kids music in the car
We started putting her to sleep in our room upstairs in an evening from 10 days old, also had a bedtime routine which she still follows now age 4
Didn't do any baby groups and she started nursery at 8m old

@SmidgenofaPigeon you'll be a great Mum!

@81Byerley thank you so much for that xx