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!

This is what I am talking about!

'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,..'

See, reading the above exhausts me already! lol 😊And I am a high energy person who wakes up very early! But weekends, let's just take it easy and play it by ear, shall we!

How much "rest" do you need?

I work FT (longish hours) and I do like a lazy Saturday morning.
Then daughter has a dance class at midday so I drop her off and pick her up again at 2. There is nothing exhausting about driving around locally with my arse on the car seat.

We might go out somewhere else in the afternoon if we fancy, shock horror. Maybe into town, or for a walk or to see friends.

Sunday morning I go to the gym and H takes her for a swimming lesson (he reads the Sunday paper while waiting) then drops her at 11+tuition. I go home and have a home facial, do some housework or read/watch tv, then go and pick up daughter. After lunch we might go out again (or not). Sunday just gone we went to paint part of a community mural. It was not exhausting, it was fun. There is loads of time in the weekend to sleep, read, go on phone/tablet and watch tv. But we'd be bored rigid if we did that all weekend and never left the house.

I’m a ‘UK parent’ and none of this bears any resemblance to my life whatsoever. I put my children to bed at the time they need to go to bed in order to get enough sleep. We do everything at a perfectly normal pace. We will have done a swimming class by 11am on a Saturday, but that’s because their swimming class is at 10-10.30am. I didn’t set the time of the class, that’s just the time it is scheduled at their particular level at our local pool.

I don’t see what’s exhausting about sitting with a coffee while my kids swim for half an hour on a Saturday morning though. Maybe I’m doing swimming lessons wrong!

Baking with kids is not relaxing. I resort to it on rainy days now and again, but it is a HUGE amount of work and mess.

Ds did football £20/month for 2 training sessions and a Saturday match. Cheap, local training and sponsorship for kit so not skint and lots of football mums there we all got along and socialised and enjoyed watching them play so not a chore.

He also did karate £4/week pay as you go. Again local and cheap. A friend did it too so we shared lifts.

Hated swimming lessons, but paid for 1-1 and nailed it and rookie lifeguard bronze in under a year, expensive, but cheaper than going for years on end.

Big friendship group so he was away at sleepovers most weekends and we had a relaxing house all to ourselves, then all back to ours once every 5-6 weeks. Tiring when at ours but worth it for the rest of the free time.

Others days at weekends he would be out with friends playing out, sometimes they would come to us for lunch, regularly he would go to friends . Just made sure there were pizza and ice lollies in the freezer and that would do.

ds was always doing something , but I don’t remember it being overly expensive or constantly exhausting. It was more expensive when he got older and wanted gadgets and brands.

My teen isn't old enough to drive yet so I take him to swimming on Saturday before I food-shop, collect him on the way back. I do a martial arts class with him on a Sunday, it keeps me flexible

In between, we have friends, interests and activities. If he needs a lift, I drop him off. Why would I not? I had a child because I enjoy being with him and watching him grow. He'll be gone all too soon. And yes, sometimes I'm tired but so what? I run ParkRun and get tired from that too. I'm 60 but still enjoy all of it. Tiredness can be satisfying.

On a similar vein I am often suprised at how many kids on mumsnet loving sport there are out there. Only 1 of my 3 boys liked sport and he went on to work in it and was exceptionally well rounded in all kinds of sport- other 2 boys were not remotely interested.

I go out more in the summer

We have 3 children, both work full time and putting DD in full time nursery as we can’t afford to drop a wage. Our life is chaos with all the before school and after school drop offs and clubs. We’re barely in at a weekend and when we get the odd day in we consider it a massive treat. Both our DS play football and that takes up our Saturdays. We’ve not much money spare month to month but we can still afford treats and house repairs ect, we definitely don’t go without.

We’ve never been happier and we are utterly blessed and wouldn’t change a thing. We do everything together at an evening and weekend so we’re not missing out on family time.

Work doesn’t suffer, we both have great and reliable reputations and are doing well. Kids doing well in school and nursery.

