Was anyone else here not allowed to do hobbies?

[Eeeka]

Just reading a dance lessons thread and finding it very heartwarming.

First of all, I know I could have had a much worse childhood- but I’m really gutted that I was never able to have any hobbies.

Wasn’t wholly a money thing- but a time thing, but my parents just simply cba. They worked full time and didn’t want to get up on a Saturday morning and take me to drama lessons. I was desperate for this for years and so grateful when I could select it as a GCSE option.

Sometimes, if something worked out they’d relent and let me try it- but then the moment it wasn’t convenient, I’d have to stop. I didn’t do anything more than twice. This is why it wasn’t ‘wholly’ a money thing, as of course- them putting food on the table was more important than my trampoline lesson.

Just before I went to uni- we watched a friend’s daughter as the lead role in musical at a proper theatre and I was so insanely jealous. We were the same age. My mum kept banging on about how amazing it was and how she had been doing it since she was three, as if she had walked there herself.

I’d spoke to my mum about it over the years and she denies it, saying ‘no! You did football regularly! Don’t lie!’ when she means the half term summer camps that was used as childcare.

I really struggled not having anything I was good at or to practice. Now as an adult who has hobbies I understand how powerful they would have been when I was hanging out with the wrong crowd or having sex far too young.

Despite my lack of extracurriculars I ended up at a brilliant uni but felt like an absolute doughnut as it seemed everyone had a thing- an instrument, a sport. From 16 I was always saving up for uni or working around uni in my free time so never was able to throw myself into societies (minimum maintenance loan kid so worked an irregular shift pattern over 4 days, inc. the sports fixture day).

I love reading the threads on here about the mums who are so IN to their child’s hobbies and want them to thrive outside of school. I wish I had a little thing I was good at to keep me focussed.

Did anyone else feel like this? I know we could have had it so much worse and things could have been much more shit rather than ‘waaaah I had no drama club’

(oh and my school didn’t run any clubs either for the 8 years I was there!)

As a child it was drama and dance, anything performing

I’m less interested in that now. My interests are mainly sporty. I have done 6 marathons in the past 5 years and a few 100+ mile plus bike rides.

I was a really fat kid, the fat kid. I remember ‘jokes’ from my parents about me being a bit of a PE dodger and only doing something if there was food at the end of it.

My weight was entirely their fault- introduced to sugar and snack foods too young, food was used to occupy me. I wasn’t allowed out alone and didn’t get pocket money so it wasn’t me raiding the tuck shop.

I always thought that anything active wasn’t for me. I remember my dad taking me on long bike rides and chastising me for being tired. I was a 8 stone 9 year old on a heavy mountain bike once in a blue moon. Of course I was tired! Perhaps if they had fed me sensible portions and sent me to football club weekly from 5, I’d have been a bit fitter.

My mum did a similar thing and tried to take me
to her netball club juniors, but all of the girls there has been playing from primary school. I was shit, slow and out of puff and ruined the game as I didn’t know the rules. She didn’t take me back.

I took up running in my twenties and haven’t looked back really. I am only running 5k at the moment because my baby is small and it’s not a priority right now. But I actually don’t have a ‘big boned gene’ (their words) and I am great at physical activity and team sports.

I certainly didn’t go without. We had money for treats and always a lovely home. But holidays in Ibiza and gaming consoles and milky bar buttons really aren’t a priority. they had ample opportunities to build a healthy child but ‘they worked’ so everything came down to their convenience and what they felt like doing.

My mum did a similar thing when I was about fifteen. Some of my school leavers set up a troop and asked me to audition for an alternative panto they were doing at Christmas time. They did auditions on a Saturday and I got the lead role.

