to think having children is not like it is on the telly..

[RedHotPokers]

Spent ages yesterday blowing up paddling pool, filling up to brim, adding water toys, ready to watch my DCs splashing around for hours having fun and jolly japes, just like on the telly .

What actually happened was DD had a tantrum after 30 minutes because it occurred to her that she may be using up her telly time by playing outside and DS got cold after a nanosecond and wanted to come in .

Took the DCs for icecream and to the park today, smugly awaiting their little joyful faces at the sight of the HUGE bowls of ice cream, and the prospect of fun in the sun.

In reality, they whinged the whole way to the park becuase their legs were apparently hurting, DS didn't like the shorts he was wearing, and DD had a huge tantrum because apparently DS's ice cream looked better than hers .

And I could bore you with many more examples, of fun things that should result in happy DCs, but actually ended up in grumpiness, whinging, stropiness and tears and not just from the DCs. Factor a cross DH into this, who apparently is 'fed up with how ungrateful the DCs are', and felt obliged to tell me this at regular intervals throughout the day, as though it was somehow my fault.

Is it just me/our family this happens to and is everyone else having a happy TV family type existance? Just once I would like to have the happy day I imagined

I was out today - did you spend the day with my family?
Ydnbu

But if you look carefully they only show the telly families for a couple of minutes...cause even telly families would be like this after 10 minites

nope, just posted elsewhere about having had a friend's BBQ wrecked (for us, not the whole thing) by DS being crap. We thought we'd had the terrible two's at about 20month but they seem to be rebounding now he's 2.9. He bit DP who shouted "fuck" really loudly next to someone else's 2 yo . We left soon after. Join me and the other lady on the other post in a

No, I had today planned, go to argos, buy paddling pool, take home, blow it up and like you, put the kids in it and sit back whilst the kids enjoyed splashing around. Didn't realise the foot pump is broken, paddling pool is fecking huge and I don't have an electric pump. Spend 40 mins trying to pump it up, whilst kids sat there in the swimming costumes getting cold, then gave up and sat I'll buy an electric pump tomorrow. It's not got well.

So not just me then, phew. Do you think it's ungrateful-ness on the part of the DCs or just their age?

DSs (12 and 10) asked to have the water pistols out. Lovely, running round squirting each other, much screeching, all v amusing.

Fast forward ten minutes. DS2 has been squirting water through DS1's upstairs bedroom window, and the whole of the downstairs back windows are running with water. Huge row erupts over whose fault it was.

YABU. Our family is scarily similar to the one in "Outnumbered".

Like MM - I was going to say life is like the TV family in this house, but the TV family that is on Outnumbered. I reckon they've got most of their ideas from watching my family, somehow.

Maybe you're all watching the wrong programmes? Haven't you all seen the episode of SATC when Charlotte and Trey have a family over for dinner and all hell breaks loose? That's pretty accurate.

oh thank goodness, thought it was just me!

Please please dont take any offence from this question. Do you and your dh both work out of the home?

It's just that I'm at home with my two and my expectations seem to be far lower than my dh - he spends 50 hours a week away from them and seems to expect them to behave like they are in some kind of homes and gardens feature.

Whereas I know everything will be shit

Last year DP and I took the 3 kids on a dream holiday to Cuba. The DC's were 15, 12 and 10. We thought they would love it and have a whale of a time.

We are not rich by any means and this holiday (which cost thousands) was paid for by me doing overtime, 12 hour days, every Saturday and nearly every Sunday, for nearly a year. It killed me, but it was going to be our last holiday as a family as my overtime was coming to an end and we couldnt afford to pay for another holiday.

Anyway, gets to Cuba and the DC's spent nearly all of their holidays in their room watching TV. they complained about the pool, "he's splashing me, its too hot/cold, tell him to stop flicking water its getting me wet (its a fucking POOL)" The hotel was boring, there was nothing to do, they didnt want to go to the beach, didnt want to watch the shows, didnt want to go to the disco.

We payed for 2 activities which were not cheap either, speedboats, which 2 of them hated and moaned constantly, and a visit to a local town which included a meal at a hotel, they moaned about the coach, the heat, the town, the meal, the drinks, the shops, the trinket stalls, everything. We wanted to look at the iconic buildings and cars, which is not very exciting for children but DC1 said it was boring and went and sat back on the coach - this from a boy who was doing Travel and Tourism BTEC!

I spent a lot of that holiday in tears and i think I should have just gone to Benidorm and paid a fraction of the cost. They were just so ungrateful.

MaeMobley Have you borrowed my son? He is Ben from outnumbered.

