Families that don't do anything with children

[Countryspaniel]

In my line of work I come into contact with a lot of families. Over the summer it got me thinking why some families don't do anything with children.

Why is it that some people just sit around at home day after day? I'm realistic that not everyone has money but you don't need money for a lot of things.

There are parks, community events, walking, bike rides, Picnics, library, museums etc.

I can't imagine why you would want to sit at home day after day without expanding children's experiences.

Have not RTFT but see “kids are harder to manage at home” trotted out all the time and just cannot relate. My DC has always been so easy to manage at home - baking, reading, crafting, playing in the garden, imagination games with various toys all with snacks and drinks on tap and easy access to the loo and bed for a nap!
Leaving the house has always been like packing for a bloody week long expedition - drinks, snacks, spare clothing, raincoats, waterproofs, needing the loo 10 mins after leaving despite having gone before, constant moaning about being hungry/tired/bored.
Don’t get me wrong, we’ve always gone places but some of our happiest times have been at home, playing in the garden or baking a cake. Not all homebodies have little lives and narrow horizons…

I’ve known families like this and the kids don’t know any better.

I dispute that, actually. It’s not a great way to raise kids but my own dm was like this, and we siblings are highly educated and with well travelled (now adult) dc.

Depends on where you live, fruit picking is free for many. We went fruit picking just in our neighbourhood last weekend. We walked and took Tupperware boxes. We have blackberries everywhere We also got apple, pear and plum trees. This is just a suburban area in South Hampshire. We aren’t rural.

People… people are the problem… I work in retail so deal with people on the daily…. My tolerance for bullshit has got so low I don’t even know how low.
luckily my dc are old enough to go out with friends by themselves so mostly entertain themselves. We had our yearly holiday in May as it’s less busy which works well for DS who is autistic. We are 3 weeks in and so far we’ve been shopping, the cinema, going to the zoo tomorrow, mini golf, been for walks along our local beach., been to visit my uncles a few times. DS has had to go to the hospital so we ate in town before that. Dd has a birthday sleepover next weekend. So just me & DS. Who will most likely be gaming, invited my mum for takeaway with us as DP is also away next weekend.

The kids love staying at home, there’s lots of things to do at home… they have tech, Nintendo switch, PlayStation, iPads. They spent 4 hours actually playing switch together nicely earlier. They like to bake, they both can cook, We have board games, we also have a pool and a hot tub up, we have darts, movies… so far DD’s best day of the summer was when Wednesday series 2 was released on Wednesday 😂

there many reasons people stay home, let’s normalise doing WTF you want 😅

Not judging, just genuinely curious. These are all situations I’ve been in throughout the years(broken ankle, surgeries, Covid, D&V etc).OH works predominately away , so it’s mostly just me and DD managing it. I also see a lot of posts on here of “I’m on the bathroom floor , dying… what do I do with the kids?” and lots of “oh don’t feel guilty hun, a sofa /screen day is ok.” Like there’s an expectation the OP feels guilty on top of being ill(which bugs the crap out of me) and a chill day is something you compromise/less than.

EtA: I’m genuinely sorry things can get so difficult, once again, definitely not judging.

I’m not sure about all summer but I would pay money for a week just at home where I didn’t have big sorting jobs to do. The kids would like it, they’d read books and play basketball and games and just muck around, there wouldn’t be much screen time and I’d make them do some chores. Just getting out to the shops would feel like enough out of the house personally, they have busy lives usually and I think a week just at home would be awesome. I work and it’s sort of a waste of annual leave plus things would come up so won’t happen, but we’d all love it.

You're not completely wrong.

DD had to do a disimpaction routine for a week once. We basically couldn't leave the house. No school, no clubs, no days out, no visitors.

We did buy some new toys just to help bring a bit of novelty and tried to do as many activities together as possible, but she hated it and so did we.

I am not great generally with getting the kids out and about when I’m alone.

Youngest DS is autistic and can be challenging, I’ve also read so so many threads on here where posters are of the opinion that ‘most SEN children are just parented badly’ that I always feel hyper aware and conscious that people are judging me because of his disability.

We do a lot more when DH is off work as it just feels a million times easier. So I sort of square it in my mind that all the things we do as a family compensate for all the ‘lazy days’ at home with just me.

@Countryspaniel other than our two week holiday, we rarely had organised activities during the holidays. I think I’ve done more or less the same with my kids. I don’t actually think it’s my job to entertain them, and I don’t remember my mum ever entertaining us. We were expected to meet up with friends, come up with games, play in the garden, play with siblings, go exploring. I guess it helped that we lived in the countryside and had a big garden. And we read, read and read some more. We live city centre but I expect the same of my kids, to organise their own activities to a great extent. They run / cycle / fish / hang out with friends.

All these organised activities for kids is a bit cringe to me tbh.. The closest we got to that was days out with friends, usually to a local park with a picnic and ball games. But even then tbh the kids were expected to get on with it and leave the mums to talk. We are in France though, where life does not revolve around pleasing children at all.

the one caveat is that children these days have so much access to screens. My kids are 14/17 now so mobiles / ipads were not quite as ubiquitous as they are now. I might make more effort these days if the alternative was kids on screens for hours.

Unless people are ill/disabled then I agree. It does not need to be expensive or even more than a walk away. Most people are within walking distance of a park or playground, or even just the shops. Many places still have free local libraries, and some even have free local museums.

It doesn’t have to cost much or anything, but to do nothing at all all summer with children is really unfair on them.

I don’t go to national trust properties because they are expensive. Plenty of free countryside. For anyone in Hampshire, I follow https://www.theamblingpath.co.uk for lots of free walk ideas. Those with younger kids can look at https://www.facebook.com/parkleyeastleigh? When the kids were younger, I take them on play areas all over the place, like a play area crawl. The Facebook page didn’t exist when my kids were very young so I used to look up the play areas using the council webpages.