It would have been 2 buses, one into town and one out again. I wasn’t allowed because it wasn’t safe. Nor would she take me because she ‘didn’t want to commit to that every week’.

she didn’t mind me doing that for work about 8 months later, but to be fair was pretty good with lifts to that job if it fitted in with what she was doing

writing all this down is cathartic. I’ve really reflected on what sort of parent i want to be for my daughter

I was made to do too many clubs and activities and resent my dm for it. I would have liked some downtime and felt like they just wanted to get rid of us all the time. I still don’t have a long-life ‘skill’ or hobby. Moral is damned if you do, damned if you don’t! 😏

I didn't have anything either as a child. I missed out on learning an instrument, a sport, art, alsorts.

As an adult I've tried to catch up. It is so hard to learn things as an adult though.

Irony is I took my own kids to all kinds of clubs. Drama/musical theatre, swimming, instruments, you name it! And guess what? They hated it. Saw them as chores when they'd rather had been playing on the computer or watching TV.

I didn't do anything. Would have loved gymnastics or ballet. My parents were terrible with money.

On the flip side as an adult, I love trying new things. I don't do ballet or gymnastics but I love pole dancing and hoop. My son isn't missing out anything either, so I get to live through him

There definitely should be a balance.
Eg, DH's sister's daughter (so, his neice!) She goes to a posh private school and literally every day after school she has one club or other, ballet, dance, something, something, then every weekend she has horse riding Saturday then cycle club on Sunday. She can't ever visit her gran (DH mum) because the hour journey is too much with all her clubs. DH mum is use to it, but is very hurt by not knowing her granddaughter.
It's a type of child abuse in my eyes! (Dramatic perhaps) that this girl has no down time at all ever.

It's a shame you couldn't do clubs OP but I presume you played with friends after school etc?

I was allowed to start, but my parents had extra kids and I was pretty effectively made to stop: first by having to watch others who were not as good as me zoom past by virtue of their ability to pay for gradings, and second by the whinging about costs. Most of the issues were about money: some was plain ol' misogyny and sexism, as my brothers' and father's watching of football and other sports were not at all affected.

I think most working class kids have similar stories of things they couldn't do, but the Blair years slowly brought in an era of erasing our stories and questioning the validity of our lives and experiences which is still ongoing.

playing with friends isn’t really the point. But to answer your question - no, because it was the 90s/early 00s and my parents were terrified of the child abduction cases of those times. I wasn’t allowed out alone.

it’s not about socialisation- it’s about children having the opportunities to be creative or fit and develop something that they are good at.

I’d much rather had your niece’s schedule than my
own. how lovely to have all that investment into your whole self.

@RosaGallica I agree. I think Billy Elliot captures this really well. Especially the ballet class in the run down community centre.

I was allowed to try lots of sports, all facilitated by my mum as my dad prioritised his own hobbies.

I encourage my kids to try lots of clubs but on the flip side of the above, as a full time working parent, i do feel like I never have any free time. It's either housework or facilitating hobbies/parties etc for the kids. And it costs a bloody fortune these days. I do sometimes think it would be good if they stopped a few clubs, especially the weekend ones, but in the end I know it's good for them so I keep doing it. I therefore have some sympathy for people who say they won't do stuff at the weekend.

You sound so bitter OP. Is it possible that your parents may have done their best by the standards of the times, while working? Has this really blighted your life so much?

It may be that despite your best efforts, your daughter looks back and finds fault with your parenting ("She was obsessed with extra-curricular accomplishments and healthy eating - she could never just let me relax and play Nintendo. I had to be a black belt bassoon playing ballerina"). None of us are perfect parents but I always think if it falls within the range of normal parenting we should try not to judge too severely.

I did nothing extra curricular. I was very creative and did my own thing. I wanted to do dance and drama but there was never money for it because my DM refused to work. Also, she wouldn't have taken me and my DF worked long often irregular hours. I also wanted to go on school trips abroad but again it never happened because of the money. I went to museums and art galleries by myself as I got older. My DM thought it was boring and pointless.

I threw myself into anything my DS had a passing interest in. Some of it I enjoyed. Some of it I did not. But you do it because it's for your child.

Glad you are finding it cathartic OP

I must admit, I had forgotten about all this and it makes me quite cross remembering it.

