To wonder why we aren't one of "those" families

[Mypetsnails]

Sort of lighthearted. This is going to sound SO daft. But do you ever notice the families who seem, well, better at family-ing than everyone else?

We went to a thing at a National Trust place at the weekend. Took a picnic and sat on the big green. Right beside us there was this family that had a three sided shelter type thing which they'd popped their baby and picnic in to protect them from the sun. They'd brought tennis racquets and these gorgeous kids and their equally beautiful parents were taking it in turns to whack a ball around/sit in the shelter thing. They had a picnic cool bag the size of my kitchen, no idea what they brought but it was probably nicer than my tragic cheese sandwiches

Then there's the beach. We're trying to stop our towels blowing away, and the alpha family have a wall of windbreaks, a body board, and a barbecue.

DD is actually friends with a child from such a family, and they also have a really organised hallway with special named slots and storage systems for all the children's outdoor things. Plus the mum has a boot storage thing with a first aid kit, plasters, and spare clothes in it.

There's obviously nothing stopping me buying little shelters, bodyboards, and shoe storage for my hallway, but it's more that it wouldn't occur to me? And I don't know why? I used to play at a tennis club twice a week, why on earth don't WE bring racquets with us?

Does anyone know what I mean? I was a very solitary only child, and my parents didn't do a lot of child friendly things with me, so maybe it's a bit of a hangover from that - I remember feeling that my family and home was very different from other people's but when I tried to express why to my mum, I said "they have big tins for their biscuits and we just put ours into the cupboard"

Near this exact same thing happened to me and my husband at a national trust property last weekend lol!! That's so funny! I'm glad someone else feels this way hahaha!
There was an absolutely perfect family there... extremely middle class but friendly.. grandparents, young couple and three young children.. two boys and a girl... they had a cricket set and the grandparents and mum were sat in deck chairs watching the dad play cricket with the kids....and our son ran up to them (hes 4) and hes a bit younger than the other kids and hasn't a clue what cricket even is.... but they were all so patient with him and the dad was letting him bat and trying to explain to him what to do... and the kids were so polite... the the grandad got up to help.. they offered us strawberries and the gran tried to politely chat to us...
And we are just sat there covered in mud on two hours sleep with zero energy... parenting in weak shouts of 'no dont do that mate' whilst sat on the ground exhausted.. my sons got his tshirt on inside out and my baby is covered in orange baby food stains and I forgot to bring out any new clothes for her... I havent even brushed my own hair let alone my sons etc etc

As we were walking away my husband said 'christ those people put us to shame as parents'...

I live 5 mins walk from a beach and we gave up beach picnics years ago when it became obvious that you can't keep the sand out of the sandwiches. We go into the M&S across the road and sit on the flower bed walls on the prom to eat the food. Dd1 hates the beach anyway and won't go near it.

Went for a picnic at a NT property last week and the WASPS! I'm sticking to the cafe in future.

How do these perfect families cope with sandy food and wasps? Are they immune?

Ha ha, I tell you what, I am definitely in the ‘wing and a prayer’ camp but I think I would love to join you and your family on a messy, put it together as best as possible day. The memories would be great and it sounds a lot more fun!!

Do you have a 4x4 and a SAHP/nanny? If not that’s why.

Sometimes we are that family and sometimes we are the family with the soaking wet covered in sand in their normal clothes. Half naked drive home family.

Depends if it’s a spontaneous trip or an organised one.

I have a friend who is one of those families. She’s lovely, not wealthy, not smug, not without problems, just gifted at making families work. Her kids are all lovely too.
We are the other sort, the naked in car parks because a child has vomited on everyone sort. But our kids are lovely too.
I do worry that some children are so protected and planned for that they don’t get to practice in problem solving.

Thanks @SeriouslyEnoughAlreadyRantOver that's my next thing to try. I've given them jobs and stuff before but it ends up being even more work.

Maybe some of us just have naughty kids and I need to stop trying (and eat cake!)

