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...

It's just plain rude. The interrupting I mean.

If an adult were to keep interrupting you'd think they were rude. It's not okay for a child to do it. End of. I don't mean shut the child down every time it tries to open its mouth but children should be taught from an early age that interrupting conversations every 10 seconds is rude anyone that doesn't do that and thinks it's okay to keep completely ignoring the other adult they're with to constantly listen to their child every word, is rude too TBH, so what hope does the child have.

In fairness, if an adult pissed on my floor the way my friend's 4 year old managed to the other day, I'd probably find that to be a bit of a faux pas too. As with a lot of the points made by the OP and during the thread, it comes down to age. I can see that if an NT 9 year old is constantly interrupting, that's an issue. But quite often if a 3 year old has something to say, I'd rather hear it now than at the end of the conversation, given that they're not able to take much responsibility for their own continence and safety yet. Particularly as they won't be receiving my full attention if I'm having a conversation with someone else: I'll, if anything, be more reliant than usual on listening to what they have to say.

And the reality is that getting a child to the stage when they know what can wait and what can't, and having the self control to act on this, takes work and yes, interruption for most children. Especially very young ones, since having a tantrum at being told they can't do something they want to do is hardly abnormal behaviour for a toddler. This goes back to the point a lot of people made to the OP: the way in which she wants children to behave, low maintenance I suppose, can take a lot of work to achieve. She wants it both ways.

JizzyStradlin- good point. Reminds me of the day I was deep in conversation with dsis and my then 4 year old came in "Mummy mummy..." - Not now, darling, wait a minute.

Two minutes later, sentence finished: What were you going to say, ds? "Dcousin 1 and dcousin 2 used up the shaving cream and toothpaste" WTF ?

They had painted the sofa with the stuff. But dsis and I got to finish our conversation.

Your yet to be born children probably won't fit into your lifestyle as it is now, but you will adapt to fit in together. For instance, although mine are 16 and 12 now, I still remember the baby/toddler phase and you will get other parents who totally change their lives for their children, but many others will do what they need to do but try and keep some of their pre-baby lives intact as much as possible.

You don't have to go to soft play all the time to meet up - but it does help when they're toddlers, because you CAN leave them to get on with their own thing while you chat. When they're tiny babies they are quite portable and as long as you remember to for in feeding/changing you can pretty much do lunch the way you would have done before. You don't HAVE to leave kids TV on all the time, but it is sometimes useful to enable you to have a rest and do your own thing. Being able to go away for weekends very much depends on having GPs/family who can look after them for you - but I know friends who did this quite successfully from about 6 months.

IME you will often, via post-natal groups and so on, make friends with parents of children the same age as yours. If you're lucky and get on with them, you'll have a ready made social life for years to come. Some of my post-natal group friends are my best friends still and we even go out as couples now without the kids!!!!

I'm pleased to say when they get to the age mine are, you can ignore them for the whole evening and go out without them! And in a few years we'll be able to have weekends away, yay!

Dodobookends You are so right about the 'new normal'. I've been staying this to my husband for 16 years!

but it does help when they're toddlers, because you CAN leave them to get on with their own thing while you chat

Unless you get a climber, when you look away for a second, look back, and they're 6 foot up a wall somehow :)

I could not chat with mine about once she was mobile, she needed constant supervision. I was once challenged in a shoe shop about her need for shoes so young (10 months)- I put her down and she ran to the staircase. Never seen a snotty shop assistant move so fast :)

I had a friend who told me in no uncertain terms how you can deal with a toddler having a meltdown in the supermarket. She had solved this problem completely

And she also told me about loving boundaries, and about how all children would be well behaved if you were strict but fair.

She also had no children.

Fast forward three years. She has a couple of kids and is a good mother, but has also struggled massively with PND. She admits that she finds having children very, very difficult, and although I think that she is doing a good job, I fear that she is beating herself up about not being the supermum that she thought she was going to be. Or more importantly beating herself up for not having the kind of children who would respond to her preferred form of parenting.

Be careful OP. You are talking nonsense. Which is understandable.

But this kind of nonsense can actually be harmful to your own mental health.

This could have been written by me 3 years ago.. It's all about finding balance and my hat always goes off to the parents who can get that balance right.
I've realised though, that dealing with a 3 foot dictator who is always seconds away from an epic emotional meltdown is the hardest thing I have EVER taken on. Sometimes we pick our battles.