I agree, people have changed. It can’t be just about money because even during the war, I know my father, as a young child, walked for miles with his mother, and learned so much about his city, the surrounding countryside, neighbouring towns and villages. He has so many memories from a child’s perspective. They were very poor but always curious and exploring.
I expect the roads would have been quieter though.

Maybe they cant afford various clubs a few times a week
My daughter does 1 after school club, one out of school club and 1 swimming lesson a week
I would love her to do more but i simply dont have the spare cash after bills have been paid .

I worked with vulnerable families for years. So definitely not living under a rock. Yes there are families like this, they are considered chaotic families and their children and maybe the adults need various supports or more. But there are also other families who spend lots of time at home for other reasons.

The people that enjoy chilling/relaxing at home does that they don’t leave house for a walk.

For us a chill day at home would include a walk with kids on bikes/scooters just on our road and not driving somewhere.

We love day trips but also some days it’s lovely for kids to potter round home searching for mischief.

Ah this is true about organised activities!
I had a 90s/very early 2000s childhood and we did always go away for one week but the rest of the school summer holidays were ‘playing out’.

They were the best days though! And I have such fond memories of summers. In a lot of ways I think it was better than the scheduled, organised, paid-for activities that dominate now.

If the rest of the year is busy and children are always following someone else’s agenda it can be nice for them to have unstructured time at home. So many are in school, the wrap around care, or clubs that time home being lazy together can be cherished.

I worked term time when mine were primary age and our holiday was often a trip to grandparents in London for a week, a couple day trips to the beach and some trips to the park. I didn’t have much money. I bought them a paddling pool most summers and they spent a lot of time in the garden. I also let them camp in a tent in the garden although they never lasted the night! But we all loved our lazy summer.

Chronic illness meaning that energy management by the parent is a limiting factor.
Sensory needs of one of the children being incompatible with crowds, noise, people and unexpected demands.
A preference for rest over hustle.

There is more than one way to live a meaningful life.

Possibly the boy's recount wasn't accurate - in the past we've had very active school holidays, trip away, lots of outings, etc but to read my son's school holiday recount it sounds as though we did nothing but let him watch sports on TV!

But that's 3 activities, not none, ever.

These families aren't poor.

There was a group in the library the other day, they'd gone in for a drink of juice and the librarian started talking to them about the summer reading challenge. All 3 of them (10, 8 and 6) said they had no books at home, and they had no library card and couldn't sign up without a parent.

The 10 yo sat down and read a book to her siblings so they could get their sticker, which was lovely, and they both sat like it was a West End show.

The library is in the village, it's walking distance from these children's house, completely free, and they've never been in with their parents.

Respectfully, as I don’t know your circumstances, I personally find one child does make things a lot easier. I find it much easier staying at home with my 5 year old when I can be fully absorbed in whatever he wants to play. It becomes very hard when there is also a 2 year old snapping at my feet.

I also think a ‘chill day’ can be different to different people. For me, hiking with my husband is the ultimate form of chill. I appreciate that’s not the same for everyone though.

And, I have to say, despite mumsnet being awash with small kids who can self entertain for hours on end, I generally don’t find that reflected in real life. Most small kids need assistance from their parents to play. I suspect the ‘don’t feel guilty’ comments are in response to a day of screen time in lieu of parent interaction, as opposed to not leaving the house for an activity.

Depends what age you’re talking about. I like to do things with my youngest because she is still learning and gets excited. She loves farm parks, nature, organised events, anything really. Even when we don’t have plans I’ll make sure we get out just for a walk if nothing else.

My teenager on the other hand is too old for family days out and would much prefer to be left alone on his phone or PlayStation. And during the holidays it’s a nightmare trying to please them both. Quite often I’ll just take the little one out and eldest will invite a friend over so they can stare at screens together. Occasionally I insist he joins us but I often end up feeling demotivated and pissed off by the whole thing because he doesn’t want to be there.

I definitely think we live in a time where people are obsessed with ‘making memories’ and doing loads of stuff with their dc and it’s mainly for the benefit of social media so they can show off what great parents they are and how many great experiences they’re giving their kids. There has to be a middle ground imo. Days out are great but kids need chill time and to make their own fun too.

I love the National trust and agree that if you can afford it it’s worth it. But I find it a little disingenuous to describe a yearly cost of £165 for a family membership as a day out that just cost petrol money. For a lot of families it is a big upfront expense, then petrol/bus/train money on top or, saving for a one off pay on the day visit, it is at least £20 for one adult assuming kids are under 5.

It's not just about being able to drive/having money though, because lots of our parents didn't have a car/much money, yet we didn't stay in. I was going to say it's maybe because most mums work now, whereas in the 80s/90s a lot didn't work FT when the kids were small, but then you were talking about whole families being at home, so are you meaning people who don't work? Or do you mean parents who wfh-if so, that's something else that's changed. Up until 5 years ago, I didn't know many people who wfh, so they either had their kids in childcare, or they were off work and took them out. Not in any way judging this, wfh can be a great thing, I'm simply saying it's factor in change. Places like parks did generally seem to be much busier when I was a kid compared to now when I'm a mum (and I don't think there's fewer kids in general, given that there's more/bigger schools in the areas I used to live in). Obviously then and now some families have health issues, but another difference is that back then, most families I knew only had one or two TVs in the house (relatively few had computers/video games, though richer families might have had), yet now, nearly every kid seems to have a phone or a tablet (only the rich had mobiles when I was a kid in the early 90s, and we didn't get social media/much beyond calls/texts on phones until I was an adult).