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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Please say I'm not the minority here...

136 replies

Sunshine3013 · 20/02/2021 19:39

I love my children and I would class myself as a good mum. However I work from home as a professional writer, and along with running the house and tending to their needs... I just don't find the time to really sit down and play with them. They are twins so are constantly playing with eachother and attend school.. I do take them out to play and do fun things with them but at home I don't find myself sitting and doing crafts or baking cakes and doing lego for an hour. I make sure my kids don't want for anything and I do spend time with them in other ways... However I often feel inadequate when I read all these mum blogs and the women seem to be doing all these fabulous at home adventures with their kids.

Please say I am not the minority...

OP posts:
Fluffien · 20/02/2021 20:53

I do quite a lot of crafts with DS, but only because I enjoy it! Theres so much more than structured activities that are of value anyway, as long as they're safe and happy then sounds good. I know what you mean though, I always feel others are doing more, I'm not doing enough and feel guilty.

chutneypig · 20/02/2021 20:57

YANBU - I have twins and every year or so entertain the notion that baking with them will be worth the effort. It never, ever is. They will always squabble about who has stirred the mix the most or something, while I’m quietly rocking in the corner. Crafts are even worse.

Luckily they’re 13 now and DD at least is perfectly capable of making me a cake without any input from me. The argument over who had the most waffles this morning though .....

Gerberageri · 20/02/2021 21:11

I have the same worry from time to time and beat myself up for not playing with them more and they're 7 and 5 now. Last time I did it I was doing some sort of mindfulness thing and had to write the criticism of myself down, where I thought it came from etc and really think about it. I can't remember the exact exercise but it really helped. No, I don't sit and play a lot with them with their toys. But we're playful and silly in other ways, sing songs, joke around. I have to say taking them out is more my thing, so feeling really stuck at the moment. I like pointing stuff out when we walk, trying to spot wildlife, having a chat and often we do little races and things. Most of all I enjoy showing them the world and the people in it. Some parents never really take their kids anywhere, so I think perhaps it's not easy to be both types of people. And of course if you think about it, you can't be into everything the same as someone else, we're all different. The kids are all different. I'm sure you're doing a great job. I'd also remember that despite what you hear about working mothers in particular, no generation has spent as much time with their children as we have now, not just covid, parenting is far more child centred than it ever was. Our grandparents generation were too busy cooking and cleaning to sit down and play with toys (if the kids had any!) It's perfectly reasonable, if not desirable as an adult to be working at something in or out of the home.

Stovetopespresso · 20/02/2021 21:14

we put so much pressure on ourselves!
I actually used to find going out with them easier than staying in and crafting etc. Still a stress but at least I was out, dressed etc Grin
when I just had one, I would do all the 1-1 attention as I was skint and solo though.
I'm knackered and done now after 4. I still try and look after their needs as best I can though...

I think personally and maybe I'm old fashioned, that they are my life's work (my career has taken second place, its a sacrifice I have made).

not bitter...yet..ask me in 10 years...

MintChocAddict · 20/02/2021 21:17

Mine are a bit older now but always enjoyed spending time talking to my DC/watching TV/film together (still do!) and being out and about with them. Always found imaginative play etc really tedious and if they wanted cakes we went to the shops to get them Wink

Original poster
Sunshine3013 · 20/02/2021 21:17

@chutneypig gosh the squabbles are NEVER Ending!! From morning to night.... They fight over the silliest things including who has had one extra bite of their chocolate bar before the other! They always want what the other has even though they have two of everything, but no hers has one blue line on it different to the other 😂

OP posts:
Original poster
Sunshine3013 · 20/02/2021 21:19

@mollybloom true.. I'm an 80s child too and my mother worked full time and I barely remember doing anything with her at all.. Still love her to pieces and didn't affect me in any way.

OP posts:
Hadalifeonce · 20/02/2021 21:20

When I was a child, parents never played with their children. There might be a family board game of a weekend, but generally we had to amuse ourselves, either inside or out. I think it's quite a new thing for parents to think they should play with their children.

Mollyboom · 20/02/2021 21:27

Hadalifeonce- absolutely.
Also, it is really important for children to, play with other children without adult interference.
I think I might create a 1980's retro mummy blog- today's highlights include kids sitting in pub car parks with a pack of scampi fries and a can of shandy bass.

Ragwort · 20/02/2021 21:33

I never 'played' with my DS and I was a SAHM ... I maybe did a bit of baking but I took him to the park, playgroups etc but never played as such.

TheOrigRights · 20/02/2021 21:43

I have 2 sons, one 21 (left home) and one 11 (in lockdown with just me).
We do bake and make Lego (currently the Dubai architecture kit), play board games and paint/draw together.

He doesn't play with toys any more and like many his age (especially atm), he loves the xbox, youtube (mainly football clips and gamers), and making little videos. I'm doing my best to get him away from the screen doing something we can enjoy together.

He's struggling with lockdown and remote learning (not the academic side, the being away from school), and I work full time so I do consciously try and spend time doing nice things together.

It's easier now he is older because I can leave him and go for a run, or to the shops and obviously get on with stuff while he is on screens. It's harder when they're younger because they need you for everything else so much more.

