to feel angry and sad that lack of funds mean my children miss out on things?

[Missanneshirley]

Very much middle class angst here as I am well aware that my children are fed, clothed, have a roof over their heads etc. They are not very "grabby" in terms of toys, gadgets etc and seem generally happy with their lot. But I just wish I could do more stuff with them! This weekend i know of friends whose dc are:

• going to see a sporting event in a nearby city (travel and ticket costs prohibitive)
• learning to climb at a climbing wall centre (as above )
• going to see a musical (as above!)

These are all different families obv! Another has a piano exam...cos they bought a piano and can pay for lessons.

Yes I know they have valuable time spent with family and friends etc. But I'd just love to be able to do more of these things which I think they would really love!

"we cook and eat and talk and laugh" Oh wow - that is such a good point ENS ... Poor people can do that stuff, too, can't they! Good job you didn't want to patronise.....

I agree about downtime too. Sometimes you can drive the whole 'experiences' thing a bit too hard.

No, don't Ubik. My DC are 17 and 21 now. I went back full time when they were 6 and 10. Even taking money out of the equation it has been helpful in a number of ways:

They are more independent and organised. Don't lose keys, pack their own bags, prioritise emergencies.

They are resourceful and more than capable of making themselves snacks, paying the window cleaner, finding the shed keys, etc

Most importantly they have learnt a lot about work ethics and compromise and about equality because they see both parents working and making independent financial decisions

I relate better to them because I mix beyond my middle class bubble of school and mums and mix with younger people and am more in touch with the world.

I anything happens to me the family gets four times my salary and dh a pension.

If anything happens to dh I have something beyond family to keep me going.

That's probably a different thread.

Ubik, you should never feel guilty for working. Children need financial support just as much as emotional support.

Like beau says, it provides many many advantages. I hate the 1950s version of man works woman stays home. We teach children to aim high in school, that they can have it all. Work and parenting can go very well together, there's no reason either sex should believe they can't work and be a parent.

Thanks BeaufortBelle

Yes it's a different thread - and it has been done over and over again.

Can I add two things,

It's partly how you spin it!

When asked on one occasion what he had done, DS said he'd had a film night, set off an explosion, gone shopping with a mate. The richer kids were wildly jealous, as they were usually over supervised. ( yes, there was supervision esp of the explosion

And on another occasion, they were asked to keep a holiday diary. Most people had eg two weeks in Thailand, me with elephant photos iyswim. DS and I had put together a scrapbook diary for almost every day, with drawings, pictures, pebbles, shells, wheat where we had gone across a wheat field, we made brea to link with the wheat, brochures where we had gone to a free museum, yes with a post card. We covered the scrapbook and it bulged. It was the most amazing record and he still loves it, as do I. He won a lot of respect from it.

Secondly, the Internet is your friend, as are charity shops.

You can pick up musical instruments for very little and you and they can all learn together, using you tube. Much more fun to do it all together.

Ditto with modern languages. Decide that you are all going to learn Spanish , easier than French, do the learning and once a month have a Spanish day, talk nothing but Spanish, eat Spanish, dress Spanish...

If you are near a beach, get them to study it as well as enjoy it.

Spoon fed kids may have less initiative.

Ubik I'm not sure if your first comment was @me or not but it depends on the individuals doesn't it? One parent saying their child benefits from more time at home is not a judgement on anyone else's family. For us, having a SAHP is never going to be an option financially, so we crack on and do the best we can for them with the resources we have.

OP, my brother is very wealthy and has three DC. They are wildly over indulged and spoiled. There is not one thing I can think of that excites them. They've skied since they could walk ( now teens), have every gadget invented,Mohave travelled extensively across the world and would go to Disney as a regular day out rather than a one off special family thing.

It makes me so sad that they are bored with the world so young. Your approach is so much healthier and more fun. When your DC do ski for the first time or meet an elephant ( very much frowned upon as they are cruelly treated) in Thailand they will be filled with awe and joy and remember these things all their lives.