My friend infuriates me with the talking to her daughter. My 4 year old will interrupt. She says excuse me, quickly tells me something. If I need to go and do something I will (for example a mess or loo accident) and apologise if not I send her off to play and apologise for the interruption. My friend just ignores the conversation and chats away with her daughter, responds to every teeny tiny falling out and disagreement by leaving the room to sort it etc etc. It's a balance.

I would never ignore my daughter just because I was with an adult, but you can find a balance.

this reminds me of the conversation I had with my colleagues when I was discussing my maternity leave over the summer period. I was all 'oh yes, it will be lovely to sit in the park, under a tree, reading a book, catching up with friends and generally having a lovely time'

I got a screaming limpet.....

It's a bit like an 18-yo on gap year saying "I will not have my life ruled by being grown up. I shall remain young and carefree, will always care about my favourite bands, dye my hair purple, get up when I want, pursue any interest at a whim, not decide on a career, town, house etc..." A fun stance and probably a good one for that life stage. Very, very few keep it up at 30. And the few I have met who do are not the happiest people I know.

You've "seen" one extreme and decided you ought to do the opposite extreme (which is the nicer one for you so get off your high horse ).
I was a toddler in the 70s and my parents played with me, took me to playgroup, and took me to brownies and dance class in the 80s. They had dinner parties when I was older (I was allowed to say hi, then went to bed - or stayed at nan's house) but that was when I was school age. Both parents admit the 0-3 phase is hands - on!
If children really were seen and not heard etc in your childhood days, you might have left it a bit late to have them, sounds more like the 50s.

Oh and today I looked in my handbag for a tissue and 18 month old dd was 12 steps up a flight of stairs, wobbling. I've never moved so fast! We sing "danger babe" to the tune of "spider pig" about her.

She was a delight as a tiny. I volunteered during maternity leave.
She's still a delight but she can run and has no sense of fear.

Wordsmith YY exactly. The germ pit ball pool is not a germ pit ball pool to me ... its a drink and a chat knowing danger babe is happy.
I'm back at work now. Really and honestly that's the biggest "life not changed by kids" step parents take. A huge one not to be taken lightly.
Yet people always talk about dinner parties and suchlike ... I'm living as "myself" with a good career - so at weekends l like to see danger babe grinning her grin as she takes on the too big slide at the rec. Someone watching would think I was boring and child centric - but I work 45 hr a week still. I enjoy my work, and I enjoy parenting. Dinner parties are a hassle.

"Unless you get a climber, when you look away for a second, look back, and they're 6 foot up a wall somehow "

Yup. DS2 was danger boy as a small toddler, and at 3 is still prone to sprinting off/engaging in reckless self-endangerment.

I still feel (vaguely) guilty about the time I turned my back on him for a minute in a playground to pay attention to his brother only to find that he had a)climbed up something that I had no idea he could actually climb and b)fallen off it.

Oh dear.

The only person I know who vaguely achieved this ideal left her son with her parents all the time. Her marriage has now ended and she has moved back in with them.

I had children to be able to give them a great life, not just to endure my life.

My life has changed completely since having dd 4 years ago, I never thought it would change so drastically but that's being a parent for you. My dh's life has changed, mainly as he is financially respinsible for all of us now, but in terms of work and social life his has changed less.

A good companion thread for this one is "worst thing that happened at your school". A thread full of appalling and deeply sad events. that mostly happened when children knew their place and didn't rule the roost.

I think anyone who is bellyaching about children not having independence any more should read that thread. Although I am actually traumatised by it (sheltered life)

I think pre-planning your parenting is pointless.

Every child is different. My DD is almost 10 months. I haven't had a single night away from her yet. Even on my wedding night a month ago, I was still playing the role of mum and not having alone time with my newly acquired husband. Now this wasn't intentional. When we planned our wedding, I assumed I could just hand her to my sister for the night. WRONG.
I am still breastfeeding, my husband works away and I have no family near. The result of this is that my DD relies on me for all of her comfort. She won't feed from a bottle and will only go to sleep with me there. She wakes in the night in strange places and the only way to get her to sleep again without her fully waking up is to feed her.

In the nicest possible way, you are a fool if you think your child will just slot in with your plans. Maybe you'll find you will be lucky enough have a child that does, or your attitude will be like those of your friends and people on here and ultimately, the comfort and wellbeing of your child comes before your need to keep up with your social calendar.
If you want to be able to go away when you want, go to dinner parties whenever you like and do things with no interruptions then get yourself a bloody reliable child minder or simply don't have kids.

The interrupting thing I expect manners now they are older.

However when they were young I found some adults interrupted conversions between us and our children. Felt sometimes with IL they were competing with our children for attention . The conversation with the children weren't deep but then nether were the adult ones trying to butt in.