However, I feel there is much more pressure on parents now to not “let your children down”. Our sons friends all play football, they have phones, Xbox/playstation, all have top branded clothes, get gifted £££ for birthdays. I think with the popularity of TikTok and in the world of “influencers” (or should I say freeloaders that just like to show off so children can envy them). There’s much more pressure from the kids. We definitely feel it when we live (big city-not overly sure if others feel this too).

As God is my witness, whilst there is still breath in my body, I will do ANYthing and EVERYthing in my power to prevent either of my DSC baking at the weekend. They are absolute raving, dyspraxic, psychopaths in the kitchen. Competitive carnage: who can get the most ingredients it the weirdest places…!! It’s like they take handfuls of flour and throw them at each other. I once found blue icing smeared on the dog’s ear. DH found an edible flower on his laptop which wasn’t even in the kitchen. Surfaces remain miraculously sticky for fucking days. Too many t-shirts lost to food dye. Any other activity - no matter how far or time-consuming - is preferable to the agony of hearing the words “can I make cupcakes?”.

I can recover physically and emotionally from any activity except baking.

What country are you from OP?

I'm not in the UK either but I most definitely spent weekends at sport events and taking (my now adult) DC places they needed to be.

I'm not sure why you are thinking this is a UK thing.

As you should know (being a parent and all) our lives do change when DC come along. It's comes with being a parent really. To support your child, offer them the best opportunity etc etc.

Have a think about why empty nest syndrome is a thing. It is not new and also not a UK phenomenon.

I am exhausted and broke, because Im sick and because I'm a single parent to 3 SEN kids. Much of our busy for years and years has been down to therapies, physio, speech therapy, occupation therapy, mental health. We've always done swimming lessons and that was it for a long time till one of my boys wanted to play football. Now football takes a big chunk of our weeknights and weekends. They all play outdoor ane indoor football. They all love it and its been great for their confidence and mental health. I would be broke and exhausted no matter what, I much prefer our current busy from things my kids love over our previous busy juggle of therapists and since I'd be sick and broke and exhausted any way, why not.

A couple of points on your post OP.

Firstly if parents are working full time, the kids likely won’t be able to do after school clubs in the week as no-one can get them there especially when they are younger as those clubs generally start at 3/4/5pm and for good reason as young children get exhausted later. Also some clubs - eg football always have matches on a weekend so if your child wants to do that activity that’s when you have to do it. So they are likely sacrificing their weekend to give their children opportunities - it’s what you do as parents. I was lucky enough not to work full time and managed to find suitable clubs on my non working days as I didn’t want to have my weekend plans restricted to work around clubs but if I had to for the reasons I described I’d have done the same.

Secondly, a day out is a nice family activity that doesn’t have to cost a fortune. We pretty much always had one weekend day out and one at home. If we didn’t do a day out I’d feel like I hadn’t done anything with my weekend. And it’s generally not that exhausting. In fact sitting around for two full days I don’t think is great option, you become lethargic. Plus kids (and adults) need exercise and fresh air, not to mention life experiences. I really wouldn’t advocate that the best parenting involves staying at home for two full days personally.

They rest in between doing stuff.

Yes weekends were busy when my kids were young. They had lots of party invites! And we liked days out at museums and galleries: so much free stuff in London. It became much less busy when they were teens though we did some chauffeuring. Thankfully not much driving around as the public transport in London is fab. They are now at university and weekends are ours.

You seem to be exaggerating a lot. We and our friends are all London professional workers and very few parents are regularly doing 12 hour days, even though they might have done as childless trainees.

It was hard with little kids, just juggling work and nursery etc. But I reckon that’s the same everywhere.

You need to stop making rather hyperbolic generalisations based on your rather creepy stalking of one family.

DH and I work full time so we prefer having out of school activities in the weekend. It is also common for sports teams to compete in the weekend. So yes our kids have sports on Saturdays and swimming Sundays. And many weeknights they also have clubs. I don’t find it exhausting.

Why do you think baking every weekend is better? That’s what we did in lockdown. And the walks.

