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

[Sunshine3013]

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...

I've just seen your post @Bluenightowl. I had one of those friends. It was very wearing. I always felt the whole point of meeting up with other families was for the kids to play while the adults had a chat. Luckily most of my friends were of the same mind. We were engaged with the kids but definitely didn't gatecrash their games.

I think atm with lockdown just surviving and getting through as best you can with your kids is fine. I am surprised though tbh that parents don't play because they don't like doing it. Surely it is for the benefit of the child and part of being a parent? Showing you are interested in them and have time for them. Obviously with a balance of time for them to be independent too.

i watched an old home video on youtube from the early 60s, the kids are just at the swings or in the long grass, making their own games, running around derelict buildings. while the adults stood/sat and smoked

I play with my only 4 year old 12 hours a day, every day at the moment. I’ve gone utterly batshit crazy. I am begged to make the voices of her ‘imagination friends’ (every character from every cartoon possible) and engage in role play. Luckily I can churn out mindless drivel while thinking and doing other things but omg I cannot wait til she is back to school. I can’t do this anymore!

We met in a forest with our kids and she played with them the whole time despite there being four children who were more than happy to play together.

Sounds like my SIL.

@Inthevirtualwaitingroom I'm a child of the 60s, and that's exactly how I remember it!

@becca3210 Yes of course I do a lot of things with my girls for their benefit. Reading, going out to play in the park, they come to the gym with me everyday and we play ball and they do yoga and gymnastics etc... I talk with them, take them out for long walks and my husband and I always once a week go on a family evening out where we go to eat and then take them to play ( we live abroad, no lockdown) - I was more talking about playing with them and their toys etc.. Which as I have twins they play with eachother.

@becca3210

I think atm with lockdown just surviving and getting through as best you can with your kids is fine. I am surprised though tbh that parents don't play because they don't like doing it. Surely it is for the benefit of the child and part of being a parent? Showing you are interested in them and have time for them. Obviously with a balance of time for them to be independent too.

Not really. My exclusive time for them is when we are out and about. When we are home, they play or help me, I get on with things. They don't need a parent to sit down and start playing legos, playmobils or board games with them.

It's a bit tricky right now, but they have friends for all that.

They can play all over the house if they want to, they are not locked up in their bedroom. They're fine!

@becca3210

I think atm with lockdown just surviving and getting through as best you can with your kids is fine. I am surprised though tbh that parents don't play because they don't like doing it. Surely it is for the benefit of the child and part of being a parent? Showing you are interested in them and have time for them. Obviously with a balance of time for them to be independent too.

Sure, parents give up the right not to do things because they don’t want to the moment the placenta is delivered, when their preferences become irrelevant.

@HereLiveIAmNotACat

I find this thread really sad. Parents not playing with their own kids because THEY don’t find it enjoyable. I can’t help but think this is such a selfish attitude..Playing with children is obviously for the benefit of the child rather than the adult.

I play/bake/craft/dance with my DD a lot. Also work full time and completing a degree. Yes it’s exhausting but I’d feel awful if I left her to it, especially throughout lockdown when days out aren’t an option. But then she is a lone child so I think needs far more input than children with siblings who can play together.

I think it's the responsibility of a parent to spend time with their child, to get to know them, to bond with them. I don't think that time has to be spent with either party being totally miserable about the chosen activity.

If every activity available in the universe could be given a % of how much I enjoy it and how much my DS enjoys it, I think it's reasonable to exclude as a joint activity anything below, say 20% enjoyment.

Driving my car very slowly round the road mat and being repeatedly told I'm doing it wrong and having to make the cars talk to each other but also being told not to say that and then having to repeat exactly what he says for my car to say... That's like 1% enjoyment for me.

Going to a local bridge to watch the Tube trains pass is not exactly how I'd choose to spend my day by myself, but that's maybe 50% enjoyment. We can have a walk, a nice chat, I've learned some Tube facts.

Whereas apparently, despite Pinterest's urgings, sorting objects by colour into boxes is around 1% on his activity fun scale even though I find it quite soothing.

I don't think it's at all unreasonable or selfish for me to decide I'm going to spend the time I've allotted as "Having Fun With DS" on going trainspotting together rather than steering a sodding pretend steamroller the wrong way around a painted effing roundabout while parroting drivel. But I'm also not going to force him to sort his cars by colour.

You've got to spend time with your children, but that doesn't mean you must do any one particular activity. Particularly if you have a spouse with complementary skills. My DH will happily voice soft toys for half an hour but would run screaming if you asked him to hang out laundry with a toddler in tow. Whereas doing a bit of gardening with DS is what I'm most looking forward to about Spring finally arriving. That's life, isn't it? Everyone's different.

@inthekitchensink

I play with my only 4 year old 12 hours a day, every day at the moment. I’ve gone utterly batshit crazy. I am begged to make the voices of her ‘imagination friends’ (every character from every cartoon possible) and engage in role play. Luckily I can churn out mindless drivel while thinking and doing other things but omg I cannot wait til she is back to school. I can’t do this anymore!

Surely at 4 she should be able to play by herself for a bit, you shouldn't have to be playing with her all day??