Exhausted, broke UK parents of small kids

[RiverLake]

NC for this. Well, please tell me you don't all spend each Saturday or Sunday (or both) watching your kids (aged 5 and above) play sports/activities etc?

And then when they are pre-teens and teens, you are facilitating sleep-overs by chauffeuring them to/from cinemas/parties/friends, including night time pick-ups, etc

Well, if the above is CORRECT, NO WONDER the UK parents are beyond exhausted!!! And in most cases also broke!

What happened to staying home at weekends baking, reading and playing games as a family with occasional walk to the parks?
I lived in London next to a family with 10 and 12 yo kids, and could never FATHOM why 1) they never liked being in their flat, as every Saturday and Sunday around 12 noon, they are loading their car and didn't return until 6 or 7 or 8pm. They walked past my windows.

Only to read on MN that parents seem to attend after school clubs at weekends too- I did all my after school activities, well, after school. Not take up my/family weekend unless it is one of those events schools playing against another school.

This particular family always looked stressed and my flatmate said they were constantly shouting and screaming at each other almost daily about domestic stuff (had cleaner and child minder too). I am not surprised as they had full time jobs and seem out all weekend. When do parents REST?

So, it is 18 years of existing for a child. Other countries do not parent like this. These countries have happy, relaxed families.

I sort of understood childcare stuff for under 3 or under 4 and not sleeping properly and those costs; but this being out all weekend is unsustainable. No wonder UK adults are sick and cannot function properly in work!

What did you do for work? I used to live in London, most of my friends still do. All work fairly standard 9-5s (finance, accounting etc).

In fact your life sounds far, far more exhausting than my life working full time in the week and taking my children to their activities at weekends, OP. Maybe your view on it all is skewed by the far longer than average hours you worked. Who looked after your children when you were at work until 11pm, and who took them to their after school activities?

@HungryBeagle that was before kids. My kids were not raised in England.

work- well, one which is incompatible with family life, but I was never broke I enjoyed my career too. I obv cut back on those hours, and that's not how I raised my kids. However, it would have been like that, had I raised my kids in England. I just happened not to be here when they were small- worked out well.

if you are not broke or stressed whilst doing w/end activities, i can take your life.

DH and I are exhausted because our children are young (5 and under) and need a lot of input. Also they don't sleep through the night, see point 1 about them being young children.

We are broke because childcare costs in the UK are fucking ridiculous. And we have no family to help with childcare. Actually, this is another reason why we are exhausted because we are either working or parenting, there is never a time other people look after our children except when we pay them to, so we can work.

Our daughter does one 45 minute dance class on Saturday morning. It's definitely not the source of our exhaustion or brokeness.

If you have young children you can’t have a lie in at weekends anyway. You’re much more likely to get a chilled afternoon by taking them out and tiring them out in the morning. Unless your child is some kind of elite athlete, you’re talking about an hour or two out of your weekend - it hardly ruins your whole day or means you have no flexibility.

Personally I love seeing the children doing something they enjoy and getting better at it. I’d much rather spend an hour doing that on a Saturday morning than be at home nagging at them to get off their tablets or trying to stop them squabbling or jumping on the furniture. Weekends are much more relaxed all round if they get some exercise early in the day.

I think it depends on the kid. I LOVED being home as a kid - my older brother was hyperactive and awful if he stayed in, so I was always being carted off somewhere to one of the many activities he did.

My daughter sadly also loves going out. She's fifteen months and the second she wakes up she grabs her tiny shoes, runs to our front door and starts crying to go outside. Sigh. She's a nightmare staying in but good as gold if we go out and do something to entertain her.

I'm guessing you had kids who were homebodies like me OP. I'm still like that now as an adult, and my brother still goes out seven days a week. Kids are different.

I’m not, because I have a well paid career that I fit into 9-5 hours in the week. DH does too. So the weekend activities have no impact on my finances bar what we pay for the activities themselves, and I don’t find them stressful.

Thank you all. I am even more grateful for the right tone taken by the many parents sharing their experiences with me, so I 'can understand'. Much appreciated. I shall certainly be more informed after this thread. It's why I started the thread.

I see, good for you. Not many of you around!

I usually find it is the poorer families who stay at home due to the expense of weekend activities. For a family it can easily be upwards of £50 for entrance to somewhere to entertain the kids.
I'm definitely on side of being out of the house as much as possible (grew up in the outdoors and countryside). Putting my child's needs for fun before my own. Let's face it, if a child is bored at home, then a parent cannot rest. However my in laws, when looking after my children, are happy to stay indoors a whole weekend (London estate flat living).

The only thing we allowed at weekends was Saturday morning swimming lessons as we swam at the same time and then we went to a cafe afterwards - and probably gained more calories than we’d just lost through swimming …

Other activities were week nights so we kept the bulk of the weekend free. Probably once a month there was a party, but those were drop off and leave from about the age of 6, so not a problem. I listened to a friend with older DC and learned from their example.

Single mum to one child here, I work full time. I am lucky that my daughter is a complete homebody and requests to stay at home playing games, in the garden or in the cul de sac with neighbours kids. We are out the house by 7am and don’t return until 6:30 during the week so we chill on Saturdays and go for a little walk and roast on Sundays. Very chill over here, but that’s both our characters!

@RiverLake I work 8.30 - 4.30 or 9-5, depending. I work from home 2-3 days per week. I am term time only. My household probably earns the exact median wage, although our housing costs are lower due to living in the middle of nowhere.

I am currently feeling poor because things keep going wrong in my 150 year old house, plus other areas, and my money doesn't stretch far enough.

