To want to keep Sundays free?

[emy72]

We have 4 children, eldest DD1 nearly 6 and youngest 13 months.

Our life is understandably manic and we seem to spend very little time together as a family, mainly due to the older two being at school AND being invited to playdates/parties/joining out of school clubs etc...and it's only going to get worse when the younger two start school!

Is it unreasonable to introduce a rule where SUNDAY for example is a day for family only and we don't accept any party invites or playdates or any activities involving only one member of the family?

I feel mean to do it, but I am finding that the younger two are getting to spend less and less time with their siblings and there isn't much time to bond as a family...any thoughts?

Grrr, meant movie night! Not suggesting that you move house once a week!

I won't permit clubs and activities on weekends, although DD has been doing swimming - but only because it is at 9:30am on Satmorning and doesn't interfere with the rets of the weekend, and even then she misses it lots when we go away - infact stopping it at Christmas as missign so many.

But I wouldn't prevent DD from going to a party or a special "playdate" on a weekend.

But we are often very busy during weekends with family or friends so we have to work around things anyway. This weekend we have friends staying til Sat night and then my parents coming Sunday. I think our weekends are taken up now til mid December!

So much food for thought! Thanks!!

I suppose people are right that it's actually also for MY benefit, as I am a taxi service all week and I work too so it would be nice to have a day off the treadmill....where we can do something chilled/to suit us. I like the idea of a special "night" a week too!

I don't mind at all having family and friends coming over to the house on a Sunday by the way, but that's different really!

But I suppose I am not going to say NO if my kids' have a special thing like a parade, a one off event or a best friend's party.....!!

Hulababy "won't permit clubs and activities on weekends"

??????????

How extraordinary. Do your family feel like they are in some sort of prison?

If my husband forbade me to do any activities on a Sunday we wouldn't be married. Suspect he feels the same.
For me doing activities is relaxing and how I enjoy myself.

cat64 that's probably true! At the moment you always have to STAY at friends' houses/parties, so we don't get the benefit!!!

stubbornhubby - lol, erm no, they don't. Both my Dh and my 8y DD ar more than happy with the arrangement that we came to together, as a family.

I just simply won't sign DD for extra curricular clubs on a weekend. We do loads of other stuff instead, just not regular set clubs and activities. We go away a lot at weekends, visiting friends ad family, or day trips or weekends away. As we have discovered with the swimming - which DD does do and has one for a year or so no as first thing on Sa - she ends up missing way too many of them so it is pointless and works out very expensive too, per lesson.

Why would I want to sign DD up for something knowing she'd miss most of the sessions?

Likewise me and Dh don't do anything regular and set activities on a weekend either, for the same reasons. Although DH did play squash on a Sa morning first thing when DD was at swimming - again, no problem. He plays golf but gets o pay loads during work hours so doesn't feel the desire to play at weekends TBH, although sometimes does as one offs when a particular friend or his brother is around.

We still do masses of stuff. Our weekends are generally very busy, packed and fun.

DD still goes to all parties she is invited too, even if at a weekend so long as not previously engaged elsewhere with something that can't be changed. Infact she is at a party this Saturday and the weekend after too.

We also meet up with friends and family who also have children, many who are her friends too. We just tend to do it as a family at a weekend.

DD does loads of activities and clubs. She does drama (two different clubs), piano, climbing, swimming, scrapbooking, brownies and has at least one playdate a week too. It just happens that we arrange these for the week, not a weekend. Sghe most certainly isn't missing out!

And special activities are not out either. As I said parties are fine, weekends away such as school weekends away she has one in a couple of weeks), or brownie trips, etc. all fine.

And me and Dh have nights away too, together or seperately - am off to the Spa soon whilst DH and DD go golfing and to the cinema; Dh recently had a boy#s weekend with friends.

We just don't do clubs and set activities on a weekend. I don't think this is controlling or a prison regime. DH feels the same - it was something we decided together when we realised the family time is precious.

Maybe I wrote the sentence in my first post wrong.

Maybe it would be better if I wrote

"We, as a family, have decided that we don't do clubs and set activities on a weekend." Is that better?

cat64 - I am very gentle and not strict in he slightest. If you knew me in RL you'd quickly see I'd never be one to forbid anything! I am a push over really, lol.

sunday i don't leave the house unless i have to (apart from the garden)

if there is a party or a special occasion i will attend, but other than that it a chill down day ( my oldest is 4 so no doubt will change in the future)

hulababy - shrug - well your choice.

seems odd to me. my DS likes to play rugby, would be odd to have stopped him all these years, just because rugby is played on sundays...

Agree with Tootlesmummy. Ours are older now but the one thing that has remained fairly sacrosanct are family meals at weekends - and we try to have at least Saturday dinner and a late Sunday lunch.

stubborhubby - I guess if when you meet there is something already taking plae it is different, but for us this it isn't the case. DH used to play cricket but he stoppped doing that not long after we met, before he went to uni.

As I said - it works for us.

I can't imagine having our weekends so regimented by one person's plans personally. But then we ae so busy as a family over weekends and often away from home from Friday to Sunday anyway, which would be curtailed massively if one of us had such an activity.

