Does everyone else do messy play

[Honeyandlemonnn]

My partner hates messy play but it’s the only way I can get my son distracted long enough without using tv. Today the activity was playing with sand and water . The sand was crushed biscuits. He had a big issue with it saying other nasty comments to me I don’t want to repeat . But basically saying that he’s never seen a mother do what I do. So my question is don’t other mums out there do such messy play and if not what do you do to distract your kids without using tv ?

...you say you have a friend, but it doesn’t really sound like she’s your friend…

She is a friend. We were in a choir together. She is about ten years younger than me, had her children much later in life than I had mine - forties vs. twenties/early 30s. She is great company, but imo over-indulgent with her children, and they are not happier for it. I also know the children's grandmother (friend's mother) who won't have the children around all together any more after several exhausting days with them followed by very tiring days of cleaning up after them.

We aren't really tv people, we only have one in the living room and don't spend much time in there so ds doesn't really watch much. We don't do messy play at home but I might start looking into it. Ds just likes playing with cars and trucks really. We spend a lot of time driving his pirates around in his dumper truck.