To hate sentimentality about the early years going fast?

[higlandcoo]

Everyone has a different perspective but for me they didn’t go fast at all. The year I had a three year old and a one year old was awful. I worked part time and absolutely dreaded my days ‘off.’

I hate being told I’ll miss it one day. No, I won’t. Life is already infinitely calmer and easier, although we’re not out of the woods yet.

I often feel like I’m the only one!

My eldest is nearly five so at school. So - we have survived the most intense period if you like.

I am still ‘in it’ but I can see the shoreline. Of course there are lovely things you miss. Adorable baby outfits and cuddles and the like. But the actual treadmill - no.

I love my teens too and I wouldn't change back to the baby years at all. I suppose it's more of a feeling that time has passed more quickly than I expected.

No, it absolutely doesn’t feel short at the time. For me it felt long, relentless, exhausting. I’d have reacted the same way as you if anyone had tried to tell me the years are short when I had 3 under 5!
What people are saying is that for a lot of people, when they’re out of the trenches and their kids are growing up/flying the nest, they look back and those years do feel short. That’s definitely how I feel now. Of course you may never feel that way, and I’d have put myself in that category too, but I was wrong!

I found the early years absolutely exhausting, I’m not romanticising it at all and when my kids were 5 and under I would also have laughed at people who said it flies by. I’m just saying that you can’t judge how you will feel when they’re grown up when you’re in the thick of it.

I have a 14 year old and a six year old now. I wouldn't want go back to the baby years. I wasn't in a good place. I'm not nostalgic for my life then. But I wouldn't mind having 5 minutes in a time machine and giving my eldest a baby cuddle, knowing that we made it through in the end

The early years were hard for me. I love having teenagers, they're hilarious. Still challenging, but easier challenging. No more crappy nappies. I guess mine haven't discovered opposite sex and booze yet so maybe early teens are a golden age and I'll regret saying this in a few years. But so far teenagers are the best, in my experience.

I hear you @higlandcoo but unfortunately, cliches are cliches for a reason, and when your kids are older, you will miss those years. I am/was very much like you - found the toddler years with my first child particularly an absolute grind and I hated it when people said that to me. I was delighted when he got to 5-ish and things got easier. I am not a 'baby person', I'm a career/books/films/adult company person.

Nonetheless, now that my kids are teenagers, I do still massively miss it, and also I realise that part of the reason I found it so hard was because at each difficult stage, I never knew how long that stage would go on, and I never fully believed it would end.

I would still never say it to a parent of young kids, because it's incredibly patronising and annoying and no-one can ever view things through the lens of their future self. But it's still true, and the more you can feel it when they're young, the happier you'll be. I had a bigger age gap than you so with my second child I was much better at appreciating the small moments and not letting the exhaustion and grind get me down.

I agree it’s exactly like people wittering on about your schooldays being the best days of your life. I mean, if they were I genuinely feel sorry for you.

And the treadmill doesn’t stop either! With the number of extra curricular activities my kids do, play dates, parties etc if anything the treadmill has got faster. In hindsight, getting them to nursery and back, feeding them, playing with them, bedtime routine etc was the easy bit, for me. I feel much more pressure now they’re older.

@cathyj77 you don’t know that. Plenty of posters have confirmed on here that they don’t. It is most exasperating to be told how you will feel, and it happens a lot with parenting.

There’s a treadmill to life, agreed. Treadmill filled with tantrums or treadmill sitting at the side of a pool or ballet class zoned out on my phone, hmm, wonder which I want!

Being a parent to teens is a whole other world. When my DS and DD were five and three they'd be up at 6am, then I had to get them breakfast and take them out before things started to get crazy.

