To not want all our weekends eaten up by ds's football playing?

[emkana]

Asking on behalf of my SIL actually. Her ds wants to play football, training twice a week and matches at the weekend. She hates the thought of it, especially considering she has two younger daughters. Is it a sacrifice you have to make?

Well, it had to be football for us, as we've done all the local castles and NT properties. There was nothing else to do with the weekends.

Er...friends? Hanging About With One's Mates? Going to the library? Being a Vague Pain Around The House Before Making One's Own Entertainment?

(and Beer, of course...)

I don't get the problem. There is enough time in a weekend to play sport, mooch around, visit castles, shop and eat together. We do swimming on Saturday morning, dd takes herself to orchestra,usually mooch in afternoon, and go for walks in country on Sunday.

There is no 'right' way to live, and I do not subscribe to 'life is a competition'. Different families enjoy different things.

motherinferior - don't worry they manage all that on top of football.

I think this is an interesting dilemma which arises out of having more than one child and especially children of different sexes. If the OP's SIL just had a boy (or even more than one boy assuming they both liked football) I'm guessing this wouldn't be such a problem. It's the having to take two sisters along and then finding time to timetable activities for them which is more tricky. I have to say that as a mother of a girl and a boy whose dh is often not around at weekends ands evenings to share the ferrying I have encouraged my dcs to take up hobbies they can do together and at the same time (they are two years apart) - in their case ice skating, tennis, swimming and piano. DS does play football on a Sunday morning, but on a drop-in basis so it's not a disaster if we don't make it. I also think there is a balance to be struck between having every spare minute packed with activities and having time to hang out and play - both are important.

aha but MI my kids friends play sport as well. they ADORE it they cannto wait to get on it.
When i had kids i realised this would be involved, not to would be ridiculous. I dont MAKE them do any of it, they want to and enjoy it.

Going back to the OP, yes it is unreasonable to let DS's football, at the age of 7, take over the family's weekend. Your SIL just has to realise that the fact that her DS does football doesn't mean that it takes up the whole weekend, unless she's not telling us that he's been talent spotted and will be turning out for Man Utd in three years' time.

Out of interest
How many working single parents are on this thread who do the football thing at weekends? You've all made me feel incredibly guilty about not taking ds1 I'm just not sure I can physically cope with never having a morning off

Dolly I'm a single parent working full time. Ds does a whole host of activities at the weekends - swimming, horse riding, golf, rugby, cricket, performing arts class, church choir. Not all every weekend though. This weekend he went to a friend's birthday party, performing arts class, cricket, rugby and golf. Pretty usual spread. He usually has half of each weekend day without activities so he can do what he likes at home and I can do the washing/ironing/gardening etc and/or we may go out for a bike ride or cinema/national trust.

Dolly you can just drop them at footy and pick up at the end

You'll need to check. We can't drop and collect at rugby.

You can lift share!

I have 2 dc as well
Ok I'll think about it and find out some details
If it starts any earlier than 10 it's a no though

Dolly! Dovt be so lazy !

FFS Dolly Don't feel guilty we are all different, you have to do what suits you.

I have friends who do all this ferrying their kids about, evenings and weekends and they work full time. If I did that I would collapse.

They're not wrong and nor am I. We all have to be honest with ourselves about what we can cope with, there's no shame in it.

Bit at the enormous number of posters assuming that boy=football and girl=ballet. Do the children themselves really slot themselves into such obvious gender sereotypes? Or are they influenced by their parents/parents of their friends who do still think like that? Surely its our job as parents to look at our children's individual personalities and together find some interests they might enjoy, rather than blindly joining the obvious clubs.

All kids where I live play football - there's this thing called Soccatots that they're all mad for. It's unisex till 6, then there's girls and boys, and mini rugby is unisex until 8, and that's pretty much 50/50 too. Tbh, I probably wouldn't suggest ballet to my (theoretical) DD as I didn't particularly like it, and I'd prefer my kids to get into ball sports (ballet has a really low conversion rate kids-adults) , but I guess that's me projecting as well, isnt it?

all children's activities are hideous and they give them all up in the end so stay in bed I say.

I'm afraid mine are still going strong, Hullygully-I think they will be when they are my age. However, ferrying them around is a very short stage.I don't know why I am saying 'afraid' I am very pleased that I helped them get started!

I always listen to Hully's advice for she is wise!
I'll admit that sat morning is the ONLY morning we don't have to be anywhere, I can lie in until 8.30
We did karate for a bit, thankfully they gave up after a year, but having to do the 'socks, shoes, teeth' routine every day fills me with horror.

I think that you are all talking about quite young DCs-not so easy when they start secondary school and have proper interests.

proper interests are x box and lying in bed moaning. Fact.

i have 3 dcs. DC2 is a swimmer, and spends 3 mornings (5:30am starts) and two afternoons at the pool. We have only recently got to the point of drop and go. He also plays rugby -season from september until May.

DC3 swims twice a week.

DC1 is a teenager and constantly cadging lifts here and there and off with mates.

All 3 also do Scouts.

DH is rarely home before 7:30pm.

So we make the most of the time we have. Saturday lunchtime and SUnday lunchtime are family meals, we sit for an hour and chat and catch up. When there are no swim meets, or tournaments, we go to the movies or out to dinner. Weekends where there are no committments and good weather, we we go camping.

You have to make time for family get togethers, but its no sacrifice to take a child to an activity that they love, and to watch their pride when they compete (and win).

How sad though to have a child where the highlight of their weekend was a trip to macdonalds, or playing yet another computer game?

Bloody hell Hattie! Smug much?

I would certainly consider 5.30 am swimming starts a sacrifice! (As well as the time taken up in the mornings, I'd have to sacrifice a couple of hours of my evening to get enough sleep.)