Sorry it wasn't at anyone.

Sometimes you look at your life and wonder if you are doing the right thing for your children.

But the reality is that we both need to work and DP and I share school pickups and housework. The kids just have to get on with it. They know Disneyland is not on the agenda. Neither is skiing.

But as a result of my working ft We are managing a holiday abroad this year. Hurrah!

I know exactly what you mean. Could I recommend reading How to Do Everything and be Happy by Peter Jones. It's is very good at helping you work out what makes YOU happy, and working out expectations accordingly. eg I wanted to give DC interesting days out. I set a goal of 2 per month. Having done this for over a year, it is much easier in the summer when more stuff is open (not in UK), and it took a bit of time to sign up for newsletters online etc. Somethings are free, some are not. But because I measure my 'success' by what I think is reasonable, by what we want to do, suddenly I'm not comparing our family life with others. I also write down (in my goals book) what we have done, so that I have a record. I also put the tickets up on the happiness board, and pictures too sometimes as a visual reminder.

Ubik - yup, reality happens to the best of us! And if you didn't work FT you might well end up feeling guilty the other way, as the OP does.

My kids had their first holiday abroad last year. They loved it, but they also understood it was an expensive treat that they won't be getting every year. I'm not totally convinced they'd be better off going to Mexico and skiing every year, and no doubt taking it for granted.

I don't worry about this. I think children these days have far too much and are generally not appreciative, they just don't have a clue.

I chose to redeem our tesco points for a Merlin, do eldest could go to Thorpe park with his mates.
My two love walking round local hills, lakes, Windsor castle golden mile. Add in an ice-cream and it feels like a real treat.

Don't feel guilt. Wasted emotion. Bet your kids like loads of free stuff.

Reading this thread, I appear to have failed at several levels. I work full-time so apparently they won't be happy as I'm not available all the time. I don't have the money for Disneyland or Legoland, so mine have never been. I also don't spend my weekends sourcing exciting free things for them to do, they do the odd weekend away with Brownies/Guides, go and stay with the grandparents, play out with friends, go for bbqs round the neighbours, that's it! It never occurred to me their childhood is inadequate or we are poor for not skiing every year!

The life you are describing as impoverished is pretty much the standard life of most people in the UK, no fancy holidays, no Disneyland, music lessons are a luxury now, skiing again a luxury. It's actually quite insulting to make out this is some type of lesser life, and shows you something about how materialism and consumerism has taken away people's happiness- compared with most people in the world, you have an abundance of riches but you can't see them:(

I'm a SAHM and I'm well off but I wouldn't dream of thinking that children are deprived if their parents work or are skint. Although there is probably a point at which being 'really' skint must matter.

I'd feel sorry for kids who have mean or selfish parents. Having a happy loving and 'emotionally' secure home is what matters.

Op I think this is perfectly natural, and yes its hard when you see other dc with violins and as you say piano lessons and expensive trips to disney.

You have to appreciate what you can give, many dc dont even ever see the sea! The freedom that gives! The first time dd age 4 got on a beach racing round, she was blue but my goodness...what a gift!

We recently got a key board for £30 sold through local website but in past we have had free piano from freecyle ( which we passed on), we cant afford the lessons BUT there is a key board for dc to tinker on.

As for disney, thanks to MN we have discovered Efteling in Holland, MUCH CHEAPER and utterly magical....people who have been to both ( we have not) sat Efteling is far move lovelier and magical for young dc than disney. Its about half the price and we get our ferry ( other wise £110) FREE with our tesco vouchers.

i sympathise I feel it too, but its all swings and roundabouts.

I completely get where you're coming from OP, exactly same here, feel like my children's childhood has passed with going half the thing I'd like to with them. Again I'm not saying they've had a bad childhood, just not full of the experiences I thought they would have had.

I don't think you sound at all ungrateful. I think that the cost of living is way too high. Many of us are working just to live, I think that's wrong. I don't think it's expecting too much to expect to have money for a few luxurys after working all week.