YANBU OP. I'd join in the whinging but I dare say if my mother could use the internet properly was here she'd tell me I was a little monster as a child and never grateful for her efforts.

LEAVE THE B... Beautiful little things.

:o

YADNBU! This has happened to me more times than I care to recall. You devise what seems to you to be a beautiful treat and it all goes horribly wrong. I'm not saying it never goes right, just that when you've arranged a really lovely activity and they whine or have a tantrum or make a fuss, that's what stays in your mind. FWIW, I think what works best is if you just invite a couple of other kids around and let them play together in the garden (esp in this weather). Keep it simple.

Yesterday DP and I got to sit in our communal back garden. I was imagining sharing a beer in the sun while our three cherubs ran round.

Instead we treated the whole block to our children's incessant demands for food/ drink/ toys. Then they started screeching about... God I don't know what ...then the wailing began.

Windows shut all around us, people left the garden. And after 20 mins we packed up and went in again

I don't get why people expect their children to be "grateful." If you were in a situation where you had little or no control over your life, where you had to go to bloody school every day where you had pretty much no control at all, where you were told by people taller and more powerful than you all the time what to do, what to eat, what to wear, when to go to bed, when you could watch tv, what chores you have to do, and then you were told to be "grateful" for things you didn't necessarily want, would you be?

Did any of you actually ask what the children wanted? The idea of paying out a huge amount of money to go somewhere when it's not clear the children really want to go there and then expecting them to somehow repay you with their endless gratitude makes me shudder to be frank. Most children just want to be with their parents and have a bit of attention. Sit them down, talk to them, let them chill out and be grumpy if that's the way they feel, stop on their bloody cases buying them things and looking for "gratitude." God the thought of it makes me cringe.

@Vodkajelly - please don;t think I'm being mean here, I know your intentions were only the best and you wanted to give your kids the holiday of a lifetime but I think they need your time more than the expensive holiday - 12 hour days every weekend for a year? I think you just need to prioritise getting to know them more at home.

Aw Vodkajelly - you shoulda ditched the kids and gone by yourselves

YANBU. I decided today that weekends and family time together is overrated. If we can't have a good time on a sunny weekend what hope do we have?

We were prepared for the good weather and bought garden toys, BBQ food, paddling pool. In my head I'd imagined DH & I watching happy children play while we read the papers and had a beer. We spent our time arguing with each other about how to deal with tantrums, sorting out DCs endless bickering over some pointless toy and trying to ignore the whining about there not being enough water / getting the better paddling pool.

I watched the 20 somethings renting the house behind us having a BBQ and flirting with each other like this

CailinDana I think by 15, 12 and 10 they should be grateful for a holiday to somewhere like Cuba. I assume they knew beforehand they were going?

Of course children need to learn about gratitude. You're right they have little control over a lot of their lives though they rule the roost in my house but they also have very little responsibility of course. Their free time is mostly that and once they can voice an opinion will choose their clothes and food even if only through clear preferences. My dc's will certainly not eat something they don't want to so if, for example, their packed lunches were returned uneaten every day I'd ask them what they'd rather have.

I do agree that we're all guilty of idealising a situation especially when we've invested a lot of time and/or money in it. I've come to accept that just because its a big deal to me it doesn't mean it will be to my children, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't learn to say thank you for the intention. And by the time they're at secondary school should definitely have got that message.

I agree they should say thank you but expecting a child to show enjoyment even if they don't feel it is really a step too far in my book. You can give things to your children, take them places etc and rightly expect them to say thank you but they're not little actors playing out your perfect life for you, they are people with their own opinions and you can't force them to enjoy the things you've bought/the place you've taken them just because you expect them to. They'll like what they like and that's it. Placing your happiness on your DC's shoulders is awful. Let them feel what they feel, try to encourage them to enjoy it if you can, but other than that bloody let them be.

We have had some hideous days out as a family and I hate to raise the tone, we had a fab day today. We went to help out at a local community farm, doing weeding and such like.
I think the thing which helped was having three other adults for the kids to bounce off and animals and new stuff.
But Outnumbered really has had some echoes for us, letting the kids improvise probably helps, though a couple of screaming tantrums would have helped the realism.

The pool and ice cream mentioned in my op were both things my dcs had been begging for requesting ALL week, hence why I was extra miffed.

A friend of mine had an alternative take on this - they went away for a seaside holiday, and the kids bickered and whined throughout, to the point where she thought they'd had a thoroughly miserable time. Then she overheard them, in the service station on the way home, one saying to the other 'didn't we have a great time? I hope we do it again next year.'