Too hate the holidays..

[pansydansy]

I used to love having the kids at home during the holidays but dear god their killing me.

They've put me out of house and home.

The tantrums.

The shouts of "I'm bored"

The money spent trying to entertain them.

The day trips trying to sound all enthusiastic when your sick to the back teeth of seeing yet another pig/sheep/cow/ chicken/ horse 😩

The washing 😳

The toys everywhere.

The absolute mess until their in bed.

The fights.

And the worst thing is we're only 1 week down 🙈 feeling very jealous of my dh who's at work getting some peace and quietness 😬

I was one of four kids and my mum didn't try to micro manage us during the holidays. She let us get on with stuff and bellowed "pack it in" if we argued with each other. And gave us a withering look if we complained of being bored. Oh I do miss her!

Agree with blueskies the school hols are when we can stay in bed late & not have to rush around. I love spending time with mine.
I find it sad that people don't enjoy their kids company enough to want to spend down time with them.
I do wonder if the ones that moan don't work FT - honestly I would prefer a day with my kids than going off to work.
We both teach so I guess we are both around which makes it easier. But then we never get a break from kids either term time or school hols.

I love it if I have time off in the holidays, it's so rare it's a real treat. Work is a massive intrusion on my life, and for over a year I've been doing 6 days a week.

The bickering is a pain in the butt, but I find it much more stressful trying to cram it all in and sort out disagreements when I'm just in from work, trying to cook tea, listen to reading and get the DC to bed before 9pm.

The worst school holiday by far was the August of Chicken Pox where we were housebound for a complete month . Everything after that has seemed much more manageable .

pansydansy it sounds like you have people who are offering to take the kids out today & overnight next week. Surely it's not that bad? Do you work? Just not sure working is better than being home.

I absolutely love them now that mine are older. Not having to race around and deal with school admin, school run, after school clubs etc is bliss for a couple of weeks. I'm not constantly watching the clock.

I can also drive to work in 20 minutes and leave them at home if I need to. Yesterday I came home and under dps supervision they'd sorted out the house ready for visitors. Very different from the pre school years where holidays dragged painfully,

I love them too. I'm always glad when others do.
We all love the break from the school and work rat race.
Yesterday I offered a day trip but DD asked to just stay in and we had a lovely day doing art and baking and okaying games.
I know that all sounds a bit twee and idealistic but I am also grappling with a teen DD going through a break up so it's not all roses 😯

Face book has lots of sites which list free activities.

"Why do people have children even when they're going to find having the home all day every day a bit tiring/dull/challenging?"

First: "It's a biological and evolutionary imperative. Also a social one; I might well need them to look after me in my old age. "

Yep.

Second: I can't say I enjoyed every moment of every 8-week school holiday - we lived in a place unsuitable for doing the unsupervised carefree roaming I did in my own childhood so it was full-on all day. However, my DDs are now 40 and 30 and unquestionably the best thing I ever did, the best luck I ever had. We go shopping together, we help each other out in numerous ways, we have great family weekends or Christmases etc with them and their DPs, we go on holidays together as DH won't go any more (says he's too old!)

All that without having much enjoyed the prospect of the long summer holidays coming up when they were young.

I do love the holidays but mine are only 5 and 8 and get on well. Plus I'm not enjoying work at the moment so that may help! I'm only off this week and feel sad about going back to work next week and leaving them 🙁 They'll be in a sports club together with friends so they'll still have fun.

We've done National Trust property and bike ride there, cinema, long walk/scoot, big local attraction (pay once, go for the year so we'll use that in the summer too), swimming, playing in the garden. It's cost less than £60 so really cheap but we've had picnics when out for the day so that's helped. Their club next week is £80 for both of them which is 10 - 3pm and for 4 days. I thought that was good value so I'm surprised we've spent less this week.

@MissLucyHoneychurch my mum was the same! There was no point in complaining about being bored, because she'd soon find you some housework to do! By and large we were expected to entertain ourselves- over the course of the summer holidays she'd maybe take us swimming/ice skating one day, and a couple of picnics, but otherwise we just got on with it. It was fab.

DH, on the other hand, was constantly entertained, and tbh I think he still gets bored quickly and needs to go out.

He'll plan something for every day of the holidays (often something quite expensive, like the farm, or swimming), whereas I tend to let the kids get on with it.

The squabbling drives me mad, though (mine are 5 & 2), but I've discovered it helps if I'm not in the room. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen pretending to be busy.

Found the holidays hard when dcs were young. As someone upthread said, fine if you have plenty money or are off wrok during the holidays (teachers) but really hard work otherwise. So much better now they are older/grown up. DC 3 ( youngest) goes back on Monday for about a week, then is on study leave, then leaves school. Yay!! Freedom.