Yeah...I like this age :-)

PerspicaciousGreen · 20/02/2021 21:46

@suspiria777

letting the twins totally entertain themselves is a recipe for creepy/clingy/maladaptively close twins later on.
This is a really weird comment. Please ignore it, OP. Having siblings play together is not going to make them weird. It doesn't make a difference if they're twins or not. I think this PP's not sure whether or not The Shining is a documentary.
mathanxiety · 20/02/2021 21:48

YY to # MakingMemories BS

Crafting = 20 minutes of planning and setting up,

AdelaideK · 20/02/2021 21:48

I wouldn't worry. I used to try and play with mine. I got told I was playing wrong and I didn't know what to do so got sent away every time Grin

PerspicaciousGreen · 20/02/2021 21:48

@Mollyboom

Hadalifeonce- absolutely. Also, it is really important for children to, play with other children without adult interference. I think I might create a 1980's retro mummy blog- today's highlights include kids sitting in pub car parks with a pack of scampi fries and a can of shandy bass.
PLEASE do this as an instagram, with all the fashions and everything.
Standrewsschool · 20/02/2021 21:55

I think it’s great that your dc are able to play. Sometimes, kids are kept busy with so many activities, they haven’t learnt how to entertain themselves.

I rarely took my dc to the park - I found it so boring. Other friends see To spend hours there.

Mollyboom · 20/02/2021 21:58

PersipaciousGreen- I'm going to learn how to use instagram just to do this.

Original poster
Sunshine3013 · 20/02/2021 21:59

@PerspicaciousGreen thank you. Yes, that was a weird comment Confused

OP posts:
PerspicaciousGreen · 20/02/2021 22:02

@Mollyboom

PersipaciousGreen- I'm going to learn how to use instagram just to do this.
I'm not even on instagram but I would join just to follow this. Reminds me of that Mitchell and Webb sketch about the early 1990s house where they are appalled that they can't dial 1471 and the only ice cream is Neapolitan.
BlackeyedSusan · 20/02/2021 22:08

1970s free roaming child here. We went out to play and went home for meals.

Neighbours kids got to sit in the car with a lemonade and pack of crisps outside the pub.

MotherofPearl · 20/02/2021 22:11

I don't really play with my DC either and always feel a bit guilty, but looking back my DM didn't play with me and I just don't think any mothers played with their children. I'm a child of the 70s. I was certainly well looked after and had a happy childhood, but I played with my brothers or my friends, not with my parents.

Theimpossiblegirl · 20/02/2021 22:14

I'm pretty sure I got all the crafting shit and baking wrong. I let them get messy and did my best but I'm not talented at that stuff at all.
Mine are now super critical teens and remember my efforts fondly. I did ok.

EggyPegg · 20/02/2021 22:18

You are definitely not alone. I have two DC (9&7) and my favourite days are the ones where they don't hate each other and will play together. I will happily sit with them and build things out of Lego (prison cells are their favourite request) but I do not want to play imaginatively with the mini-figs in the way that they do.

If they want to 'play' with me, then it has to be a mutually agreed game so that everyone enjoys it. As a result I have taught them card games like Uno, Rummy and Black Jack (not 21s, the one that's like Uno), chess and draughts. We also play board games and I encourage them to play board games together too. I do bake with them occasionally and they're not overly into crafts, but I will do that too as long as I can play alongside them doing my own thing and just chatting.

I watch with awe as friends of mine throw themselves into these imaginative games, but it's just not for me.

I'm also an 80s child and the only times I recall my parents playing with us are when we played board games. No Junior Monopoly in those days so we learned how to play the full version young, and Pass The Pigs was particularly loved by all. Otherwise we were generally expected to make our own entertainment.

The difference is that at 7 I had the freedom to be out in our local area, calling on friends and roaming around on bikes/roller skates. My parents had no idea where I was until I rocked up looking for food. That's just not the case anymore. My 9 year old has walked to a friends house to drop something off for me, but I can see it from my house and watched him the whole time. When I was 9 I was getting the bus to and from school alone and letting myself in as I got back 30 minutes before my mother and brother did from his pick up.

Babdoc · 20/02/2021 22:25

Mine were much happier getting plastered in mud playing pirate ships in the stream behind our garden by themselves than being solemnly supervised for craft activities!
I played board games with them, and always read stories to them, and taught them how to hold crayons and paintbrushes etc when they were toddlers, but I felt it was important not to be on their case all the time, and let them learn to amuse themselves.
They could read fluently by 3, and had a reading age of 12 by the time they entered primary school, so were often happy to engross themselves in a book.
Comparison is the thief of joy, OP - try to just not give a shit what other mums are competitively posting on their mummy blogs!

Echobelly · 20/02/2021 22:30

Very few mums are interacting with their kids PLUS modern parents/mums interact with their kids waaaaay more than mums did in the past, being expected to play with your kids is really quite a new thing. It's only in recent decades that it's not been normal to just leave tiny kids penned up somewhere safe and older ones to amuse themselves, so honestly anything they get from parents is a bonus!