DH & I have always felt like a Beta couple, were definitely not Alpha types. Except once, but only by comparison. We were at a very popular small tourist village at the seaside, & we'd spent the morning on the beach. Everyone started to come back to shore & get ice creams, lunch, chips etc, but one couple appeared & the man went down to the beach & lit a disposable barbecue. His partner briefly went down with him, they had a brief conversation & she came back up to the sea wall (where DH & I were standing), looking none too pleased. About 10 minutes later, as the partner had put the meat on the barbecue, the tide finally reached the top of the beach... and carried the barbecue away.

At my school we do the obligatory cake sale thing and one of the girls in my class brought in two of those lakeland type cupcake carrier box things full of delicious looking cupcakes.

My TA pointed to the carrier box thing and said to me 'blimey, imagine living in a household that is so organised that you have not one but two of those!'

I am sometimes like that family.
I was the mum who cooked from scratch, sewed my own children’s fancy dress costumes, baked for the school fayre and always carried spare clothes and drinks in my car.
I never looked immaculate though.
I always looked like I’d gotten dressed in a rush.

When you look back on your childhood, do you remember all the perfect stuff, or is it when it goes tits up that it sticks in your mind?

Going to the beach when I was a child was massively stressful. There would always be some awful row between my parents about getting ready, as my mother wouldn't have done any prep beforehand but would then insist on some gargantuan picnic lunch, so we'd all be buttering bread or chopping things and end up leaving late and getting stuck in the traffic. Obviously everything had to be home made, there was no question or slinging in a few pork pies and some cherry tomatoes.

All our kit was probably from the pre-war era, so seemed to weigh 7 tonnes. Because it always seemed to be so poorly planned, stuff would invariably be forgotten and there would be another massive argument in the car on the way there, so that by the time we arrived my mother would be red eyed and teary (not because my father was a monster but it was what she always did when she knew she was in the wrong and couldn't win the argument) and my father would be stomping around violently pulling stuff out of the car and doing the 6 million runs up and down the beach to get everything there.

The day would be filled with tension, all the food seemed to get covered in sand and we'd die of thirst because we never brought enough water and there was no way on earth the purchase of 'over-priced' drinks from the ice-cream van could be considered - god forbid an ice cream!!!! The day at the beach was supposed to be quite treat enough for us children.

My days at the beach with my DC ALWAYS involves an ice-cream and because I'm a lone parent, there is no adult to fight with about who forgot anything - not that I ever do, because I am uber organised!

When you look back on your childhood, do you remember all the perfect stuff, or is it when it goes tits up that it sticks in your mind?

I think this is why I roll my eyes so much at the #makingmemories It is not the parents who decide what the DC will remember.

Yes! Went on a picnic yesterday but got later than planned. Couldn't get to proper picnic area as tow path was closed and ds was about to have a hangry meltdown so ended up eating our sandwiches standing up in an alley on a housing estate ! Typical!

If you'd looked around you'd have seen me with my equally shit cheese sandwiches, not even a picnic rug to sit on lol! I often feel like you do, the thing is though I just don't have time or inclination for any of that shit! We try a little I mean we do have a special picnic rug, where it is though?? No idea! I try to dress my children nicely (they are 3 and 2), after 5 minutes they are covered in food and dirt! We took tennis rackets on holiday with us for our children, they came out the car once! I bought a shoe storage thing for the hall, the idea being shoes in the thing, wellies by the side. My husband leaves his shoes in front of it in a pile, for the first week I told him "in the box" after that I just couldn't be bothered, so we have even less space now as the shoe storage box sits there empty with the shoes still in a pile!!

We just aren't "those people"!

I’ve only read the first page, but thank you for making me feel so normal! We are often in the ‘carefully packed bag of stuff equally carefully left behind in the hall’ family. I try so hard, and then my brain fucks with me.

