...to HATE pretend play?!

[Randomname85]

Am I?! Tell me I’m not the only one. Any sort of ‘mummy you be this and I’ll be that’ - I cannot bear it! Baking, drawing, anything else but if I hear the words ‘mummy let’s play frozen/paw patrol/moana’ I can’t help but internally make this face 😖

I think lockdown has only exacerbated my hatred of it.

@onetwothreeadventure

My toddlers are going through a doctor phase and it is undoubtedly the BEST pretend play I've ever known. I lie face down on the rug and they drill and saw my body parts until their hearts are content.I just have to relax and suggest body parts that need fixed. It is bliss.

This made me laugh out loud. Specifically: 'I lie face down'!!!

Oh no, I was holding out hope that with my own children it would be different and it wouldn't drive me up a wall like it does with my neices.

With younger ones I have been known to play hospitals and I just lie prone on the sofa. I don’t mind that one.

LOL Somebody gave me a book of a year's worth of things to do you with your toddler when PFB was born, a giant to do list of crafts, games and activities. The only useful bit was the suggestion that you lie down on the sofa and play doctors if you are too tired to play. We played that a lot...

Actually, my DC are at med school now. Maybe my lazy parenting influenced them

My son used to play a game where he would run ahead of me on the way home from school and wait around the corner. When I caught up with him I had to pretend that he was a little boy who had no home and I was a mummy who had no little boy and I would take him home. So all the way home he would ask me questions about the family - would there be other children in the house? Would he have a daddy? What about pets?

So far so sweet but EVERY. SINGLE. DAY!

I really struggled with mini figures but my husband was brilliant at it.

I just do loads of drawing and craft stuff and outdoor games with my kids as that’s why I enjoy doing. There’s no way I’d encourage imaginative play. If they want to do that at school and nursery then fine, but not on my watch.

This is exactly why I'm having a third child! DS1 was a nightmare for wanting to do this stuff!

I quite like the ones where they pretend to be a shop keeper or chef or teacher and you just sit there and stifle a giggle at what they consider the role of a shop keeper to be. But anything more involved, no way.

My two are too far apart for DS2 to have been any use to DS1. But I'm not doing that phase again :o

Hated it as a nanny, hate it with my own kids.

My 6yo has only just started playing these kinds of games by herself. She has to be in the same room as us, but she'll play Barbies or whatever by herself. I think she's learned that I'm rubbish at it and she's better on her own. She knows DM will play endlessly with her, so if she needs a partner she saves it all for her! Sometimes she wants to be someone from TV, or a film or game, and gives us all characters to be as well. All I have to do is answer to Anna and remember to call her Elsa, and she's happy. That I can handle.

DS is 2.5 and doesn't really "get" role play yet. I'm kind of hoping he never does. Or at least not with me... He does do a tiny bit of making their Peppa figures talk sometimes, but nowhere near as much as DD wanted. They've also started playing together. It's a relief. One of the many reasons I had him was so DD had someone else to boss around.

I can cope with racing cars along the floor, doing puzzles, colouring (except he never colours and I have to do it all), board games, video games, reading... all of that is fine. Ask me to be a fireman or Lightning McQueen or a dragon or whatever, and I just check out. My favourite from DD when she was about 3 was, "Can you pretend to be my Mum?"

I remember doing it with my eldest, he’s almost 20 and I was quite young so enjoyed playing with him didn’t mind so much. No2 i always had to be a dinosaur so roared a bit etc (5 years after ds1) then my 2 little ones yes I did it. But it was somewhat mind numbing tbh I did it for a bit then left them to whatever it was they had each other too as 13 months gap. I am children’s nurse though so we entertain kids a lot, I’ve been Elsa from frozen, a fairy princess (more like fairy godmother) fireman Sam etc I suppose we go along with it to make the kids smile, distraction etc and it’s nice to do ( doesn’t mean I enjoy it) but I do like a chat with the 8/9/10/11 year olds about school etc i know more what they are into than the smaller ones now.

The other thing is, it takes DD SO LONG to get the game set up how she wants it, that you've lost the will to live before it's even started. So if I ever agree to play schools, it'll take her so long to get through her register and sort what lessons she wants to do, that I'm bored to tears before she even speaks to me. She does it when she's playing with DM as well, and it's even more boring watching them try to get going!

I was the same with my toys, though. Taking hours setting them out and then not wanting to play anymore once it was all perfect.

@ArabellaScott

I have a kind of narcoleptic reaction to 'pretend this' play - I find it almost impossible to keep my eyes open. It's like I've taken sleeping pills. YANBU.

This happen to DH! I'm going to show him this About 30 seconds after he starts, he begins yawning so hard and so often he cant get through a whole sentence.