@CaptSkippy their 4 & 2 I don't think it's acceptable to chuck them out 🙈🙊

@converseandjeans no I don't work. And I'm moaning about this week. Not next.

Oh come off it. "Its sad that people don't like their children's company enough to spend time with them"

I have 4 kids (10,8,6,2) individually I love spending time with them. And at the weekend as a group. But in the holidays they see so much of one another that. They. Fight. Constantly. It's hard work and mentally draining trying to preempt or diffuse arguments.
I used to love the holidays but they're at ages now where there's a lot of bickering and it's hard work!

pansydansy I guess you're lucky you don't have to work then. I honestly think if you did you wouldn't perceive being at work as an easier option. It's no fun & I definitely prefer school holidays.

@converseandjeans I know what it's like to work and have children. I worked before I had my last 2 kids and much preferred it. I wouldn't call it being "lucky" I'd say the sahp have it much was. It's relentless and most people don't get the help I do.

Much worse*

Surely this doesn’t need to turn into a WOHP v SAHM thread? Even if it did, working parents on here have said some of them find it hard due to sorting childcare / cost of childcare and some parents off with their children have said they find it hard due to all the reasons listed on this thread.

I definitely find being at work the easier option! And I only have one relatively well behaved DC......

I work hard at my job but it's not emotional work, which parenting is.

I'm a LP and I find the endless 'why mummy?' hard from about a week into the holidays. I can't go to the loo/shower/anywhere without being followed and chatted to. It's lovely but it gets tiring (and lonely) having to be endlessly patient all day, every day (and night)

I'm ashamed to be envious of parents who don't work during school holidays. As a couple, we decided that we both needed to work. As a consequence, we're in that catch 22 where we work to pay for expensive childcare. We miss DC when we're at work. Workdays during school holidays are worse that term time because of all the chasing around preparing stuff, holiday clubs not being open at the same time as we need to be at work.

And I generally spend more on our trips and activities on days off, probably through mum guilt.

This is the decision we made, but as I said, I'm envious of parents who spend school holidays with their children.

I LOVE the holidays (mainly because I am a teacher). My 8yo:

Goes out to play
Brings friends in to play, but they go to the games room not all over the house
Spends very long periods of time sailing (just done 7 days straight)

It is a rare thing I 'organise' anything for him to do apart from fetching friends who live too far away to be able to be knocked for.

All this only works though because:

We have one DC, so no fighting in the house
We live in a super-safe corner of a very safe rural market town
DC has a very time-consuming hobby which, other than signing him up (and coughing up), requires no effort from me.

toostressy it's only relevant as the OP said she thought her OH had the better deal by going to work.
Lots of working parents would love to be with their kids in the hols (but might change their mind after a full 6 weeks )
It's probably much easier for teachers who are used to much larger numbers of kids - maybe a job where you work in a quiet setting is a different thing altogether.
OP to be fair you have 3 teenagers as well so must be hard work juggling their needs & you have probably been on hundreds of toddler days out by the time you get to number 5!

Yanbu. I have a teenager who doesn't want to leave his room, has no friends to see, and is ASD so can't be left alone unsupervised or trusted to go out on his own. He doesn't cope with activities or clubs.
I also have two younger ones who want constant entertaining and parks, soft play, farms etc, all the things the older one has outgrown and refuses to go to. I have no support and I'm on my own for nearly all of all the holidays. Most the people I know are off on holiday or having family time, whereas my DH works all the time and my eldest can't cope with holidays.
We live in an area there is very little to do and have to travel miles for any decent days out. I want to love the holidays but for me they are a logistical hell.

To be fair I only clicked to find out how long it would be before someone trotted out the "why have children if you don't want to spend time with them?"

didn't even get past the first page

Clearly no one is ever allowed to find anything difficult

Obviously the fact that I love and cherish and build a home and a life with my DC 365 days a year and have wonderful moments ,celebrate their wins , comfort their disappointments,challenge them to do their best and support them and cuddle them when things are hard....

All of that means nothing because I struggle a bit when two dc out of their routine and overtired are on holidays.

Absolutely ...i should never have dared to procreate because all of the ups and downs and wonderful rollercoaster of parenting means nothing because I hid in the bathroom yesterday for ten minutes muttering "Fucking Easter holidays "on repeat.

The naivety and ignorance of smug idiots unable to think past their nose always amazes me.

Of course holidays are hard , it doesn't make you a thankless or bad parent...chocolate , the odd freezer meal and early bedtimes are most definately your friend

Hardest bit for me is the constant food preparation!

Of course the working spouse doesn't have the easier option. Not working means no deadlines, no boss, no worry about job loss, no performance issues, no money worries as someone else has them etc. I'm sure he'd like to be home for the holidays instead of having to work.