Bad weather only really matters when you have children

[Welcometotheterrorzone]

This might be a bit of a 'well duh' thread but...
Since when did so much of my happiness depend on the weather?
Child free friends still seem to have amazing weekends and holidays despite it pissing down all week. 'Let's just go to the pub or musuem or stay in and watch interesting box sets' all of which are denied to parents of small children.
Now my life seems to revolve around 'please don't rain' 'did I just feel a spot' and 'we've paid £1,700 for this cottage and we are going to the beach, kids, get your waterproof trousers on!'
I mean, I chose this life, but I never expected to have to spend half my life in a car 'waiting for it to ease up a little?'

I was the biggest hinderance to poor weather when my daughter was younger. She had all the waterproof gear going, I on the other and didn’t own so much as a waterproof coat.

Once I realised I was the problem, bought some cheap stuff for myself and we were away come sun, rain or monsoon.

I take my toddler out in the rain or stay in watch telly or play inside when it's torrential. It rains a lot here, I can't imagine changing my life that much for normal weather. I do like the rain though, love autumn and spring.

@Welcometotheterrorzone Which things are easier now 🤣everything is harder with kids, but yes agree when you can’t get them out! True for my toddler at least.
We could go a whole weekend when it rained, not leaving the house, back to back films, wine, cooking delicious things, reading..ahhh

@Welcometotheterrorzone yes quite. My experience of holidays is very similar. I think your thread title sounds more divisive than you intended but in your op you are just talking about your experience of a rainy holiday with kids being a bit miserable. Of course you can puddle jump etc and generally just crack on with it - but a bit of warm sunshine can make all the difference, especially on a beach holiday. I’ll accept the wet outdoors as preferable to all being inside all day, but I cannot bear cold + wet for long. Hellish. (Again, just commenting on my own life, not making any comment on being without children / with horses while cold + wet).

Oh and I used to love a pub lunch or a rainy afternoon at the cinema or shopping then drinks somewhere, do you ever get a bit of that life back? 🤣 (of course I love my child, more than anything) but it’s ok to remember how nice that was too

@EffYouSeeKaye but that's exactly what op is saying, it's literally the thread title! Not even just that rain is harder for parents, which would have been ridiculous enough, but that bad weather only really matters to parents, which is breathtakingly self absorbed.

I know what you mean op. I never used to think too much about the weather until I had children, but I remember the day I knew we had to emigrate so clearly. A whole week of pissing rain, but three under 5s needing to go outside. It took half an hour to dress them in puddle suits and wellies and into the car. A miserable hour spent persuading them that walking in the rain was fun, then back into the car and another half an hour taking their dripping clothes off back at home. Then I had to mop the muddy wet floor while they warmed up with hot chocolate.
I was pushing the mop around thinking, ‘there has to be more to life than this’. DH came home and we started the ball rolling.
It’s SO much easier parenting in the sunshine with a pool in the back garden! My DCs are all grown up now, but that moment of seeing a life without seemingly endless waterproofs is so clear in my mind.

@Neverendinggapyear yes. Colouring books or iPads are key

@TrainspottingWelsh yes I get that, the title isn’t great. I had just been saying that people are mostly just commenting on their own experiences and then you came on and told me ‘no, people can only comment on their own experiences’

Anyway it doesn’t really matter, I think we kind of agree. It’s very annoying when people generalise, same as it’s annoying when people infer something that was not explicitly stated. People are annoying sometimes. Bit like kids. And bad weather.

I don't recognise this at all tbh. Maybe I'm looking back through rose tinted specs because mine are 9 & 10 now but I don't remember ever dreading the bad weather as a parent. We've always been happy to stay in and potter about and my dc are fine with playing either together or alone and they've never been much of a bother when we've been out for meals, especially if we take books or something with us. Maybe I just have easy kids despite dc 1 having adhd with traits of autism.

No such thing as bad weather, just wrong clothes.

Buy some waterproofs! Splashing about in puddles is great fun when you're a kid.

