Why am I paying to live a life I hate?

[upsetandang]

I want the dream, cottage in the countryside, long walks with several hundred dogs. Family games every night. Singing and piano for entertainment instead of horrid bratty kids shows {see horrid Henry and the like}, homecooked meals every single night.

But I'm lazy and we watch TV for family time, I don't eat at the table because the kids move too much and knock me or nick my food, we don't play board games because I get too stressed with the toddler moving pieces, 'I want a go!' every five bleeding seconds. oh and we have takeaways way more than id like.

Does anyone have the life they thought they'd have as a child? I thought I'd be a nice parent who plays all day with the kids and bakes every day and goes to the really cool park 10 miles away. But I'm barely holding it together and I shout too much. live in a shit hole, am a shithole basically.
I haven't shaved in a year, maybe more. no make up in 3.

how do I change my whole life? I want to turn it around. I'm a sahm so have the time, I'm just lacking the effort

can anyone recommend a book or a YouTube channel or something that is step by step that I can follow to a better life? I'm sick of wasting my children's childhoods

Easy solutions to start with.
If you want to eat at the table, just do so. Even if only for two or three meals a week to begin with.

Home cooked meals: batch cook once a week or try a meal service like Gousto or Hello Fresh if you can afford it.
When I was a sahm I used to do my cooking on a Sunday when dh was home to help with kids. It did take up the whole day, but I didn’t have to think about meals aside from boiling some pasta or prepping potatoes etc for the entire week so it was well worth it. I reverted to this during lockdown as I felt that as well as working non-stop, I spent my life cooking and deciding what to feed the kids. Also, keep basic staples such as eggs and cheese in the fridge. There is no shame in whipping up an omelet or scrambled eggs when you are shattered and it is nutritionally better than a ready meal. Now kids are back at school and I’m only providing 2 meals per day I’m back to Hello Fresh.

Keep games age appropriate. If you are trying to make a child sit through Monopoly you are going to be frustrated. Think games that are a bit tedious for you but will engage them. Mine loved Elefun and Shark Chase at that age.

If you want to encourage the kids to walk, take them for a walk. I used to get mine outside every day, even if it was just to the local shop and back. They really loved it and looked forward to it. When they were small we would take a bag at this time of year and collect leaves, acorns and twigs etc. They would love to show Daddy the crap exciting things they had found. When they are small and interested in everything it takes ages to get anywhere anyway so keep it short to begin with.

I’m sure you are not lazy, this year hasn’t been easy on anyone, but you do seem to be in a bit of a rut. Just start with one of the small changes above and commit to sticking with it for a week. You will get there.

One step at a time OP, if you start by aiming for the perfect day you are always going to feel like you’ve failed. Identify one thing you’d like to achieve in a day, prioritise doing it and then remember to reflect back at the end of the day and remember how good it felt to do whatever it was. This positive reinforcement will help you to do it again the next day. Over time some of these things, like cooking a meal and eating at the table, will become routine and then you can introduce something new. Don’t overwhelm yourself with trying to change everything at once.

@upsetandang I sympathiseOP. you have a lot on your plate with 4 children. I was going to suggest switching the tv off, but I see you don’t watch it anyway, but definitely think you should step away from IG and Pinterest.
When my children were small I made lists and put things on there in order of priority, also I found it helped to decide first thing in the morning what we were going to have for our main meal, and very often started some meal prep then. It’s awful getting to 5 pm and thinking “what can we have for dinner tonight?”
As a previous poster has suggested, try and take the children out for a walk, it will clear your head and hopefully wear them out! Good luck.

@Stellaroses

Please come back and update us about how the weekend goes! By the way I'm still in bed on mumsnet. So what?

Haha. And me. I would also recommend The Organised Mum Method. I did it for a while and it's good, bite size cleaning but rotates everything. Then I increased my hours to full time and decided to get a cleaner but it was good while I did it.

You sound worn down. Start small. Set a timer for 20 mins on your phone with a gentle alarm. For that time pretend to be the Enid Blyton/ Instagram/ living my best life mum and play act it. The more you do it, the easier it’ll be. What’s the rather like with you now? I’ve just spent an hour in a surprisingly warm garden sweeping up leaves and feel very living my best life!

You have 4 children under 8 to look after (doesn't sound like huge help to do that). If they are fed & safe & content at the end of the day then you've had an amazing day. I dunno what crazy standards are in your head, it's important to see the positives you have right now.

Sorry- last post should have said what’s the weather like?

Give yourself a break. Can you get some time out I'm not surprised you don't have time for any self care.
Think longterm.

OP, you are being way too hard on yourself. Your way of life is normal by any standards and especially during endless lockdowns this year.

My guess is that what you want is what you'll have in a couple of years. It's just your DC are too small for now. My DC had something close to the life you say you want. But to get to it, we had to do lots of small, compromised stages.

Pick a really easy board game and play it for 10 minutes after tea, then let them watch tv. (Btw, I found Horrid Henry is absolutelyevil for putting them in bratty, fighting moods. Try to avoid it and put on films instead, or something like Arthur if it still exists, which is really sweet. Even The Simpsons encourages better behaviour than HH.)

Baking with DC is never the cute event it looks in TV shows and posts by instagram mums. But just do very simple stuff and give everyone a turn of every job so there is no fighting.

For country walks and lovely play parks, just get a routine going. Decide that every Saturday afternoon you do a family outing. Just arrange the weekend around it. Prep in advance. Make a flask of hot chocolate. Get wellies, warm coats and gloves etc ready in advance. Take a healthy snack. Then go for a couple of hours. Always have a treat in store to get them home again. (I never said 'We have to leave the park now.' I always said 'Who wants a sweet now? They are in the car/at home.')

