To think that children will fit in around OUR lives, not the other way around?

[HonestQuestion]

I am sure I'm going to get flamed for this but maybe there will be some good advice too! (I have NCd)

DH and I were talking last night about how we intend to bring up children. We have seen friends and family where DC rule the roost - everything is organised around the children. The children aren't ever left to their own devices to play; the parents are constantly playing with them and distracting them with activities. The TV is always switched to children's channels, not the news or anything adult. Evenings with the family have to be run on the children's schedule for naps and snacks and feeding.

Even when they are in bed, the mums are held hostage to the DC speaking over the walkout talkie and summoning them to the bedroom plenty of times before they finally go to sleep. We meet up with our friends for lunch or dinner or a day out, and always seem to come home not really having had much of a chat or catch up with our friends - because the day or evening is always all about the children - we all have to be in their thrall!

It seems the experience of raising a child these days is so far removed from how DH and I were brought up. We remember being left to our own devices to play, watching the news and learning about the world from it, we remember that the adults ruled the house - my dad would never have dreamed of having kids' TV on all evening when he got home from work!

And it's so far removed from how we want to raise our children. We don't want to lose 'who we are' and what we find interesting. A friend of ours said on FB the other day that she is going on a mini break and leaving her DC alone overnight for the first time in 3 years! I can't imagine being like that! And I can't imagine having a DC, meeting up with friends but spending that time constantly entertaining the children.

AWBU? I have my hard hat ready...

I'm the first of my friends to have kids. We're all fairly young (around 21) and they're all parenting experts of course seeing me with toddler DD and saying this that and the other about "When I have kids they'll know the parents are in charge", "When I have kids I'll never stick them in front of the TV for an hour", "When I have kids I won't be held to ransom playing with them".

It just makes me really because either a) yes they will parent like that and that's their choice or b) they'll have kids and realise how wrong they are, but I like parenting the way I do. I love sitting and reading stories with DD. I love playing Happyland with her for hours on end. I love the Disney films and the days out and the holidays to kids holiday campsites and all the little bits that come with what they see as "letting my toddler rule my life". Other people don't, and that's fine. It's their choice.

You just have to go with it. It depends what kind of children you have really.

Actually playing with your DCs is very overrated just spent 20 mins trying to make paper from a papermaking kit with DS.

And OP, what tiny ounce of you seriously thinks you're different in wanting "not to lose who you are" be interesting etc? Who the hell chooses to be knackered,worn down, overworked, sleep deprived, depressed, worrying about paying chidorcare bills, balancing work and kids etc??? And yes, this can make you a teensy bit boring! It's life which can be bloody hard. And you're bloody naive. And somewhat arrogant.

Too true moving.

I'd much rather be that fun loving, size 12, cocktail drinking free spirit with the high flying career than what I am now.

I retain some of the things I enjoy and find important, but priorities change when you've got a dependant to care for.

Please don't voice this with friends who are parents in RL, OP. I have an otherwise really lovely friend who does. She tends to sound like a naive, vain and arrogant teenager pontificating about how she will remain cool at 45. I won't remind her of all her nuggets of wisdom when she is a parent, oh no .

It depends on the personality of the child I think.
We haven't altered our life for our LO at all.
He come with us everywhere, to dinner etc.
He goes to bed quite late and gets up late (10am) because that is what we do and neither of us want to be up at 7am on our day off!! (he gets up earlier if we are going to playgroup or on a day out sometimes)
We don't really have much routine and are very spontaneous in the things we do. He will play by himself quite happily for an hour or so at a time and is very independent.
But then he was and is a very chilled out baby. He was from birth.
My friend had a baby at around the same time and her baby literally wouldn't be put down and cries constantly.... as hes got older he still wakes thru the night and cant be left to play by himself. To get any pace she has had to implement strict routines that seem to settle him more.
Id like to think its our parenting that has made our son chilled out but I know that actually its just luck! I think it really just depends on the personality of your child and yes you can have some impact on that but more than you realise before you have a child, they are all very different in nature and not the complete blank slate you think they will be before you've ever had one!!
Some babies and children are very sensitive and need a lot more routine and attention than others.

Fundamentally, if you don't want your life to change, why would you make a deliberate choice to have children?

and to the comment 'the parents just dragged us to wherever they wanted to go'.... its not really like that because the children of these parents are used to it, its their life the only one they've known... my parents took me all over the world whenever they felt like it and I have amazing memories form this.
We do the same with our LO and will just go off for weekends away with him whenever we feel like it. He loves it!
But as I said in my other post we are lucky in the nature of our child im sure that you wouldn't be able to do this with some children.
Our lives have changed in the sense that we cant do absolutely anything we want whenever because we do obviously have to prioritise our childs welfare..... we couldn't just go camping in midwinter... I couldn't just get on a bus without telling anyone and disappear for a few days hitchhiking across cornwall! etc.... its within reason that we can just go where we like with our son we have to make sure everything is safe but it is still achievable to be quite spontaneous and travel a lot.

