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

Im not doing this shit!

My mum gave me a ham sandwich, cucumber, yogurt & fruit in my packed lunch. My kids get the same. Penguin on fridays!

My kids slept in their own rooms and beds from a few months old. They didn't often wake at night after age 2 or so. When they did they were resettled in their own beds not ours.

I dont buy expensive birthday cakes. I make them just like my mum did.

I make mine play out in the garden or with each other (they are 6 & 8). They are not allowed to hover round pestering me. The robot hoovers while i read a book. Yay progress!

The parties - i think we do similar things to what we did when i was a kid. I remember doing ice skating parties, swimming, bouncy castles at the leisure centre, childrens discos. My kids have done similar.

I do think screens are a problem and have really damaged kids attention spans.

Also too many parents are stretched juggling full time work and hour long commutes because all the jobs are in cities but houses anywhere nearby are too expensive. It doesn't leave enough time for family life - meals together around a table, parents supporting homework and hearing their child offload about the events of the day. There needs to be a shift to an expectation that one or both parents work part time whild children are under 10 - 24 -30 hours a week rather than 35 -40.

I genuinely can’t understand what you think is smug about it or why you’d have an issue with some families travelling a lot.
The OP is talking about feeling hemmed in by the expectation of centring the kids always and like trying to do the stuff she enjoys is impossible as the kids don’t like it and will spoil it. If it was a post saying how everything is unaffordable I’d get your point a bit but it really isn’t so I really don’t. It’s just true that as kids get older they have wider interests and it’s loads easier to do adventurous or adult centric holidays, days out etc. I think it can be hard to see things will change when you are in the thick of the toddler and preschool years as it’s very full on and it can be helpful to have someone remind you it won’t be like that forever.

How many floor length fabric skirts does your child own? I’m not sure they even exist, Vinted didn’t turn anything up - ditto ‘shawls’ - hardly an everyday wardrobe item for a year 3 child

The answer to this is the same its bloody always been. You ask around locally and borrow the character skirt off a girl who does ballet!!

Or my mum literally sewed one from a worn out navy blue bedsheet. A skirt made out of cotton like that, with a piece of elastic waistband is really easy and takes about an hour.

Loads of things work as a shawl. Those extra large baby muslins, or an old baby receiving blanket like they put the baby in at the hospital, or a cellular blanket.

It doesn't have to look perfect

In my case it got easier at 8yrs old mark. Easier, in terms of being more self-sufficient and entertaining themselves if I have to catch-up on work (at 6 yrs old it would have led to a massive act of sabotage).
I agree with you re higher expectations from parents, both from children's side and other parents. A friend was suffering recently through a decision to host a small low-key birthday get together vs usual "all class in gambado" do.
Part of it is also us, parents reliving experiences we didn't have through our children.

Remember when Dd late primary a friends band was playing and a group of us were going 8pm start. Then one mum pipes up she can’t possibly go as the kids (then 10) were getting back from their (3 day) school residential. The other mums all agreed of course we were needed at home that night.

Blew my mind. Kids got back at 3pm ish us parents were to dance attendance on them all evening foregoing our own plans? Cannot imagine my own parents doing that.

This is an example of what the OP keeps answering. My primary GC's homework is all online. The school apps are seesaw, then there's parent pay. Everything went online during Covid (so those starting school 2020/21, now year 4-6 were affected) and many schools stayed online because they have to include tech as part of the curriculum. It's a module in high school. The shops I shopped in with my teens, Tammy girl, International, Top shop etc no longer exist. Unless you have markets, there's primark and New look and that's it, for teen affordability. The choice has been taken away. Your can now only opt out so far.

@TheaBrandt1 I'd say it's usual, if your primary child has been away a few nights to want to spend the evening with them, chatting about what they had done. I can remember coming home from Colomendy in the 70's and my Mum, who wasn't particularly maternal and worked full time, doing a special tea. Then there's the washing.

9pm finish for a 5 year old? I'd be declining

@Bryonyberries Great post. The ability to be bored and get self out of boredom is vanishing. We do kids a diservice here. One long dopamine hit plus the rigours of school plus coughs and colds. A recipe for disaster.

" No, you can't go, we won't be attending" Tough it out.

Oh, on the children’s parties: I actually made that the theme of my eldest’s third birthday! The theme was “90s pizza party” (I was an early 90s kid). Lots of balloons, pizza, and colourful bunting that I had anyway from a bbq a few years ago. The whole thing cost me very little for about 15-20 kids plus parents (thanks Lidl!). Luckily our local village hall is only £10 an hour too so hiring the space was easy. Then I just brought my kid’s toys along. I made a cake using a 3 silicone mould I borrowed and lots of sprinkles, like my mum made. The parents loved it, it was a real blast from the past and the kids obviously thought it was great, colourful and tasty!