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere

My son used to play a game where he would run ahead of me on the way home from school and wait around the corner. When I caught up with him I had to pretend that he was a little boy who had no home and I was a mummy who had no little boy and I would take him home. So all the way home he would ask me questions about the family - would there be other children in the house? Would he have a daddy? What about pets?

So far so sweet but EVERY. SINGLE. DAY!

I really struggled with mini figures but my husband was brilliant at it.

This is the only one so far that I think is utterly adorable.

Otherwise the "make it I'm this" and "make it you're that" sort of play can get in the bin.

Luckily I had 2 close together so they played together. Likewise I loved doing anything creative with them, but managed to avoid role play as I was not needed.
As a supply teacher I used to work in school nurseries sometimes and the amount of times I had to sit in the pretend cafe whilst they made me food and drinks... how I used to detest that bit.

This is why radio 4 was invented

I used to go to cat boot sales with my mum on a Sunday. It was the countryside, there’s not much to do

I’d always be allowed to get one one, usually something a little hedgehog keyring, a naked balding Sylvanian, a My Little Pony with an unfortunate haircut, you get the idea.

I LOVED my mum to construct a narrative of how the toy ‘felt’ all sad and unwanted at a car boot sale until I turned up like an angel through the throng with my pocket money and swept them away to a new life. How happy they were at the thought of going to live in the Sylvanian windmill etc 😂 I’d ask her to go on and on about it, the entire wary home.

That poor woman 😂😂

My DCs are all grown up now but you're reminding me of the time I nipped quickly to our local post office after we'd been playing rockets in space and couldn't work out why everyone was giving me funny looks....
I still had a colander on my head (I was the spaceman you see)

Luckily I had 2 close together so they played together.

Mine were close too- but no role play games together.
DD was all about Barbie takes her dog to the vet type scenario, DS wanted to blast the death star ship before laser bombs were detonated.
Quite incompatable.

@RelaisBlu

My DCs are all grown up now but you're reminding me of the time I nipped quickly to our local post office after we'd been playing rockets in space and couldn't work out why everyone was giving me funny looks.... I still had a colander on my head (I was the spaceman you see)

😂😂😂

Drs set - lie on sofa - let them work on you as you lay back with your eyes closed.

Mine picks characters from a programme or book that we are for the day. And off and on all day we have to be them. I have to address her using the character name, even during the current home school situation. It started when she was 2, with Daniel Tiger and currently at age 6 she's on to some girls from an Animal Rescue book series.

Four fucking years.

I had another child, I only hope she either doesn't want to play it, or ropes her sister into it instead.

Yes to playing doctors or hairdressers - I like those games.

This is why I have three children in close ages to each other, problem solved! Only joking but yes, I love art and baking and love love outdoor times, I actually spend so much more time outside since having children and it's so much healthier. Honestly though I don't do imaginative play and luckily as there are 3 of them they are happy to play together. I sometimes set it all up though and sortof set the scene and they take it from there.

I quite enjoyed playing 'Let's all pretend to be asleep' when DCs were younger!

I fucking hate it too! Just aaaarrrrggghhhh!!! The worst is the bastard fucking hand puppet my lovely DH bought my DD(4) for her birthday... it doesn’t fit on his huge bastard man hands so it’s always down to me to play with the horrid thing. And of course she won’t do ANY school work without it 😭😭😭

No no no, I hated it when my children were small. We were laughing with them the other night about how they were tiny dictators, and if you tried any suggestion for your "character" it was wrong. Refused to do it any more, my MIL had patience of a saint over it. I would say, no but I'll read you a story/jigsaw/Lego/game, anything else

It's funny how you can do this so easily as a kid, if you are the type to, then you grow up and it's like your imagination muscle has atrophied and you just can't do it any more, you become very self-conscious about even trying. I can manage to do this with props but I cannot pretend that I am Peppa Pig or anything like that.

My D is autistic and didn't know how to play, I had to show him setting up the Greendale buildings and dandling Postman Pat down the street, saying hello to Ted and good morning to Mrs Goggins. He was entranced by it but never really learned to play out stories like this himself. I ended up using this as a way of practising social skills (and later social stories) with any toys. I've got out of practice now though, I couldn't pretend to be a talking motorbike asking another motorbike how he is, and offering some of my fuel if his is low and he's hungry, but we used to spend the time going to school doing this for ages.

We did have a village shop with lots of play food and a till, it was ace when DSis came round with her kids as she used to join in, and she was a very entertaining tricky customer who doesn't know what she wants or hasn't got enough to pay ("Eh! Ah've forgot me purse. Shall you put it on tick for me..? Eh love, you're hard you are! What's a poor old woman like me to do...") It's a lot easier when there's another adult to lighten the load and add a touch of humour to the whole thing, especially humour that goes right over the little dears' heads...