It’s all such bloody hard work

[Uggbootsforever]

It’s all just such hard work, the standards are so high. Yes I know you’ll say ‘it’s all optional’ but how optional is it when everyone else around you is doing things and you don’t want your child to be the odd one out?

Lunch boxes. My mum did a sandwich (honey, marmite or jam), an apple, and a penguin bar. Now you have to cut bloody veg sticks, have fresh sandwich fillings ready and available, constant healthy ‘snacks’ (I swear my mum never carried or offered me a snack?!).

Birthday parties. They used to be straightforward and fairly cheap and now they’re all about balloon arches, ‘wonderlands’, themes and elaborate commissioned cakes.

Kids don’t play out now. They hover round you 24/7 demanding things while you try in vain to do the 100 housework tasks that need doing.

I feel like slowly but surely our house has transformed into a place where everything is about the kids 24/7. My parents used to think nothing of sitting and watching a programme they wanted to see, while we played around them. I don’t think I have ever done this, whatever is on is always bloody CBeebies.

Every parent I know is still woken in the night by their 4/5/6 year old children who insist on sleeping in their bed (including me). I just want to sleep in my own bloody bed, to close my eyes at 11pm and open them at 6.30 with nobody crying or shouting me awake in between. Before becoming a parent it didn’t cross my mind I would still be being woken every night 6 years later.

I love my kids but, argh. Why are we doing this to ourselves. Ready to be told how unreasonable I am etc

I have no idea how it’s substituted hard work with Covid 😂 - I guess it was also hard work but that’s a stretch. I think you are at a hard childhood phase @Uggbootsforever . Mine were 3 and 5 in the first lockdown and it was soooooo tough. The degree to which you feel like all you do is kids stuff peaks when they are big enough to be mobile and too small to follow and join in with stuff you are interested in. I have more fun with the kids more often now they are a bigger. We go to the theatre together, they enjoy a good ramble round the National trust or along the coast, they like museums and galleries and they are happy to entertain themselves. Not to mention they can now make the tea

Why don’t you contact NHS and tell them you don’t get the snacking thing? They recommend three meals and two healthy snacks a day.

It is disingenuous in the extreme to pretend that porridge for breakfast and some apple as a snack, home made pizza for lunch and breadsticks as a snack then home made chilli is a terrible diet. It’s normal. Most people especially children will need something between breakfast and lunch and between lunch and dinner.

Exactly- I think I just object to all the "back in my day" and "well my children never" and then a lot of complaining about "gentle parenting" that always happens on these threads. Luckily my DM is like "no you were all bloody hard work!"

I do think that there are lots of financial pressures on parents these days and social media has created a ridiculous culture of over consumption/ over stimulation. But I also think you can opt out of these things.

I don't understand why people are so anti snacking though unless kids won't eat a meal. Adults snack all the time!

My best friend’s hen cost me £500

I'm very sorry but why don't people have the guts to say no. Sometimes I'm glad I'm poor.

Spot on OP!

I used to watch Eastenders, The Bill... didn't do me any harm.

I'd play out on the street every day and entertain myself at home with things like books, puzzles, writing. Very little parent input.

My parents think I'm mad to co-sleep.

I envision a slight reversion to who it was in the next decade or two.

What a bloody joke. There are families with nothing who go nowhere.

Yes though presumably not the same people who were planning trips to Patagonia pre kids so I don’t really see what that has so do with anything?

Mine are also at private school. It’s ridiculous. Especially the one-up-man-ship of parties. Someone had a (awful in fairness) town hall party and there were definitely a few sideways looks. This weekend we have a 6-9pm party in an expensive attraction private hire 😵‍💫

What I would give to watch my own tv during the weekends !!!!!!!!
My children 2 and 3 rule the tv if it is on! Constant demands for a snack which I always feel should be bloody homemade! Endless parties . A 2 year old having a party which would be impressive for a 22 year old. I know I often do along with it all as well. My mum was lazy and I don’t want to be like her but there was nothing wrong with a penguin and panda pop and playing under the table while my mum did what she wanted ! Was there !!!!

Nursery - they needs - crocs , wellies, trainers , slippers, rain coat , all in one, onezie , endless !!!

It has to do with a smug attitude . Hey ho.

So much respect for the women who just called it straight off and ditched. I’m quite direct and can never fathom why women beat around the bush so much!

