... To just scream FUCK IT ALL and shove them in the local primary.

[Mrsfullhouse]

Good god I'm exhausted. I have three beautiful DC's. DS1 in Reception, DS2 in nursery and DD in year 6. All at a lovely prep school. So far so good....

However, by the ripe old age of 10, my DD has managed to become a rather excellent singer a consummate LAMDA exam taker and very talented hockey player, so all of my time is spent running her around to fixtures/ training/ concerts/ practices/ performances/ exams... you get the picture. DH is at rugby on Saturdays, so it is invariably me that does all the running around because he's either working or too tired on a Sunday. I just seem to spend my life in the car. This excludes all of the actual travel to and from the lovely prep (bloody miles away). Extra travel for all of the lovely things that they do that nice mummies actually turn up to an clap politely as they watch little Horatio murder a violin in cold blood. Plus all the lovely coffee dates- oh and you know, the actual job that I do... that I barely have time for.

The thing is, her lovely prep has encouraged DD to pursue these avenues having 'discovered' her talents- along with a million other things that if she had gone to the local primary, I'm pretty sure I would have been too smugly lazy to even think about. That is no reflection on state school mummies- I know some super-tiger ones.... but I would probably been awful and not even let her join recorder club because- well, who the fuck wants to listen to the fucking recorder.

So this is my life now, and I barely have time to think, let alone spend time polishing my turd enough to look acceptable in public.

I love the lovely prep.... but I think about how ridiculous it is now, and in a few years time I will have three actively participating in all of this shit. No doubt they will stumble upon some glorious talent that DS1 has that will involve me traversing the country, burning £50 notes and chucking them out of the car window as I go.

So, would it be unreasonable to just shout FUCK IT ALL, pull them out, stick them in the lovely, but not as lovely as lovely prep, primary and spend my evenings and weekends drinking very very cold wine and talking to my chickens?

Anybody else just feel like, as much as they love their DC's and their wonderful talents, they wish that they'd just never fucking encouraged them in the first place?

ripe old age of 10, my DD has managed to become a rather excellent singer a consummate LAMDA exam taker and very talented hockey player, so all of my time is spent running her around to fixtures/ training/ concerts/ practices/ performances/ exams.

why the fuck are you driving her to all these things? The WHOLE POINT of spunking your money up the wall on private prep is that this shit gets done in school? Can't they afford a minibus??

And please stop slagging the private prep mums off. YOU ARE ONE OF THEM. It doesn't make it more acceptably left wing of you to send your kids private just because you hate the rest of the parents.

Dh rugby? So can't do anything on a Sunday. WTF?

And being at a different primary wouldn't make any difference. you need to make your DD decide what she's going to do. If you can accommodate 3 activities great, if you can only accommodate 2, make her choose 2.

end of.

Boohoo my kids are multi talented? REALLY?! What id give for my SN kids to be average at anything.

Well you opted into competitive parenting so just get on with it. Not really understanding what you are complaining about. Many parents spend forever ferrying children around to various activities regardless of school choice.

Power down at work so phone comes out!
Had good meeting with boss recently going to three days. They'll have to 'revisit my salary' but I'm too knackered to think about how many hours I'll be dropping. Not that many?

Trollspoopglitter- definitely not a mummy blogger. I tried to set up a page once to fatshame myself into losing some chunk. It was going to be great. I would keep photo diary of how great I was doing etc. I posted on it twice- including a hideous picture of me in my greying bra and pants, didn't lose any weight and decided that eating chocolate was much nicer than fatshaming.

All the funny grandma stories are 'dropping in' because that's what I've been doing since Sunday night. Remembering. So many memories, most of them totally inappropriate for church, but I can't just say 'she sat in a chair, hid sandwiches and totally ignored you when you talked to her, but I loved her anyway'- which pretty much sums up the last five years or so.

Re 'foster farm' idea as we call it. I so want to do this. We have the room and DH works in, 'the social care industry' so has a real passion. We have the chickens so far- chickens and a shitting dog. We're thinking when dd goes off to uni? 8 years. Ds's will be early teens. It's a bit of a dream, but where we live is so beautiful and children would love it. Maybe I'm being unrealistic, maybe MIL will bugger off and give us tonnes of money and we can do it tomorrow (I can dream right?)

As for MIL. Yes, totally agree. But both DH and I are terrified of her. He was bullied by her all of his life and he's absolutely amazing, but she's his weakness.

No Latin and no 'lovely's all day- not even the odd' super-tiger mummy'

I'm so proud.

The foster farm thing sounds amazing but you are going to have to get better at delegating before then.

So what it comes to really is that you and DH need to find the strength to tell MIL to back right off. Perhaps putting your dc into state schools would actually help with this and this is why you identified it at at the start.

DH also needs to step up more by the sound of it, but the family schedule also needs to work for the whole family and be balanced.

MiL paying the fees and behaving as she does is a problem IMO.

Bad idea to volunteer at the school when you're overcommitted at work and home.

Actually I've reread your OP and it does sound pretty awfully judgemental about state schools and state school parents. I think you need to give your head a wobble before you consider fostering very underprivileged children as you do seem to have a very patronising idea of what state educated children do all day.

I have a controlling MIL , so i can sympathise with you on that front. not paying for things controlling, just other ways of making dh and i feel bad ( me more than him)
its nowhere as bad now , but it was for years.
your dh needs to sort that, but men are pretty spineless sometimes when it comes to their own parents/ guilt.
You sound full of ideas for the future, but its the present you need to try and sort out with the children and dh needs to stop his hobby for a while and help out a bit. easier said than done, i do know what its like, but you need to try.

make sure one of your dcs plays rugby. Job done.