Parenting is really tough when you have a toddler. They just do what they do. It will get easier for you.

Take away the things that distract you. Then wait. You'll find yourself doing something useful instead. First things first, switch off the TV (or go somewhere else, if others are watching it), and log out of MN.

You're basically saying 'I want a different life but I really can't be arsed.'

Umm are you me? You have written down my exact life! I daydream about an outdoorsy life with my kids where we go for walks, bike rides, bake, craft, read together, play games and prepare home cooked meals that we eat around our (tiny!) kitchen table. The reality is that I just can’t be that person and so I stick my children in front of the box, mostly feed them very easy meals and stare at my phone. I’m so incredibly lazy and I hate it. I have been diagnosed with depression but that’s no excuse! My kids deserve so much better.

Sorry I can’t offer any advice but I am following with interest.

can anyone recommend a book or a YouTube channel or something that is step by step that I can follow to a better life? I'm sick of wasting my children's childhoods.

Atomic Habits by James Clear. It's a book, I listened to it on audible after it was recommended on a different thread on here about whether or not a daily habit can change your life (it can, because one habit can set a domino effect for establishing new, better, habits and breaking old ones). I have really changed my daily habits and life in the last 6 months. The book is cheesy in parts, but it emphasises focusing on your overall "system", rather than big goals that can make you feel unmotivated when you dont immediately achieve them.

The organised mum method, it's a book, but she also has an online blog you can see for free:
www.theorganisedmum.blog/free-printables/

It makes boring household stuff easier to manage, she also adds a new playlist to spotify every week day, and they're always really mood boosting. She advocates meal planning and using a slow cooker, which makes it much easier to sort meals.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig - it's a fiction book, but a lovely read and I found it really helpful to change my mindset.

One thing I have found helpful over the years is recognising periods of natural stress (child's longterm illness, new baby etc) and just dialling down on expectations then.

The other thing that strikes me is you don't mention a dh or a dp. Are you a single mum? And if not, shouldn't this be a joint responsibility? My dad was born in the 1930s but the reason my mum was able to go on and do all those great things with her children was he cooked every single evening meal, apart from the very occasional dinner party or meal cooked by a child, for decades. He took us out and taught us to do things. He read to us and played with us.

@LuaDipa has made some brilliant suggestions. I was thinking about Gousto or Hello Fresh but as I haven’t tried them I was reluctant to.

Also something I found helped when I was really struggling to find motivation to start something (like a pile of dishes or sorting my bedroom out etc) I would set a timer for 15 minutes and just do that. 9 times out of ten I would want to carry on after the 15 minutes was up but I was fine to stop at 15 minutes if I didn’t feel like carrying on because at least I knew I’d achieved something. Better than doing zero minutes of it. So even if you only get the DC out for a 15 minutes stint outside, isn’t that better than zero minutes outside?

With home cooked meals - maybe do them at weekends. When DC were small, they lived on tinned spaghetti and fish fingers because I was shattered and I knew they eat that stuff. As they got older, I cooked more. By the time they were all in juniors/secondary it was home cooked food most nights with a take out as an occasional treat.

Yanbu, you have four dc and they are so young, go easy on yourself! It will get so much easier to do more when they are a bit older.

A tip from me - on my wfh days I used to walk to school pick up in jeans and a hoodie, really scruffy. Then I bought a nice blazer, it takes no extra time, I just put on the blazer instead of the scruffy hoodie and I look 'together'.

Shaving can be done quickly, maybe pick up a mascara etc in Tesco with your shopping if you think you'll feel more polished then

Forget aiming for a perfect day. When DS was a baby sometimes it was a real achievement to shower and clean my teeth before lunch.

Aim for slight improvement.
Shave if you want to. That would be such a quick first step.
Instead of board games play something like Hungry hippos or Pop up pirate where a bit of chaos is part of the game.
Try to work in a bed time story if you don't already. It's one of the best things you can do for a child's future.

Gemma Bray who wrote 'the organised mum method' has also recently released 'the organised time technique', not read it yet so can't really give a review, but sounds useful.

@JamminDoughnuts

family games are never what they are cracked up to be, they are hard work, and often end badly

Yep. We ended up deciding never to play them again. we have Bananagrams, dobble, qwirkle and that sort of thing. We also have the Wii which is great fun and has sociable games on. Knowledge is Power on the PlayStation is really good too for older children families.

You have 4 kids, and two of them are really little! That you're all surviving the day is a huge achievement. I'm starting to get to the boardgames stage with mine, but I've only got two .. and they're not toddlers anymore.

If you want to do more directed activities, you need to divide and conquer with your DH. He takes the 2 and 0 kids, and you can play a boardgame with the 7 and 5. Or he takes all four, and you cook dinner (maybe with the baby in a sling?).

1. Tonight when kids are asleep shave
2. Tonight write a shopping list for 2 home cooked meals you can make tonight
3. By next Saturday have tidied up 4 rooms
4. Tomo morning take your kids to the park 10m away

You have four children, including two tinies! No wonder you're constantly busy, without ever seeming to achieve anything. Normal for the age and stage. when the smallest is about three and the third one at school, things will start to become much, much easier.

In the meantime, small steps is the answer. Do one small thing, feel pleased about having achieved that. That feeling of achievement will help power you towards the next small thing and so on.

This is the thread I mentioned:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/3978071-AIBU-to-ask-you-if-a-daily-habit-has-transformed-your-life

1. Tonight write a shopping list for 2 home cooked meals you can make next week!! Not tonight!!