We still walk and have lots of time for video games. If we aren’t doing things, both my kids will be on their screens. They read if we list them as their homework. Go and read up on threads about other posters criticising parents who let their tweens and teens on social media and gaming all weekend. Google up the average number of hours kids are on screen now.

I think you have a fair point. We are outside UK and my husband‘s take on it is, it’s our weekend too and we want to reduce the activities that involve chauffeuring and being a slave to kids and their social lives.
That said being stuck in flats is no fun for anyone.

I do often think that people with young kids do become desperately used to doing everything for and with their kids and have their whole lives revolve around them. I never did that but have seen friends with teenage kids really down about the fact that they are not central to everything anymore. I warned them for years to create a life which isn’t just being a mum, but no, and then it bites them on the arse later.

2 teen boys who play high level sports, one is on the pathway to make it professional with clubs already signing him.

His day starts at 5.45am yesterday and finished at 9.30pm last night , he has a day of rest today (which he will go to the gym) and then it starts again tomorrow.

We are neither broke not exhausted (tired tho) however your parent for your kids enjoyment, they both eat and breath sports, they don’t want to be sitting around the house and most of their friends are doing the same sports so they are socialising while paying the games they love.

Children in the house at weekends are annoying, unless you switch on the TV/screens. It's funny, but despite all the handwringing over screens nowadays, it was far more acceptable in the 80s/90s when I was growing up to stick your children in front of cartoons for hours with a bottle of fizzy and a multi pack of crisps. We could do what we wanted at weekends, including screens, so long as we didn't annoy our parents.

We do have "lazy" weekend days sometimes but most parents nowadays have been drilled that screens are the antichrist and to be used with extreme guilt. And that means actively engaging with their kids and doing child-friendly activities or putting up with the endless "I'm bored!" refrain. By the time you've baked, done some art and engaged in "creative roleplay", dumping your kids at football club or softplay begins to look like the easier option.

And baking with kids is hellish (up there with taking them swimming). And not particularly wholesome, at least in our house, since it always seems to end in large quantities of icing and sprinkles being consumed.

Saturday as you describe, class then take DM out . Sunday mostly I’m at my DM’s cleaning, cooking, washing and food shopping for everyone.
Also cream crackered.

My kids do lots of sports and DH and I take them (except the eldest who can drive himself now).

I love it! I enjoy watching them do something they love and personally I'd much prefer to watch my DD play netball than bake a cake with her.

I was shocked at the thread of mum feeling like a bad mum. She had been to the beach and the son had a sleepover and she was feeling bad for not taking the to another park the next day 🙄. If I took my twins to the beach, we would do NOTHING else that week. I wouldn't even ho to the beach on a school weekend. That would be a major school holiday activity. Them kids are lucky AF!

The cost of living and pressures of life without family money or support are tough.

I work full time and my partner works 0.7 FTE to support childcare.

We have one child, a 2-bed terraced house (mortgaged) with a tiny living space (so at home activities take more prep) but are fortunate to have an allotment.

Our child does zero out of school activities as he is exhaused from school (the curriculum they have to learn and crowdedness and noise in the classroom are just insane). This is a shame as he used to love learning karate, but gets ill if he overdoes things and the school requires 95%+ attendance so he chills at weekends with the occasional visit to/from a close friend or time at the allotment. He is an 8yo.

It really is much harder now than life 10-15 years ago, but I consider us fortunate to not have to both work full time or have to live with the uncertainty of renting.

I fail to see the need for judgement on how families operate. And no, you cannot extrapolate your observation of/spying on a family that live A) in London B) in a flat C) near you as being representative of all families. What about country life/detached sprawling homes/anyone outwith hour eyesight. All May live vastly differently. To then say that parents are choosing benefits to allow them time to recover from 2 days of activity with their children is the wildest accusation yet. Just start to think of your own way of life and leave others alone.

I think another thing missing here is how poor state school sports opportunities are compared to other other countries. For me, with sporty kids, there’s not enough opportunities at school so I do spend my weekends dominated by extra activities, but I certainly make that choice. It’s very much the norm if you can afford it.