Now that they're 15 and 13, I'm in bed at 11am, my DS is at a club in the next county and my DD is getting ready to go shopping with her friends. I don't know if I'll see them at all today. It's a tough adjustment, going from being so needed all the time to being a background bit-player. I'm ok with it, and I mostly enjoy it but it's still weird. It's at this point that I look back and think how short the intense time of always doing stuff with them was. It's a hard one to explain I think - it's only when you experience it that it becomes clear (much like how it's hard to explain to anyone what being a parent is like before they actually become a parent).

I have fond memories of the early years, but I really don't get the over sentimental "OMG she's growing up so fast why can't she stay my baby forever" (I have a cousin who does that and it irritates me). My only DC is 13 now and I enjoy getting to know her as she becomes more of her own person. Being sentimental about the early years doesn't bring them back and risks you missing out on the good things about the present. There have been some tough times, but whilst some of her younger years were fun, they definitely had stressful times too. I also look forward to the future - seeing what kind of adult she will become, seeing her succeed, becoming a grandparent etc. (As well as getting more time to myself!)

Yeah, that's fair @highlandcoo - maybe you won't! All I'm saying is that I felt exactly as you do at the stage you're currently at, and I surprised myself by still feeling nostalgic later. When your kids are older teens and they no longer need you in the same way, it's hard, even for a parent like me who absolutely hated having a clingy needy toddler.

I didn’t mean things like that. Yeah, sitting at the side of the pool is the easy bit. There’s a lot more to parenting older kids and teens than that.
But as you’re unwilling to see the perspective of someone who has been where you are, and is now out the other side, I’ll leave it there.

Teenagers are also annoying and exhausting in a different way! They don't wake you up early but they keep you up late while you wait for them to get home and worry about their safety. My husband and I take turns waiting up for teenagers in the way that we used to take turns getting up at 5am with toddlers!

I’ve never missed the early years. My sons are grown men now and it’s so much better. Hated school as well

It is infinitely easier to find 12 cute photos for the grandparents annual calendar when they are under 5. I have far fewer photos of my tweens and a lot of them are really unflattering 😅 I do miss them being effortlessly cute!

I agree though with the OP. Toddlers need different parenting to under 10s who need different parenting to teenagers - I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some people are going to dislike one of those stages.

When I was in the trenches I never thought I would. As a parent of a 14 yo, well, tbh I still don’t. But I do miss the tiny size, the squishiness, the cuddles , the little cute voice and mispronounced words. Basically the cute , lovely bits. Would I do it all over again? Fuck no! I definitely do get nostalgic sometimes, especially when looking at pictures(moments rather than days, or worse years).

Horses for courses, really. I don't feel that sort of nostalgia and personally loved them growing up and being able to do more and rely on me less, though I enjoyed the early years too. It's fine for people to feel that way but I suppose I find it irritating when people act as if everyone should or must feel nostalgia, as though you're not doing parenting properly if you don't feel sad when they get more mature.

I didn’t miss those years. I preferred it when they were much older but everyone is different.

Absolutely this. I’d go back to those days in a heartbeat.
sorry you find that sentimental OP, but I loved having little children and miss those days so much as hard as they were.
Don’t get me wrong I adore my now adult children but the early years were the best of my life.

I have got a 30 year old and am sentimental about the younger years although it was SO hard at the time.

For heaven's sake, you have a 4 year old, you're still neck deep in early years. It feels slow at the time.

Now he's 28, I do sometimes wonder where my 6 year old went. And the 3 year old, who sang from from the moment of waking to bedtime.

To be honest @NoisyLittleOtter I am feeling much the same which is probably why we’re feeling a bit irritable with one another.

See how you didn’t like me dismissing your experiences with ‘sitting by the side of a pool’? Of course there is more to parenting than that. It’s always going to involve time, effort, determination, commitment, patience, love, a certain amount of talent or at least skills and courage.

But we like what we like and we also have circumstances that make it unique. I don’t have any help and I have a husband who wanders in at around eight o clock every night. Those days are long - and so are the years. I feel like I’m just emerging from a fog and I don’t like people refusing to accept that it’s been really hard and stressful and that I won’t want to go back to that fog!