Legoland is shit - that's no barometer of a deprived childhood!

I spend a massive chunk of income on extra-curricular activities - so obviously I do value them - but I also feel quite guilty in finding the time to actually practice and get the benefit. Piano is a case in point. I'll interrupt play time to practice piano (= turn nice atmosphere into evil atmosphere) or I won't (and the kids won't improve at all so it's a bit pointless). And they actually like piano, been doing it ages. But at a certain point extra activities fragment and over-structure the week without actually teaching them anything significant.

If I were you, I wouldn't start from the pov of money / envy - but sit down with your OH and a bottle of wine and play the '10 years from now' game. Get an idea on what your end goal is, and what enrichment will get you there.

It might be, ten years from now you're all bundling off for a bracing walk after a noisy Sunday lunch - make sure they enjoy walking and have good table manners.

Ten years from now you're helping DC pack a rucksack for a foreign adventure - give them exposure to other cultures (eg by cultivating friendships with people recently arrived from abroad).

Ten years from now you're waving them off to university: are they academically being supported and encouraged now?

Your direction and encouragement is what will pay off, rather than tokenistic lessons.

*if 10 years from now you're proudly clapping in the front row of Carnegie hall - you probably would need some cash for lessons now. But mainly lots of stomp an to push and encourage practice.

Raniya that's an interesting angle, and sort of, I suppose, what we have accidentally done. We have had the kids go through swimming lessons etc, and over the last few years as dd1 has got older, have been encouraging her to continue to take lifesaving and first aid qualifications so that she has a source of income - something that she can use, or fall back on, or help earn money at uni, or whatever. So something to give her a concrete and marketable skill. We are encouraging ds1 to do the same thing now that he is old enough to take those qualifications. The dance classes dd1 takes have led to her being a teaching assistant for the tots' classes for a couple of years (unpaid except when the teacher is absent and she subs), but she has now been asked if she would like to run a beginner class next year for the school. So, this is kind of another string to her bow - something she can use while at school and university to bring in income, or use later if she needs to.

Where we live now, most families have already amassed a massive chunk of govt subsidised savings for university. As recent immigrants, this is something that we are slightly panicking about... I'm grateful that she has a couple of things she can use to help pay those bills (and am encouraging her to start saving now, lol) but she is very definitely only in this position because we made the decision to spend out on swimming lessons and dance lessons, and not on holidays or whatnot. We were lucky we had that choice.

I know what you mean. Dd is only 4 but many children her age seem to be always going to musicals, lots of activities and meals out and having days out to legoland etc.

However, we do go to local parks and museums, we go swimming, we have the odd meal out and lots of cafe visits. At this stage dd is perfectly happy. In a way I feel she shouldn't be used to having special outings every weekend and she should enjoy ordinary life, which she does. It would just be nice to have the option to do more.

One of my friends is obsessed with making her DC's childhood "magical" - they do a lot of activities, (expensive) day trips out, foreign holidays, eat out every weekend with them, always have a treat every time they go to the park etc.

And do you know what, her children are no more or less happier than mine who do considerably less.

We went to the Science Museum this morning for the cost of petrol: drove in on a Sunday so parked on a single yellow for free, took a packed lunch, avoided the shop, did the free shows. My friend would have bought lunch there, plus treat plus each child would have been bought something in the gift shop. But the actual experience itself - no different.

Kids who do lots and lots of activities are often exhausted. And they often seem to give up activities as soon as their parents have spent loads of cash on the equipment.

OP I wonder if I live near you. I could walk to a dry ski slope but my kids have never been and probably never will. We will never go to Legoland or Disney either.

It is hard growing up in a family with no money to do anything. But a family where the kids can choose one or two cheap activities, go camping etc is, to me a nice and totally normal childhood.

FWIW my Mum worked full-time in the eighties when it was more unusual. I was proud of her, she used to tell me lots of interesting stories about her work and I have ended up doing, and enjoying, the same job.