I'm sorry you've taken a bit of a battering op, an unjustified one at that, but it seems to have pushed you towards simplifying your life to better suit you so silver linings and all that. I think anyone, whatever their background or perceived privileges, can be unhappy with the direction that their life is taking and there is nothing wrong in seeking advice to try to deal with the things that bother us. I'm very surprised that some pp's felt you sounded 'up yourself' as I really though your post came across as self effacing but with a genuine sadness at the lack of time you have to spend with your loved ones. I'm glad you seem to have it sussed now op. Good luck.

Having read this I'm so glad we don't have MIL contribute towards anything. Even though we are constantly overdrawn and live in a cramped tumbledown shack, it would simply give her far too much pleasure, to know we needed her help. Never ever ever.
I think she even gets a kick out of knowing that we're struggling, while she sits like the patriarchal queen in her 7 bed mansion and earns a 6 figure salary in interest alone!
Is only willing to help if you idolise her and relinquish all autonomy in your family life to her, as is the case with the SILs. Makes my hair stand on end. If your MIL is anything like mine OP, then yes trust me, you owe her far more than you think!

For the posters get angry at op making light and joking about dementia- humour is how some people cope with these situations.

My brother is severely autistic and the way my family and I cope is to find the funny side in some things. I'll tell you, if my Mum and us cried and raged at everything he does we'd have lost our shit a long time ago.

Finding the humour in a bad situation is how a lot of people cope.

And will people read the FUCKING thread and ease up with the awful, spiteful comments. Jealousy is a really ugly trait and some of you are coming across as very unpleasant.

I think cory is spot on. This is not a private school/state school issue, it's why OP feels the need to keep up with the Jones'.

My DC are at school with a socially diverse demographic. Most DC do no extra curricular activities, or 1 at most. My DC realize how lucky they are to have opportunities to do more activities than their peers, but also that they are not the be all and end all.

My friend's DC go to school in an affluent middle class area. When I suggested that 6 after school activities a week was a lot for her 4 year old she looked genuinely shocked and told me that she'd never thought of it that way because most of her child's peers were doing more!

Hayesking- I'm going to have to get a lot better at a lot of things and being less of a characature of myself in order to hide my gaping insecurities is one of them. I'm working on it.

I know that pretty much no one gets to sit around drinking wine and talking to chickens... I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't even want to.

Chickens mean that I'm at home. I'm just never there. Wine... Well wine is just stopping. Stopping and doing fuck all and having the time to talk to my wonderful husband. Wine or no, we just don't do enough of that.

Not sure how I even started talking about grandma, but it's been brilliant. My family just don't talk. All very stiff upper lip. Anyway, it's made me realise that life is too short to spend it on the car. I'd rather have an album full of photos than a Tesco club card full of petrol points.

Again, I'm sorry if I upset anyone, I have brilliant friends who are both state and private mums, and I know plenty of in your face mums who wear their kids talents like a badge. I'm in awe of their organisation. I just can't do it all. I seem to have 'lost my shit' along the way somewhere.

Can't wait for my special days off with my little boy. Small snag in the plan- I need to give the school a terms notice to change his days. Perhaps if I explain that I've had a slight breakdown followed by an epiphany, they might be more lenient.

Hope you're all having a good day x

Look, just stop thinking about other people and worrying about how you are coming across yourself and you'll be fine.

Even if your last post you talk about 'in your face mums wearing their kids talents like a badge'. Stop the judgements!

It doesn't matter. You are you, however you ultimately decide to be you, and they are them and you have no control over that and it should have no impact on you.

" I know plenty of in your face mums who wear their kids talents like a badge. I'm in awe of their organisation"

stop slagging off in one breath and praising in another! Honestly!

tbh I am wondering if you are heading for a breakdown. Some of these posts, erudite and articulate as they might be, sound a bit manic.

To be honest, so am I. I keep having to disappear from the office to do stupid little cries that don't really seem to come out. They just sort of well up, tears start coming and then it all stops, but never really goes away.
I word things terribly, I'm not normally like that. I'm not really thinking straight at the moment. I've never known anyone die (all grandparents apart from Grandma went either before I was born, or when I was really little). I just feel a bit stupid. trying to cry, not being able to, but not being able to stop wanting to. ridiculous.

There are some really in your face mums at my school, and I really do marvel at how the fuck they do it. It wasn't really meant to be praise or slagging off. I can see how it's both, but I just don't seem to be able to get anything right at the moment. dropping all the balls and now just want to hide behind the sofa.

I really need a massive cuddle with DH and DC's. but yet again we have late evening hockey training. I'll miss the boys bedtime (for the second night in a row) and I just feel rubbish. So stupid to feel rubbish about something that seems so easily fixed, but even that is stupidly scary.

I don't know why. it just is.

fuck.

It's called grief and is completely normal when you have lost someone close.

I know this is going to sound really really naive and stupid, but I've never felt like this. I did proper big crying when my last dog died. I thought I'd cry more for grandma, but I'm more angry than anything else.

God that sounds awful. I just want to cry lots and lots, but it won't come out.

It doesn't sound awful at all. Anger is part of grief. I'm no expert but in one way it sounds like you lost her a long time ago so that will affect the stages. Everyone reacts differently.

Why don't you just sack off the hockey training for tonight and go home? You need to rest.