@Uggbootsforever @lastdayofseptember

well then I take back my apology for noting my post sounded dismissive. Different things are hard and relentless for different people in different ways.

for kids how old?

Awww @lifeonmars100that sounds like such a lovely holiday! They really don’t need much, do they. I do agree with the OP though, that social media is leading us to believe that we need to do more.
I just don’t care. 🤣 I have my own big birthday coming up, and it’ll be in a village hall with sandwiches, a pop up bar and our own playlist! No balloon arch and instagrammable decor in sight. 😂

I think this was aimed at me? What you’ve described sounds good and is what I would do. I suspect that the ‘snack’ elements are not this simple for many families though

"They hover round you 24/7 demanding things while you try in vain to do the 100 housework tasks that need doing."

Delegate the housework tasks to them. They'll soon stop hovering round.

Well no, they aren’t, but that’s why this blanket ‘huh snacks, what are these things called snacks, snacks didn’t even exist before 2015’ is more than a bit misleading!

It’s perfectly acceptable for children to be offered a healthy snack at nursery / school. I teach in a secondary school so it’s a bit different but the kids are registered at 830 and lunch isn’t until half one so five hours is a long time for a kid, even a teenager.

The snack market for adults as well as children is huge: Graze boxes and the like. I know a lot of children will snack a lot and not really eat much if any of their meals, which obviously isn’t great.

Many children are kept engaged constantly in age appropriate environments such as childcare and school that they don’t see the real world of house work, shopping etc that children would have seen a generation back. They don’t get down time and a chance to get bored and follow their own interests. Their time is tightly regulated.

We have had full time children in our childcare setting that always seem confident and outgoing yet when you take them for a trip outside the setting they turn into the shy, least confident ones where their peers who only do a couple of days a week become the confident ones as they are out and about more.

I think this, along with screens and phones, have had a real factor in how long they can concentrate and how quickly they want to move onto other things. A lot of adults don’t give young children their full attention as they are on their own phones. It makes me sad when I see children wheeled around shops watching a phone or tablet. Even 20years back the parent would have had no choice but to engage them in shopping to prevent them from becoming fussy.

Youngest is 2

5&6

Mine are late teens now, but our house/life wasn't like that. Sounds OTT and not great for anyone. My DM made me fresh sandwiches and sometimes gave me soup in a flask though. In the early 1980s.

Well I didn’t say any of those things but I get you need to read between the lines to achieve the required level of indignation in your response!

lunch at 1.30 after an 8.30 school start is ridiculous isn’t it? I would be eating the wallpaper.

as for adults normalising snacking with Graze etc - I think this is where the rot (ie sugar, salt etc) creeps in. An apple or a piece of good bread etc is fine - processed crap in processed packaging is…not. In my book anyway.

Well, many of us have raised more than one 3yo with neither gentle parenting nor corporal punishment - but still decent toddlers. I mean, expectations have to be low for a human who possibly is still shitting their pants. They’re utterly unformed humans. But it’s good for them and their parents to know what expectations can be met; that actions have consequences and after the first, second, third warning those consequences get worse. Distraction works a lot. Corralling works well. Giving choices between two things of the parents’ choosing works well. But - they will shout, cry, jump, break things, be utterly ridiculous. They’re puppies who need training. Carrot and stick (obvs not literally), boundaries and lots of attention to YOUR timetable. It is possible. Many of us can attest to it!

Ah I like the co sleeping but the rest I agree with you on.

My biggest things at the moment are - the pressure to eat less UPF, but then that costs more. Then eating together each evening, but also wanting to go out to exercise so I can be a healthy and fit mum for them, plus take them to after school activities so they can stay healthy and fit themselves. The constant mum guilt from working and sending them to childcare but I have no alternative, so then feeling like I need to limit myself in terms of what time I spend either with myself or just with my partner so that I can always be there for them when not at work. Birthday parties is a big one, we did bowling last year but it still added up.

It’s all a bit much.

There were a lot of very unhealthy snacks in the 90s! Absolute era of monster much and panda pops!

If you look at human history we haven't always eaten three meals a day. It's quite a modern thing probably based on fitting around factory working schedules. Everyone is different anyway- some people are just grazers.
I just can't get too stressed about healthy snacking and cosleeping personally but I hate the expectation of buying lots of stuff and completely overscheduling kids.