to wonder if I am a terrible mum because I don't bake with my daughter?

[LordElpuss]

there's a lovely thread about things MNetters remember doing with their mums and now enjoy doing with their daughters. And just about every post says "baking".

Am I the ONLY one who doesn't bake with their child? We've tried a couple of times and it's been a disaster it's not really worked out as I can't follow the most basic recipe: flour, butter, sugar, stir

Will she be adversely affected and have no nice memories of me and just recall how I spent too long on MN ?

I don't bake with DD, I do like baking but I can't stand doing it with a small child. And as there's only 3 of us, and DH doesn't eat much in the way of cake, I just don't want a load of cakes around the house for me and DD to trough.

maybe when she's older . . . I very much doubt she'll remember what she was and wasn't doing with her mum at this age!

(My mum couldn't bake for toffee, she was a good cook though and I remember helping her. TBH I don't remember doing all that much with my mum!)

Nope, I don't bake at all - DH does that, along with all of the cooking

YABU (to wonder if you are terrible) YANBU (not to bake)

All the food stuff is over-rated, imo. My mum was great with the food, the fruit bowl was always overflowing, every meal was fresh and made from scratch, guests always welcome, always plenty of good stuff to go round, interesting foods that no one else had heard of in the 70s and 80s etc. But she had no time, between that and her demanding job, and no time for me. She never spent any one to one time with me. she was in the kitchen after work till dinner and then after that cleaning up and after that in her study doing more work for the next day and not available. So I could either hang around in the kitchen hoping for a scrap of shared attention, or give up. There was one exception: when I was 8, I got chicken pox the week after my sister who was then back at school. I was off school without her, my brother was a toddler at home who still had an afternoon nap. For 4 days (Tuesday - Friday) I had my mum on my own for an hour after lunch and she taught me how to knit. It was the best time of my childhood.

don't be like her. sack the kitchen off

Happy to "sack the kitchen off" . I don't remember much about my mum who died when I was young. She used to read to me a lot whilst chain smoking - hence her early demise - but I remember the stories, her lovely voice and the smell of the fags!

I never used to bake with mine because I genuinely believed I could not bake. Every time I tried, it ended up a disaster. I'm also a bit crap following instructions in list form.

And then I discovered I could make sponge cake. And then we started adding stuff to it, vanilla and almond essense, coffee... it's not fancy, but it'll do.

If all else fails, chocolate crispie buns. No baking and the kids love it.

My mum never ever baked with me, in fact I remember pestering her about it. She spectacularly missed the point and paid the childminder extra to make fairy cakes with me . however she was and is a brilliant and very involved mum in other ways. If you don't want to bake, don't. If you do flapjacks/rocky road are dead easy to do with smallish children and you get to eat the ingredients!

My mother was what was known in the 70s as a 'career girl'. There was no way she was spending her precious time off baking not when there was vodka and cook-in sauces to deal with. I couldn't give a stuff about the baking. As long as you do 'stuff' and spend time together I don't think it matters what you do.