This Memory Making bollocks

[Liberation1]

Is really getting on my nerves!

Why can people not just have a nice time with their kids without calling it "making memories "

Today on FB a friend wrote;

"Got out of college early today so was able to make memories with my lovely girls" 🤮

The things we remember as kids are probably not what our parents thought would become good memories!

It's such an irritating phrase!

🤮

I've given up on the vacuousness of Facebook but DH remains on it and is very entertained by one of our friends who posts in excess of fifty photos every time they take their toddler for a walk. Surely even doting grandparents would get sick of that shit, let alone everyone else?!

If the FB poster feels the need to update the world with the minutiae of each 'memory', it would be better is she just put 'off to have some fun'.

50% of my childhood memories are not that great. The other 50% would probably bore you all shitless.

I hate this. Mine are late teens now and they've been on some lovely holidays over the years, all over the world. Their most memorable one ...... camping in the pissing rain in Cornwall, where DH and I almost divorced .

I know so many parents who have taken their kids on wonderful holidays and been dismayed cum amused to hear their child, on being asked by a relative what they did on their holidays reply something like "we got ice cream'. "a dog wee'd up against our car".

Just live your life with your kids. They'll make their own memories - and not necessarily the contrived ones that competitive parents post all over Facebook.

Times in the park I remember

• getting flashed at when I was 9 (not really Insta material)
• my cousin breaking her arm on the monkey bars
• finding my nan's wedding ring that she'd lost 5 days earlier

All the rest is one big swing and slide blur.

Oh yes me and my friend were flashed at when we were 12! No cameras in sight, not even a parent

Not sure that qualifies as a "making memories " moment but it makes my friend and I laugh every time we think of it!

OK, you ay be making memories for yourself of a lovely walk or a happy half hour spent icing cupcakes, but the stuff your DC actually remember is more likely to be that a sibling shat their pants, or there was a funny dog on the bus, or that this expensive holiday was the time they got to level 102 on their favourite computer game...

I told someone recently to put her phone away, stop "making memories" and to enjoy today. Don't think she appreciated it.

I didn't appreciate her blocking my view of my DD in the same show with her bloody phone. Especially because the school were recording it for a DVD we could buy.

I was ranting about this time other day. I'm glad it's not just me!

The post that set me off was a photo of their 3x kids aged 6, 4 and 18mths at the park. A local park. These kids will NOT remember that particular trip I'm sure!

huge eyeroll

My adult son (28) is very good at using this phrase in a cheeky way to get the family together for something that his dp's will end up paying for so for us it makes me smile at the good times he has instigated!

Pointless!
We had a bit of a special holiday when my oldest was three.
The only thing he remembers of the hours of entertainment, and treats, and yas out we planned for him....is spewing on the last night and it splashing on his shoes.

#memoriesmade

If you asked my son about a lasting holiday memory it would be about the time I forgot to pack his PJs. Honestly I will never be allowed to forget that.

The phrase "feeling blessed" gets on my tits equally as much TBH and usually its the same people that use both.

DD has to write about her memories for a school project. She listed DS falling off a chair and splitting his eyebrow open, going to McDonalds when the dog was sick in the car and the day “Granny looked after me all day and we watched Peppa Pig and ate biscuits” aka DD2’s birth. I had not hashtagged any of these experiences.

The best way to guarentee "making a memory" with the kids is to have vomit/ wee or poo involved

My first holiday memory is aged 3 and it's of the hotel room. Memorable because of the bunk beds and being sick

My favourite photo of the DCs on holiday last year was when DS was in a stinking mood. I was trying to get an obligatory photo of the DCs in a certain spot, and with a mounting queue of American tourists behind me took a quick series of snaps that upon reviewing reveal DS scowling heavily then picking on his sibling before sulking off and leaving his sibling in tears. The photos make me smile because it was a genuine moment and he looked so much like my DB in our youth
(They also remind me why I ban him from drinking fruit shoot...)

Oh yes, things I remember from childhood-

Running around fields when my mum worked on the land. Getting into the van with the other workers (this was in the back of a muddy old thing no windows just benches and not a child's safety seat in sight!)

Stepping barefoot onto a nail and being sat on the wall to get out pulled out.

Crawling under the tables at playgroup.

Watching a 2p machine randomly toppling out 2ps at the pier, and calling out my parents to stop. They ignored me and carried on walking away. I didn't want to lose them so had no choice but to keep moving and watch the injustice of some teenage boy swoop in on MY discovery!

Making memories indeed!

What I don't like about the term "making memories" is that it implies the important thing about life, or childhood, isn't the living of it here and now, but the looking back on it. Like it's just a preparation for when you're old.

My grandmother died last year after several years of severe dementia. She lived an amazing, unusual life and travelled all over the world. She couldn't remember any of that by the end. Her lack of memory didn't make her life any less valid or make any of it not worth living. She enjoyed life when she could and that was the important thing.

Creme that's what they usually are.. photos of them "making memories " at their local, non special park! I'm sure the kids won't think back on their time at the run of the mill park as a particularly special memory.

Oh yes
#makingmemories
#lovemywife
#blessed

#letsnottalkaboutyouraffair

Absolutely does my head in. I have an ex friend who does this all the time 'making memories with are kids' - yes, spelt like that.

Most of the time it was all centred entirely around their youngest child and the other 4 had to just tag along bored witless. Most of these trips were to a farm (not even a proper farm) to brush a horse or something. Turns out she was shagging the guy at the farm and it was a chance to see him while #makingmemories. The memories those kids will have is that mummy eventually left daddy to drag them all to live in a shitty caravan with the new man. In the end the oldest left to live with his Gran and mummy forced daddy out of the house and left him homeless. I'm sure they are all lovely memories though!

My memories of being a child - the two that stand out the most are the time my dad jumped into a snowdrift not realising it was over a ditch and nearly completely disappeared. He was in up to his chest and we were all crying with laughter.

And the time my mum made some eclairs at home and they went wrong so when we tried to eat them there was cream shooting out everywhere. It was carnage.

One day trip stands out in my memory as a kid.. It was the day me and my brother fought in the car to the point my parents finally snapped and followed through on the threat to leave us at the side of the road 😂. Obviously they came back for us...

Not the hundreds of happy family trips we had!

#makingmemories

Took my 12 year old brother on holiday to Greece when I was 21. Took him to see all kinds of things, do all kinds of activities, etc.

When we got home and my gran asked him what he'd done on this 'holiday of a lifetime', he listed all the different types of transport (coach to airport, plane, coach from airport, Greek bus into city, Greek bus out of city...etc ad nauseam) he'd been on during the 12 days.

Not a word about anything else. Memories, eh?

I don't think it bothered me until you mentioned it, now I think it is a bit irritating! I don't use the expression myself, memories are things you think about afterwards so you don't really know if you're making them at the time! (actually next time I put my phone or keys down I might say I'm 'making memories' so that I can actually remember where I put them!

#MakingMemories is utter bollocks, usually posted by people who care more about getting 'likes' than about actually having a good time.

On a similarly irritating note I have someone I know from school (so about 20 years ago now!) who literally posts about 5 or more 'inspirational' quotes / memes each day, and then intersperses these with status updates about how shit her life is, which is rather ironic.