Not a beige/ pastel balloon arch (not to be touched, only to be photographed of course) in sight…

Ha! My bro was an early 90’s kid (there’s a decade between us). He had a similar pizza party for his 7th birthday, I think it was. I remember being around 16 and shocked because all the girls at the party refused the pizza because ‘it had too many carbs in’ 😳. Seven year-old girls. Never mind their reaction to the ‘when the music stops, put on the hat, gloves and scarf and use a knife and fork to cut up and eat the giant Dairy Milk bar’ game 😂. I swear, sometimes we have rose-tinted glasses on the past and think it was all so much easier and better while actually the same issues still existed.

Glad your pizza party went more successfully than that one!

You forgot must have a drink bottle at all times 🤣

Reminds me of the Bluey Pass the Parcel episode where Pat is outraged that there's a present in every layer.

Just to comment on the TV - DH and I were discussing this the other day. We had kids tv from 3.30-5.30 if we were lucky. There was no such thing as kids tv all day!! I wish it were still like this if I’m honest. I used to watch play days and the magic pencil whilst mum cooked! 🎤🎼 “Down at the bottom of the garden, among the birds and the bees, lived a lot of little people, they’re called the Poddington Peas, the Poddington PEEAAAS!! “ Anyone else? 😂

Being a parent is not a democracy. You are still in charge! Pandering to your children's every desire is no good and no good for them at all.
Create some charts and ways of sharing info about your hobbies, and their hobbies - on something you can stick on the wall. Create a timetable (which this aged children can easily understand) which carves out time for them, and for you and then you all together.
You can have a lot of fun putting these plans in place and everyone will benefit. Best of luck to you all!

Parents of today will reap the consequences tomorrow. Sorry, kids belong in their own beds, they belong ln their own bed at a set time at night, it is then time parents tidy round, relax and watch TV or read a book. I think a lot of parents try to be their kids best friends, rather than parents. You can be parents as well as friends but let them make their own best friend. By letting them have such expensive items as £23 for lip gloss your making for life to be a very big let down or for their husbands to live a life of hell, trying to keep up with expensive spoilt wives. Teach them the cost of living, or let them do jobs round the house for money and then see what they waste it on.

I voted YANBU because a lot of people do this and I understand the impact of peer pressure. You don’t have to. Your life will be a lot better if you dgaf about what other people are doing. We do school dinners because it’s easier for me. I make the birthday cakes. I’m certainly not spending 100s on something to be squished into party bags and thrown away. My kids do play independently and they sleep in their own beds all night (after co sleeping as babies/toddlers). We don’t really watch adult tv though we agree as a family on something to watch on movie night as there are loads of great films for all ages.

Fine with your own children, less easy with the couple of friends your child has invited.

Take stock and stop doing what doesn't work for you.

I am working hard on making my kids wait. I used to hop to it every time they asked/demanded/requested something.

10 yo is getting a big birthday party but he hasn't had one in 4 years.

Yet to be 4 yo will have her first party next year.

I agree we do too much, but we're the captains of our own ship. Equally I feel like our parents (80s & 90s upbringing) did the bare minimum. There must be a "good enough" in between.

My daughter has just thrown a party for her two daughters soon to be 6 and 4
Held in the local church hall for free. Grandad provided the music and an auntie ran the party games such as pass the parcel, musical statues etc.
Prizes were bought recently from a supermarket getting rid of their summer toys in an amazing sale. Party bags were just a token and hardly cost anything.
.Food was very simple for these 3-5 year olds.
Yet everyone seemed to really enjoy the 1.5 hours. Adults and children alike.

I was thinking about this. I don’t think my parents worried about us being bored at all. They just expected us to join in sorting out the do-er upper house or read a book or whatever. There were few family days out (because of the do-er upper) and we just played a lot with friends.
6 pm became parents TV. No alternative and no concessions.
Friends parents fairly similar.

There's a huge difference between being child friendly and child centred. If children think the world revolves around them, they are going to get a heck of a shock in later life....

I agree. My kids left primary about 15 years ago and it was the same then. When I was at primary there was none of this stuff and my parents only ever went to the school twice a year, once for parent’s evening and once for the nativity. That was their only interaction with the school. No constant stream of letters and correspondence (except for the dreaded one sent by the nit nurse). I don’t think my parents had a single day of stress or expectation caused by the school and there were three of us there at the same time.

I LOVE that episode! ‘We’re raising a nation of squibs’