I'm not organised whatsoever at home but I can knock up a hell of a picnic! If we're going somewhere then I pack everything we could possibly need and we would definitely look like that family (except I personally look like Stig of the dump and not at all well put together)

You have phrased it so well! We went on an Easter egg hunt at a listed property and historical gardens, there was a family wih 3 kids who were like some of sort of advert, all stylishly ruffled looking kids, Mum and Dad stepped out of a catalogue, kids taking it in turns to figure out clues/claim an egg.

I spent the whole time trying to stop mine careening off in different directions, fighting over who got to claim the egg, shouting at them to stop shouting , and we all just looked bedraggled, windblown and red faced by the end of it.

I tell you, it's in the genes!

You may be right. My mum was super-organised and while I was a bit all over the place as a teenager - as a parent I can’t be doing with the kerfuffle and stress that comes with lack of organisation.

So I am the mum with the huge picnic basket, chairs and games in the boot. However I’m lazy enough to cut corners where I can - buying picnic food from Waitrose and Pret rather than making sandwiches and quiche. And I will not camp. Full stop. Way too much hard work.

We are definitely the plastic bag picnic crowd. We never seem to have a tenth of what people have on the beach.
My husband thinks a giant laundry bag of random items - shoes, racquets, important medicine, yesterday's paper - is a perfectly acceptable way to pack up a car for holidays.
But we are always out and about doing good stuff so I can't complain!

Err @BogglesGoggles we are that family and we have an income of less than £22k and an old Hyundai.

Sorry for being organised and preparing a picnic. Oh and just remembering the blanket and some outdoor games 🙄

Dfod.

I wanted to be this family so much I joined the national trust when they had the free backpack cooler offer. But we are not that family, although our cheese sandwiches are now in a nice cooler rather than a plastic bag. I do know families are like this. Instead of spending £50 on eating out they spend £50 on a picnic set or a windbreaker or whatever and they have the ginormous car and house to store everything and they see it as an investment. Everything was generally a bargain secondhand as well. I now just think it's stressful and wince at all their stuff. When I read the Maria Kondo book I think instantly of them!

Bertrand I don't even like trifle very much but I love the idea of jam jar trifles!

We went out for the day recently and DH mentioned the idea of a "naice" picnic, but as usual was vague about what that entailed .
He obviously as usual expected me to just make it happen having fulfilled all his obligations by expressing the idea alone, ok it was his birthday but still . . . he is strict veggie, one DC has severe food allergies, other two really fussy . . . reader, I provided sandwiches and crisps. After we had eaten our lunch we walked by another picnic table where the kids were eating mini sausages, picnic eggs, salady stuff, and he said "that's the sort of thing I was thinking of." Yeah OK mate but only I would have eaten any of it!

However I did notice that my DC were the only teenagers I saw at this stately home type place, so I did feel smug that they were prepared to come with us. I wondered how many of the perfect boden kids that were there would still agree to come in 10 years time, and I comforted myself with that thought.

I'm pretty shit when we go out. My kids are a bit older now, so I'm really complacent about things like wet wipes, but sometimes we do still need them! Sometimes we go somewhere with families who have brought literally everything you could possibly need for any eventuality and I feel very inadequate when I have to say 'oh, can I nick a wet wipe please'!

My OH goes through his 'organised' phases. We once had a sideboard with cupboards and 4 drawers, he couldn't immediately find what he wanted in the drawers so he set about organising them. Each drawer was allocated 4 spaces, back, front, left and right, so that was 16 areas in total. He then allocated everything to a space and kept a rolladex type record of where everything was. When I asked him where the passports were in his system he couldn't find his rolladex record! He never found it and, no, I didn't!

I think I realised very early on that we were never going to be one of those families.

I used to take DS1 to baby swimming classes and then join the other mum's in the cafe after for a coffee. All the other babies/toddlers would sit quietly in their prams, tired out from swimming, whilst DS1 would go crazy if I tried to keep him strapped in. Coffee for me involved wrestling DS on my lap to stop him running round the cafe