I had very set views on about how I would and wouldn't parent before I actually became a parent. Most of us probably did. I even thought maternity leave from work would be a lovely long holiday during which I would have plenty of leisure time to do exactly as I pleased while baby simply fed at set intervals and slept peacefully!!!

Well, then DD1 was born and she removed those rose tinted spectacles well and truly. She was a fairly easy baby too.

OP, I am not overly child-centric in my parenting. I do agree that too many parents allow their children to rule the roost, or annoy other people (think running around in restaurants etc., screaming during school plays without being taken out), but having a baby DOES change THE WHOLE DYNAMIC of your relationship and the way you view things. New parents very quickly realise that there is no way "back to normal" after the baby is born. They have to find a "new sense of normal" in order to cope with their new status as a little family. Otherwise, they will very soon go insane from constant demands for attention, feeding, nappy changing, bathing, lack of sleep and more. Newborns run along to no particular timetable at first and do not automatically know the difference between night and day, they have to learn even that.

Also, as plenty have already said, not all of us have easy access to close family willing to help with childcare. Quality childcare is very expensive, especially at a time when your income is likely to be taking quite a nosedive. Occasional babysitting from good friends is fine now and then, but most of us would want to be sure we were not taking the piss as they usually have their own kids too.

With hindsight, I now know that if I had broadcast my preconceived ideas about how to parent before even having a baby I would have been laughed out of town by experienced parents. Thankfully, I kept them to myself.

You really have no idea how you will react or cope until you have a screaming, totally dependent baby/toddler on your hands.

Oh, and I was never going to let them sit and watch children's TV, or a video (as it was in those olden days) ..... until I realised that that was the only way I would get a bit of peace for a cup of tea.

I wouldn't dream of discussing this with our parent friends in real life - isn't that what Mumsnet is for?!

A little saddened to be accused of being a journo - have we really got to the stage now where wanting to have and enforce good boundaries with children is so radical?

And of course we will be playing with them and so on! Gosh we're not planning on locking them in their bedrooms!

LOL... I had similar opinion... before I actually had a child!
I also didn't understand anyone wanting to give up work rather than put their child in a good nursery. Thought dummys were ridiculous, I was going to EBF, purees were cheating BLW was the only way to go.... etc etc etc

it just doesn't work like that!!! These squidgy little bundles of mini you somehow wheedle their way into your heart and mind before you realise it and you just can't help yourself putting them before you. Plus nothing can prepare you for the 4th (5th, 6th, 7th...) hour of crying screaming, wining etc and you will do ANYTHING to calm them down... whether that's trying a dummy or turning the TV on depending on age.

....So will you be dragging your tired body and newborn out to a fancy restaurant one evening the week after you've given birth, despite not having slept for 3 days, having a screaming baby projectile vomiting every 30 mins, trying to change the leaky pooey nappy kneeling on the ladies loo floor (because this isn't a family friendly restaurant with a baby change)for the 10th time, having boobs spraying milk everywhere, having nowhere to put the pram or car seat because restaurant is too full and tables too close together, some drunk old git sticking their smelly breath all over your baby thinking they have the right to coo over them. Just because you used to go to that restaurant every week before you had kids and want to carry one doing all the things you did before kids?

.... Or go to meet your friends without kids for a BBQ in the park one summers day, taking your toddler Sproglet with you? It'll probably go something like this... You get yourself all packed up with enough nappies and changes of clothes, snacks, toys etc to last you the day... and realise you look like you're going on holiday for a fortnight with the amount of stuff you've got. So leave most of it behind and figure you can pop to Tesco express later if you need anything. Set off, child is sick on the way so change into the one other outfit you've brought. Get there to find everyone else half drunk already. You have brought a ball so blokes start kicking it about with beer in hand. Sproglet gets upset as big Dave kicked it too hard and it's now in the lake. Sproglett is now hungry...look over at BBQ no ones got round to lighting it yet. Sproglett gets noisier and noisier until you ask other half to get the snacks out the bag... what snacks, we left them behind remember...try giving Sproglett the chilli stuffed olives Daves new girlfriend offers to try to stop the noise. Hear an ice cream van... result, quiet. 10 mins later sproglett covered in icecream head to toe. Use every wet wipe you brought to clean up. Sproglett now announces he's done a poo and it's running down his leg..... you want to cry. You have no more wipes and And sproglett just kicked over the freshly opened bottle of Prosecco.

There's a reason why familes do 'family friendly' things!!!!

If you don't allow your life to change when you have children, you'll miss out on a lot.

DSes are variously obsessed with musical theatre, trains, dance, classical music and sailing. We watch a lot of shows we wouldn't have seen otherwise (all-male production of Pirates of Penzance, anyone? Stomp? Ed Sheeran?). We also visit rather a lot of steam railways.

DD has been desperate for a dog for years. Having never thought I'd want one, we now have our first and beloved dog. She (DD, not the dog) is also rather bafflingly obsessed with historical monuments, so we see a lot of those too. Plus, of course, we have a great excuse to do all the child-stuff like reading Harry Potter and watching Tangled.