I do think that SAD or what ever the equivalent is does dog people from Ireland and the UK though- I like to think I'm a 'get out in all weathers' person, but I'm definitely grumpier when it's dull!!

It's not really worth arguing about @EffYouSeeKaye, but I initially responded to your reply to another poster that parents had a wider view than someone without dc, and what appeared to be defence of the ops silly statement, rather than a general defence of the other posters sharing their personal and reasonable experiences of finding it harder to entertain dc in the rain.

But like you say, it doesn't really matter, not least because I need to go and do my last checks in a wet field!

I’d say the opposite. Pre child if I were on holiday and it was raining, I’d curl up comfy with a book and order room service. That’s impossible to do with a child. We’ve no choice other than to just get on with it if the weather is wet.

As the owner of an especially ginger toddler I find really hot days just as bad. The constant fear of her burning makes a day outside stressful.

I love a warm, slightly overcast yet dry day. But it always seems to be one extreme or the other!

@TrainspottingWelsh yes absolutely, no point arguing at this hour. And if you are a fellow farmer - which it sounds as though you are - then perhaps we can agree that farming in the rain makes pretty much everything else look like a piece of cake?! Good luck and fingers crossed for the drier forecast ahead…

@DanielTigersMummy21

As the owner of an especially ginger toddler I find really hot days just as bad. The constant fear of her burning makes a day outside stressful.

I love a warm, slightly overcast yet dry day. But it always seems to be one extreme or the other!

Im so glad you wrote this I was starting to worry about being jumped on for saying scorching heat also isn't the one with a toddler. Mines not a red head but incredibly fair and burns with factor 50/sunblock on after about 10mins, much like me actually. My nickname is Casper because I'm that translucent and me and the sun do not get on. I have sadly passed this on to my child, we don't tan we go red and peal like a orange, regardless what we do.

Nothing more joyful than trying to keep total body cover ups and hats on to protect from the sun on a hot sweaty toddler in baking heat inside pop up tent which toddler does not want to stay in

Sorry don't get it

The weather has always had an impact! Not least on commutes.

Just read last few posts!

Depends on your kids.
And tbh your expectations.

Sun is a sod but mine just got dosed in exposed bits if any chance of hottish sun from whenever to whenever necessary. I burn like a sod as well.

They've both been doing it themselves from maybe 7 as part of morning routine. From sodding April to November as required.

As a person who burns I just have a look anyway for me

When on hols they got rash vests and shorts. Cuts down on lotion time! Both DDs and they preferred that as well.

In the old days I’d have loved it. Snuggled up inside listening to the rain on the roof, probably drinking a bottle of red wine between us in the middle of the day and finding some films to watch that we’ve seen a hundred times before

But you can do that at home for free whenever you like so don't think that the child free relish doing the same in a holiday cottage that cost ££££s either.

I agree as a SAHM of a 1.5 year old. it's harder work. For instance even on a normal day if we go out for a pram walk, yes we can put the rain cover on, but then the pram wheels get wet and dragged back through the house instead of just coming in, taking off my wet clothes and having a cuppa and settling down to relax. I'm instead fighting my DD out of the pram, who's then trying to stand in the wet puddles I've dragged through the house, which I'm then trying to mop up, collapse the pram, she's now screaming cos she's hungry or wants to run around.

We have a caravan holiday next weekend, I've got a puddlesuit and wellies ready, but it won't be fun having to worry about making a mess and being charged clean up fees.

I don't find it too different from before kids. There's plenty to do indoors/museums/ aquarium etc with kids as well, I don't ever go out with them if it's raining a lot, no need to be miserable..

lazing on the sofa watching movies isn’t the same with a chatterbox poking you in the eye ball every time you nod off!

They poke you. And then they jump on you. Unless you're prepared to tie them up and gag them, it's difficult to have a relaxing day indoors with young children.

Yup my thoughts exactly beach in all weather's when I paid 1500 to go lol