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 wouldn’t mind build a bear so much if the toys were nice - but paying that amount for something as ugly as that? No way

I was recently midered for a bag from Smiggle and I just could not let DD choose it - almost everything in the shop was absolutely hideous. DD got the most tasteful thing I could find

..any type of 'kitchen business' than takes up hours of precious relaxation,costs an ungodly amount&yields suspicious looking results..especially when its used as a means of kids fundraising for their own away-days..I even had a Montessori mum call me out on my daughters"homemade"vegan sausage rolls at the last fundraising event ok so i bulk bought them on special&my daughters stall sold out..(&im not even sorry #bestJoeyquote ever)..
Routinely ignore pandering and passiveagressive attempts to coerce
my hard-earnt free time from me&into working bee/one of about20 other ways to basically hover around the school&spy on your kids-or gossip about school crap-nope i work to pay you to do that job.
Dropping teens off at mall only to be met by other parents-every time- who want to lurk around incase their teen"needs them"..hmm im sure that letting kids grow up&figure it out for themslves is parenting 101.

Why is it so sad if kids haven’t been to a theme park? I don’t remember going to any until I was in my mid-teens and my school did day trips to Alton Towers!

I managed to grow up absolutely fine without having to be at Disneyland Paris, Legoland or Chessington World of Adventures by the minutes or whatever. I can assure you I was by no means deprived!

@omgthepain

no mould here either. they take up food & drinks, bring stuff down on the next trip down.
it's inconvenient when the teens take up stuff late at night then don't get up past midday so porridge or similar dries on crockery but it's not the end of the world.

I have to say these habits were rare before the first lockdown & all the zoom learning.
then it became a necessity because sometimes they & DH couldn't get away for hours on end to get a drink or a snack so everyone helping themselves was much more preferable than me doing room service!

and once you let your puppy sleep on your bed you will never be able to kick out your grown dog.
but it's no big deal

@irresistibleoverwhelm

Why is it so sad if kids haven’t been to a theme park? I don’t remember going to any until I was in my mid-teens and my school did day trips to Alton Towers!

I managed to grow up absolutely fine without having to be at Disneyland Paris, Legoland or Chessington World of Adventures by the minutes or whatever. I can assure you I was by no means deprived!

The sad part is PP saying she didn't play with her kids!!

Being forced to hang out with their cousins.

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

Never bf as just the thought made me feel sick. Especially as I can’t stand my boobs being touched.

Never been to a theme park (would like to but can’t afford to)

Never given pocket money just buy them things every so often.

Never taken them on a plane.

Never had a sleepover as one of my children has sn and can’t cope with it.

• no crayons since the red letter death list on wardrobe incident and the story of the orange crayon shavings in the tumble dryer

• no bloody Halloween, no pumpkin carving or trick or treating. we are not Yankees

• never read them bed time stories (I have my reasons)

• never invited full class to a birthday party with an entertainer and I always hated to stay through them for others

• never potty trained them (well, tried exactly for a day with DS1 and only for a single time with DS2. disaster). they stayed in nappies for a bit longer then went straight on the loo.

allowing and even encouraging weeing & pooing in the living room while watching tv and literally anywhere else but the bathroom is alien to me

• never promised anything in terms of gifts or what we'll do on x day or what's for dinner etc. they have never ever whinged "But you promised!"

We don’t send or make thank you cards . Fussy affectation

Wow. Saying thank you’s an affectation? Presents would be an affectation if I didn’t get thanked for them.

No whining
No dogs - they smell
No Christmas pjs
No Disney theme parks

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba

- no crayons since the red letter death list on wardrobe incident and the story of the orange crayon shavings in the tumble dryer

• no bloody Halloween, no pumpkin carving or trick or treating. we are not Yankees

• never read them bed time stories (I have my reasons)

• never invited full class to a birthday party with an entertainer and I always hated to stay through them for others

• never potty trained them (well, tried exactly for a day with DS1 and only for a single time with DS2. disaster). they stayed in nappies for a bit longer then went straight on the loo.

allowing and even encouraging weeing & pooing in the living room while watching tv and literally anywhere else but the bathroom is alien to me

• never promised anything in terms of gifts or what we'll do on x day or what's for dinner etc. they have never ever whinged "But you promised!"

Won’t read them a bed time story 😢

Spare us your head tilt and face. Will no one think of the children who get shop bought cake

No

Elf
Xmas Eve Boxes
Pets
Arts and crafts

But I'm fine with

sleepovers
Sharing my bed
Baking

And I love to Euro Disney

@OnTheBrink1

I didn't say "I won't ".
not sure why you felt to
a, misinterprete what I said and
b, add a tearful emoji
it's offensive & there's no need for you to be sad over things you have no idea about

I did lots of imaginary play, messy crafts, sleepovers and cake baking.

But what I refused to do was read stories before bed (instead read to them on the sofa downstairs in comfort after school), allow any small people in our bed, or do emergency trips to school during the day to drop things off that they had forgotten (even if that thing was lunch). They soon learned not to forget things.

I don't do board games. I hate them. I did try briefly when they were small but the combination of my hatred of the games and their inability to play properly ensured that I never went there again.

I DO role play and love it. I have a multitude of characters which I 'do' on command.

There's the weird little girl who lives in the garden and is absolutely horrible and bossy...and the scary man in the long black cloak (invented by DD when she was 7) and he visits and stands spookily in the corridor...they love him and scream when he appears. and lots of others.

I also craft, sing and happily play running around games.

Premise of thread is deviation from majority. It’s not inviting face or angst
It’s simply folk saying the things they do that aren’t the expected norm
Reign in the faux angst & sympathy

I just couldn't bring myself to suck the snot out when they were babies and really bunged up, before they could blow their noses.

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba

- no crayons since the red letter death list on wardrobe incident and the story of the orange crayon shavings in the tumble dryer

• no bloody Halloween, no pumpkin carving or trick or treating. we are not Yankees

• never read them bed time stories (I have my reasons)

• never invited full class to a birthday party with an entertainer and I always hated to stay through them for others

• never potty trained them (well, tried exactly for a day with DS1 and only for a single time with DS2. disaster). they stayed in nappies for a bit longer then went straight on the loo.

allowing and even encouraging weeing & pooing in the living room while watching tv and literally anywhere else but the bathroom is alien to me

• never promised anything in terms of gifts or what we'll do on x day or what's for dinner etc. they have never ever whinged "But you promised!"

You do know that Halloween was always a European thing right? Celebrated LONG before the English colonised the US? Yes, they glamourised it and made certain images synonymous with it...changed it in the process...but carving turnips is an ancient custom...pumpkins just look and smell better!

@TheWashingMachine is that actually a thing people do?! I feel sick.

PerciphonePuma Meh I never took mine to theme parks! Load of old crap...expensive and dangerous. I also never played board games. I did other stuff.

@EspressoDoubleShot

Premise of thread is deviation from majority. It’s not inviting face or angst It’s simply folk saying the things they do that aren’t the expected norm Reign in the faux angst & sympathy

@EspressoDoubleShot

exactly. thanks for posting that.

😱😭 and all that is just tedious and unnecessary.
nobody should be made to feel like they must defend their choices!

• care about socks and the wearing or not wearing of them
• encourage submitting to stupid rules. Just can’t. If they are stupid and the child makes a good arguement then they can break the rule even if I made it.
• follow my child around on the playground/soft play.
• worry about what reading book band they are on

I don't have many. The only ones I can think of are I only cook one meal, you can take it or leave it, and I didn't really do snacks when they were little. Now I have a 12yo DD and a six foot two 16yo DS this has gone out of the window.