What on earth are you on about?

Where have I ever said anything about overscheduling my my child or not letting her have any downtime? My
posts make it very clear that she will have the opportunities to follow her passions and I will fully support her?

Because that’s what it comes down to- the opportunity to do such things. No pressure, no hot housing. just a warm YES to anything she expresses an interest in doing and a real push to make it happen for her

I sort of know how you feel OP. I was allowed a few hobbies but they had to be either ones that my parents approved of or that didn’t disrupt family life in any way. I LOVED dancing and did go to a wonderful dance class for a couple of years but then I was pulled out or it stopped and another one was never found.

I feel so sad about that now because I still absolutely love to dance, and in the end - because of family tragedy - I turned into a very unhappy, kind of vulnerable teen who got into all sorts of messes with alcohol, drugs etc - and I think it would’ve helped so much if I’d had a life outside school (pressured) and home (miserable).

I then went to live with relatives overseas for a year and they got me into all sorts of extra curriculars and I absolutely blossomed. Thank goodness for them and that year because I went off to uni and was a new person, and I’ve carried that into my adult life.

DH and I now invest so much money, time and most importantly interest in our kids’ hobbies and I do sometimes think on how much I would’ve loved one of my parents to do that for me. BUT it was a different time, and they too had grown up in a different time, and… so it is.

I do think things were different back when I was a kid. Born mid 80s so grew up in the 90s.
Kids were expected to fit around tbr parents life's not the other way round. My mum never arranged play dates, I just played in our street.
If a club / hobby didn't fit with their schedule it wasn't done!

It's switches these days, parents are more involved. I have a friend whose weekend is taken up by her kids sport matches and she wouldn't have it any other way and I know there are plenty of people the same.
Plus... there are a ton more hobby clubs around for kids! Like so many!! Certainly didn't have as much choice when I was a kid!

This is going to sound really ungrateful in the context of this thread, but I had loads of hobbies and hated it.

I can't dance to save my life, yet I was signed up for ballet, tap and modern lessons. I found them excruciating, especially ballet because the teachers were mean.

It was a running joke in my family that I can't sing and am not musical, yet I had decades of piano and flute lessons. (I am grateful for the piano lessons in all fairness).

I was academic, a straight A student who loved reading and do have fond memories of a maths club I attended as a child. However, my coordination is non existent and I hated being shouted at, yet I had to do various sports my whole life: tennis, fencing, judo (from 7-9pm on Wednesday, followed by household chores, I was EXHAUSTED), horse riding, even rowing at some point. My family are very sporty and just assumed I needed to be but the competitive nature of it combined with my low self esteem made it torturous for me. Now as an adult I like going to the gym but won't go near team sports.

In my free time I loved things like board games, reading, coming up with short stories, even doing extra maths. I don't know why I was pushed into so many hobbies in areas where I lack talent.

This.

I didn't do any, but then again I don't remember wanting to do any. Except Scouts. And girls weren't allowed in Scouts back then, in the 1980s - I didn't want to do Girl Guides or Brownies as I considered that too girly. So I didn't do anything.

My brother did dance and theatre stuff. I have no rhythm or coordination, so that didn't interest me.

I did used to take myself off to the swimming pool from around age 9 or 10. I taught myself to swim.

My parents worked, so we were at a childminder after school when we were younger and then home alone till about 6pm when were older. There were no after school clubs or anything back then.

There weren't the opportunities in my area that there are here. I don't think that's entirely about being 20+ years down the line - I think there's relatively few things still in my parents area.
For example out of the 210 primary school pupils, you could learn the recorder or a select 4 were chosen each year to learn violin. Out of the others I remember a pair of sisters who played flute and one child who started in year 4 played the piano. I don't think in the 7 years I was at the school there were any other instruments learnt.
There just weren't the options to do them.

In the village the only options for hobbies were guides/scouts (and the younger groups), taekwondo and there might have been a junior football team on the playing fields, although I don't think there was.