I would a million percent rather be bit financially stretched with my work life balance, than rich with yours. How can you judge other parents for being exhausted and making poor choices when you work such insane hours? Wouldn't you rather have had a normal job? If you had, taking your kid to sport of the weekend wouldn't have seemed so impossible!

It's called life kiddo. You will run around after them for years, sports events then nights out at parties, then uni.
Hey suddenly one day they will leave and then you don't see them for months on end or even longer as they are busy with their own lives. It sucks but its real.
But it gives you and your OH time together again, like it was before you had kids. Just the two of you, too old to have all the fun you used to have but not quite old enough ...... ❤

Oh yes - I used to text DS1 at uni and ask if he was still alive …

Seriously, we opted for a happy medium. We did some stuff at weekends but rarely were too busy. And I made good use of free places in holiday weeks especially our great museums, parks and libraries.

Kinda unrelated but my very busy 8 year old who always wants to be out, is old enough to call for friends and go play out without adult supervision (rural living). The busy busy stage doesn't last forever

It's all over in a flash... Yes it is knackering and expensive and between my lot we do cricket for three boys, two all year round as they play at a high level, one does rugby and one of those has a weekend job and goes fishing frequently. We also have robotics club, basketball and Formula One club and Minecraft clubs after school. One child does a voluntary job and yes, I do a lot of driving, washing sports stuff and sitting in my car waiting and waiting.... But my eldest is at University and it feels like yesterday she was at Tumble Tots or whatever... Yes it's graft but it's such a short time we have with them.

Why do you think your way of doing things (doing clubs on week days) is better than other people's way of doing things (at the weekends)? Surely it depends on the kids and how much energy they have at the end of a school day, and what time parents finish work?

By the time I finish work and pick the kids up from childcare, it's 6-6:30pm - too late for clubs for my 4&7 yr olds, so we do things at the weekend when they and I have more energy.

Sitting about the house is fine for some kids, but for very active children, you have to be out all day so they can burn off their energy.

Yes, it's tiring.

Im not sure why you think driving to and from activities is exhausting? My girls have 2 hours of activities at the weekend. I drive them there and sit and drink my coffee while watching them/doing some life admin on my phone. Baking/playing at home is much more hard work!

FWIW - I have teenage and adult children and I am neither exhausted nor broke. Yes, the ones still at home need lifts sometimes but they organise their own lives and mainly take themselves where they want to go. If it’s late, we pick them up. I would class this as basic parental responsibility, not related to be in the UK

@RiverLake what do people do in other countries and what did you do, that was so different? Your title talks about small kids, but your post is about something else entirely - which is that you think people in the UK run around after their children more than is normal, and until they are no longer small kids. You seem to have a different (better?) experience somehow - maybe you could share it?

UK parents are stressed because they put their kids to bed so early they have to go to extreme lengths to tire them out enough before bedtime. Often they are more tired than the kids. Instead of just doing a normal amount of things at a normal pace throughout the day and energy naturally depleting over a longer period. The kids are grumpy because they're so tired of being tired out and parents have them do too much.

My friend came over with her 6 year old kids, it was 11am and they'd already been up, dressed, breakfast, and a swimming class, and driven an hour to our house, where they then walked several miles around town, went out for lunch, went to the big climbing/cargo net park, went to a comic book shop, and she's wondering why they're having tantrums at 4pm.

When I was a kid, kids played on the field or in the street or at each others' houses. Maybe there was one club or class a week. There wasn't so much "stuff" or ferrying around or keeping up with the Joneses.

"a weekend at home baking and reading" My two would never have done that. Well maybe if it involved cake.😂
It's called giving your kids experiences and opportunities. Most of us are happy to do it. I'd rather be stood on the touchline watching my kids then baking. But each to their own.

I’m a working, disabled mama of 5. Eldest 3 have flown the nest. Daughter aged 14 with severe ADHD takes herself off to her horses most weekends, so there’s no rushing about there and my youngest (little whirlwind 4) is OBSESSED with only fools and horses and game shows. So our weekends mainly consist of a little homework/reading, me pottering about catching up on laundry etc and many, many re-runs of earlier mentioned tv shows on Gold/Dave/Watch. I love our chilled weekends doing this. Couldn’t imagine being out the house all weekend when I’m so busy all week.Of course this may change as he gets older and discovers clubs etc. But for now I’m happy being comfy and cosy (possibly lazy) at weekend!! Plus I’m in year 26 of motherhood so think i deserve a more chilled approach now 😂😂😂

Different things are important to different people.We have a home with a decent sized garden and outdoor equipment for our kids. We also have 3 so they entertain (annoy) each other. Going to the local play park isn't as good as being in their own garden according to them. It's very different if you don't have one. A friend had an only child, small flat and no garden so likes to go out daily and makes a point of encouraging her child to make friends whenever she is out.

Also I'm a homebody so have always tried to make being home fun, I don't climb the walls if I'm home all day and neither do my kids, again we can go on local walks and have the garden to play and they have lots of puzzles and gamea we can play. Being bored won't kill them and I encourage them to come up with their own games.

I don't drive so afterschool clubs are great for us, meaning dc can get involved in extracurricular but I don't have to ferry them further away (would be additional time, money and energy). We could do more (currently 2 each plus swimming) but I don't want to and feel that I have the right balance with listening to them all read every night and then doing homework across the week too.

I work Saturday mornings so they are usually home then but we often go out on Saturday afternoon, be it a bigger park, softplay, cinema, bowling or visiting their gran. Sundays they have swimming and then are usually home relaxing. I may be a parent but I need downtime with my family too.