Kids can broaden your horizons, honestly.

wishing you lots of luck

Ovaries you sound like a lovely mummy!

Have we really got to the stage now where wanting to have and enforce good boundaries with children is so radical?

Not reeeeally what you said though is it OP?

You've not done a great deal of engaging with what's been written. I wonder if you've taken on board eg the points about how your ability to go on couply mini breaks is going to depend hugely on whether you'll have anyone willing and able to look after your child for you, and that's not going to be within your control? Or the posters saying that, even assuming for the sake of argument a basic PAYG will still exist in 12 years, you're going to be excluding your child from important social networks with their peers?

The most important point, though, is the one about making sure you don't get lumbered with the full force of this. It worries me a bit, if I'm honest, that DH is even more of this line of thought than you are (eg a harder line on TV). If he changes his mind as soon as he gets slapped in the face by reality, that's fine, but do make sure that he feels the full impact of it when it hits just as much as you do, won't you? What you don't want, as a few posters have pointed out, is for you to be agreed on all this before children then you do such a good job of dealing with the more difficult aspects of babyhood that he's as ignorant a year after the baby's born as he is now. You wouldn't be the first person to fall into this trap on ML. Although maybe you'll split all leave, night feeds etc 50/50 in which case good on you. Not always an option, though. But yeah, make sure you don't allow him to preserve any more illusions than you do.

The thing about enforcing boundaries is that doing that actually involves quite a lot of work, which is pretty much the opposite of having kids who just slot into your life.

Those parents who won't go out in the evening because they have to sort out the children's bedtime? They are enforcing boundaries.

The ones who cut short their lunch with you because it's nap time? Enforcing boundaries.

The ones who wander off half way through a conversation to move their child away from the bookshelf, and do it again two minutes later, and again two minutes after that? They are enforcing boundaries.

Setting boundaries with a child isn't a matter of telling them what do do and then they will do it. That comes after years of watching them like a hawk every time you give them an instruction, and helping them to carry it out.

Babies don't follow books, children have their own personalities and you may find that all your preconceived ideas go out the window. I'm so glad you're going to enforce good boundaries, the rest of us must be failures as parents. Please come back and teach us all how it's done seeing as you know better. Everyone always thinks there the perfect parent, until they have children. Good luck, you'll need it.

Babies aren't all born the same to be moulded whichever way you want.

Once you have more than one child, it's not just the fact that they might not want to fit around your life that you have to contend with, they might not want to fit around each other. Its Sod's law that the activity that will keep one child quietly enthralled while you have a coffee will be completely spurned by the other.

Boundaries can take a lot of time and effort to put in place.

There is a middle ground op.
And whatever ypur plans and grand ideas they can all fly out the window if your child is not an easy model... but Yeh ypu can set boundaries etc..you can go too far tho like bil and sis who have a list of rules up on the wall...and their house turns into army regime...with no flexibility. Kids look scared often if a crumb falls on floor as they wait for the fallout
Your friends sound unhinged but plenty of parents play a more middle ground and do nice things alone or with dc.

Meet your friends when they got a baby sitter.

"The thing about enforcing boundaries is that doing that actually involves quite a lot of work, which is pretty much the opposite of having kids who just slot into your life.

Those parents who won't go out in the evening because they have to sort out the children's bedtime? They are enforcing boundaries.

The ones who cut short their lunch with you because it's nap time? Enforcing boundaries.

The ones who wander off half way through a conversation to move their child away from the bookshelf, and do it again two minutes later, and again two minutes after that? They are enforcing boundaries.

Setting boundaries with a child isn't a matter of telling them what do do and then they will do it. That comes after years of watching them like a hawk every time you give them an instruction, and helping them to carry it out"

This to infinity. Absolutely. You couldn't possibly read this enough times, OP.

If you want to be able to have time away from children and cultivate, as best you can, well-adjusted reasonable adults this is what is required, over and over and over again.

It isn't a matter of deciding "I'd rather not have children who wake up at night" and this then magically happens. It takes hundreds, thousands, sometimes millions of repeated training trials for children to fully understand the very many boundaries they need to respect to be decent members of society. It's why it's called "development".

Well, I/we don't think that unrestricted internet access via devices at say 11 (for the sake of argument) is a good thing, where it's important for them to be on social networks or not. In our family alone we've seen the outcomes of having 10 year olds on WhatsApp and Instagram and it has ended in bullying and tears. At 11 or thereabouts, they will need a simple phone that can make calls to DH and I - that's about it. There's simply no need for anything more. So on things like that then I am quite set on it.

However, as I mentioned quite early on, there are a few posters who have said, "yep, I agree, this is what we did too and it was fine", but the majority of posters are saying, "Ha! Wait till it happens to you!". Well I've been on here for years and know that when a thread is pretty much 80% of people saying the same thing, it's probably correct! So I am sure there will be compromises, though what they will be at this stage I of course don't know. And yes, I think DH is more hardline than I am. So that will be interesting.

But I have made a note in my laptop calendar for 2 years hence to come back to this thread, so I can update you all one way or the other then