But also my df had a thing that Saturday morning was family time. Not that we particularly did anything as a family generally at that time, I think he felt that we should have that time to relax, which I do see where he's coming from. But that meant we weren't allowed to join any clubs at that time. I was desperate to do tap. Probably not a bad thing I was kept away as I've tried subsequently and am incredibly bad at it. However the only club was 3 miles away on a Saturday morning so it was dismissed out of hand.

I'm not thinking my parents were mean about it. I think they did try. I remember my dsis being keen to try a minority sport. Eventually dm found somewhere. The lessons were nearly 10 miles away (which could easily take nearly an hour to get to at that time), held in a freezing hut with nowhere for her (and us younger ones) to wait at 7pm. Wasn't even anywhere you could walk to-it was in the middle of nowhere. We'd not be back until gone 9pm which was then late bed for us younger ones, and we'd have spent most of the evening waiting in the car for dsis. No wonder dm eventually said she had to drop it.

Different children do like different amount of hobbies.
For mine. Dd1 did a few and stuck to them pretty much throughout.
DD2 would have done back to back hobbies if siblings and money hadn't limited her and swapped them regularly.
And ds would have done none at all. Although I insisted he did something and actually found he liked it and for a time did more on that one hobby than the other two did overall. He still does a number of hours a week on it.

Apart from Brownies/Guides, no, no hobbies. There was no money for them. Mum and Dad never even went for an occasional drink at the village pub, let alone hobbies.

Brownies/Guides was only because I could walk to the village hall from our house. I was desparate for ballet and riding lessons. After I married we struggled with paying bills and mortgage but once we had our heads above water, when I was about 26, the first thing I did was book myself some riding lessons. Nearly 70 and still riding every week.

Interesting thread. I’m a bit bitter about not being allowed hobbies too. We weren’t short of money at all, but my dm had grown up poor, so she was always complaining things were too expensive, and she ‘wasn’t forking out for uniforms and equipment on top of lesson prices.’

I was allowed to go to brownies because it was only 50p a session, and she found me a second hand uniform. But that was about it. It was always ‘No’ unless it was at school and free.

I begged and begged to be allowed to play a musical instrument, but just got told ‘We’re not musical in this family’ - and it would have meant forking out for an instrument anyway which was never going to happen. My grandmother had a piano in her house (I’m not sure why; she couldn’t play) and every time we went round I spent hours tinkering on it, teaching myself to play tunes by ear. I could only play one handed though, because I didn’t know what the left hand was supposed to do.

Like op, I’ve promised my dc they can have a go at any hobby that takes their fancy. They do loads of activities and both play instruments. Dd won her school music competition last night, and I could not have felt prouder.

I probably do over-schedule them. But they can stop if they want to. They’re not forced to do stuff.

I didn't really take to anything hobby wise when I was really young, 2 left feet so dancing was out, terribly shy so would have rather walked over hot coals than go to drama classes...then my mums boyfriend (who was loaded) got me a block of 10 horse riding lessons for my 9th birthday...hooked!!
My poor Mum was skint, determined to make it on her own and not rely on said loaded boyfriend for any financial support (just as well as he turned out to be a twat!). When she realised how much I loved it, she saved and saved and saved to get me my own riding hat. I helped out at the local stables 2 weeknights and all day at the weekend to earn free lessons, my mum could barely afford the petrol money to run me there and back but looking back on it as an adult, I'm so grateful she did! I ended up working at a yard with showjumpers while I was at uni and now share a horse 3 days a week with his owner. Always doing it on the cheap but it's a hobby that I absolutely love. When I have DCs of my own, I'd like to let them find their own 'thing' and would move heaven and earth to help them pursue it.

My parents were the opposite and insisted l did Brownies, Guides, Music lessons and school orchestra. All l wanted to do was go home and chill out. So l try and find a balance with my daughter and if she really wants to drop something, we talk about it and let her give it up once paid for.