I think it's a similar phenomenon to those adults who apparently don't see our children queueing despite it being obvious and push in front.

Or the odd people who complained to us when we gave up our seats on public transport so they got a seat in preference to having our then young children stand and get in everyone's way. I was always left thinking your got what you wanted let us manage our situation as we deem fit.

Some how idea that the children not being adults were inferior.

Did have one friend when at our house I did interpret conversation with - not to deal with my children but to stop her wrecking our house and stuff Either met at her house or somewhere neutral or she put up with the interruptions.

Saw another mother trapped in her car caught in a conversation with my friends staring daggers at her daughter - daughter was swinging off this mother's car door and kicking the car - she was clearly hoping friend would step in and stop her child - but friend was completer oblivious caught up in the conversation.

It boils down to balance again and expectations of children being age appropriate.

we want to parent them not become chums
What enjoyment are you or your future DC going to get from that relationship. Part of the job is being their best friend

On the interrupting thing:

you can teach a child to join into a conversation interestingly and politely (and I think this is what you should do rather than put up with them constantly barging in, OR telling them to shut up all the time) - but this takes effort. The parent who is doing this sensitively and cleverly may look as if she is both conversing with adult friends, and training her child to take part in conversation without being a dick - but actually she is 100% focused on childcare. It's subtle, and it takes up all your energy and and IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

Obviously, if you actually want to unwind with your friends, listen to them properly, and be fully honest with them about your own life, you get other childcare and see them in the evening. Which is your time. Family time is not your time. You can enjoy it, and it can look to a casual observer like there is a balance between everyone getting their own way, but actually it is an incredibly subtly maintained illusion of "balance" that is performed for training purposes only, as it is actually more effort than going "ok then sit down and watch peppa pig and eat cheerios till they come out of your ears"

• and that's what having children is. Helping them grow into adults who are not dicks. Which is hard work. And the easier it looks, the more effort someone is putting into it, because being that graceful about managing to have children who are not dicks is a feat of virtuosity.

I know one family who said their life wouldn't change and their kids would have to fit around them. That's pretty much how it has panned out for them.

How have they managed it?

DC1 - 2 day nannies and a night nanny covering the 7 days a week from birth. All laundry outsourced and meals for the week cooked and delivered to the house. 2 different cleaners through the week. a cleaning firm comes once a month for deep clean of house. Very limited amount of toys allowed to avoid clutter and clashing colours with tastefully decorated home. A babysitter used 3 or 4 nights a week when they went out. When child taken out for lunches / meals etc - it had its own babyproofed ipad for buggy to keep it quiet. Once it reached 1 year and walking - put into full time nursery (5 days a week) so mum could still meet up and lunch out / shop / relax with friends. Once started school - nanny did drop off and pick up so no impact on father getting ready to go out to work and mother having to get up early. DC1 now attends afterschool club 5 days a week with nanny to pick up and goes to classes both Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon. DC1 will be starting boarding school this year (and boarding about 10 miles away from their home)

DC2 - follows same pattern as above.

Family have 8 holidays a year - 4 of which they go together, 4 of which just parents go. when all family away - they have a nanny go with them to look after kids through the day and employ an evening nanny in whatever location so parents can be out n about. When parents go by themselves - there are 2 nannies working - 1 for day and 1 for night.

So if you have the money to have all those extra hands to take care of childcare / household tasks, have the technology to keep them quiet and occupied, have options for classes / activities that the kids can be at - then yep - kids can totally fit in around your life.

Again, though, Draylon, I think there's a difference between "no boundaries/bowing to your children's every whim" and "being flexible about your particular children and their needs" (ie you were happy to "fit in with your parents' needs" re staying at dinner parties - presumably as an older child - while some children just will not do that or won't do it until a certain age, no matter how much you set expectations. I speak as someone who tried to do this with DS1 when he was a toddler and spent an hour upstairs pandering to his stupid childish whims instead of properly brazening it out with him and showing him who was boss trying to get him to go to sleep? :/)

I think I've only met a couple of families IRL where I've genuinely thought "whoah, that child needs limits", most people just get on with it, even if their children don't always appear to be appropriately deferential.

The other thing is, though, that often there's an element of "too cool for school" about these claims (a PP mentioned know it all gap year teens, and I can see why).

As I mentioned before, "they fit round me" often does mean nice furniture and drinks and dinner - as opposed to less cool stuff like work.

This makes me about it tbh.

Also how such people don't know any average parents.