But, as you say, each to their own. veryone does what suits their family - and for our family, it is not having a set activity or club on a weekend that works best for us.

"Everthing has to be "scheduled" if you have an only sadly"

Eh . Why does it? We have one DD and don't schedule much.

NoelEdmundsHair - I agree. I have an only and our weekends are not scheduled. Playdates, etc happen as and when too. Her after school stuff is but that is not linked to being an only.

YABU, I would just take each weekend as it comes. More generally, I kind of dislike all this talk of 'family time' 'our family' 'we as a family' etc- it's this implied model of 'our little family against the world' but that's just me being mean, perhaps .

I do think though that it would put unneeded pressure to have to stick to such a rule if at any time it doesn't (for whatever reason) work on any particular weekend. Why put extra pressure in your life when you already have enough with 4 children & all the busy-ness that involves?

Hulababy - well I am guessing that your children are still young enough for you to exercise that kind of relentless inflexibilty.

But children are people too -- and one day they might want to do some kind of activity that just happens to take place on a sunday.

what if your DH said that from now on you had always stay home on a Wed. becasue it was 'him' time?

What happens when your child has to fit in with something or miss out, though? At school I directed a play and the boy with the lead role couldn't make half the rehearsals because he had "family time" (we had to pick two nights a week to rehearse and one of these was 'family night' - and, despite their boy landing the lead role in a play, the parents wouldn't change which night was 'theirs'). We almost recast the role (and would have done without hesitation, if there had been another boy with the capability to take on the role). Agree with whoever said that some time each week is good, but works best if it's flexible.

Stubborn - I'm sure Hulababy will deal with her "relentless inflexibility" when the time comes Sounds like she and her DH and DD have a lovely time so stop worrying about them.

Maria - I'm with you in disliking all this "our little family" talk - especially when it comes to Christmas when "our little family" means sod everyone else especially PILs!

stubbornhubby Thu 28-Oct-10 15:02:45
Hulababy - well I am guessing that your children are still young enough for you to exercise that kind of relentless inflexibilty.

But children are people too -- and one day they might want to do some kind of activity that just happens to take place on a sunday.

what if your DH said that from now on you had always stay home on a Wed. becasue it was 'him' time?

--------

First of all - it is not my relentless inflexibility - it was a choice, me and DH made together. I do not rule the roost, we are a partnership of 20 years. Neither of us says what the other can or cannot do, we make decisions together on the whole, and respect one another's thoughts and decsions. So your last question is irrelevant. DH would never insist I stayed home any time; me likewise.

My DD is 8yo. So far this works. When she is a teenager and not reliant on me and DH to take her places things may change I agree. But she is currently 8y so this is, as yet, irrelevant. All the clubs and activities she choses to do can be done on week days so never been an issue. She isn't into competitive sports, which are generally on weekends, so ahgain - not been an issue. She does do one off activities on weekends - parties, special playdates, special one off type activities - but we just don't set anything in stone.

I repeat - why would we set up a set club or activity when we know from the outset that DD (or us) could not attend them all?

It isn't inflexibility - it is practicially and common sense for our family.

maybe you don't mind your weekend ruled by an activity played by just one member of the family. But this wouldn't suit us at the moment. I presume that it is okay for my family's situaion and wants to be different to those of your family?

But for me and DH, and currently DD, our weekends are often spent very busy visiting family and friends and AWAY from home.

I am not sure, stubbornhubby, you are actually reading what I am writing and the reasons behind our JOINT family decision. Or maybe you are chosing not to understand what I am writing. You insist on thinking it is MY decision when I have said already it is a JOINT decision.

And beleive me, all three of us in this family are very very happy with the way our life works at the moment. Long may it continue.

Zombieplan - DD hs had school events take place at a weekend, but this is generally wither one off, or in the case of the school play, short term. We worked around it and she went.

It is the set in stone, have to be at xxx for yyy time that we don't want interferring with our weekends at the moment. Because we are so busy as it is we simply can't sign up to do that as we'd miss too many sessions when away.

I understand why you want to do this. I don't like to have all the weekend days taken up with just hanging around the house (I know you aren't suggesting this) or toing and froing from activities. If we have a free day we make sure we go out as a family. I probably wouldn't ban parties though! As the eldest in a large family I really resented always having to do what the younger ones wanted, and would have gone mad at missing parties!!

hulababy - it just doesn't sound like a family decision. it sounds like a parents decision.

yes, my kids are teenagers, if I said they couldn't do some worthwhile activity just because it happens to take place on a sunday they would be just as as I would be if mrs stubborn told me I couldn't do something because it happened to be a thursday.

I am all for family time but, really, I don't see how it can work to enforce a specific random day.

Seriously if your DH told you you couldn't go to badminton (or whatever) because it was Tuesday, wouldn't you be a bit .

I can imagine a MN thread 'my DH won't let me go out on Fridays' and scores of posters saying 'he's a controlling bastard, read Lundy wossisname and leave the git'

So

• family time: excellent, we do that.
• weekly house arrest [hmmm]