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 done the old fashioned part thing lots of times with my kids. I have twins who are now 16. I structured it so there was always something do. Granted I used to have a themes. It was a unicorn theme one year for example, depending what they were into. Started off with pass the parcel, pin the tail on the donkey, musical bumps and hit the pinata. All from B&M. I used to do individual cupcakes instead of a big cake for them all to take home. The girls would have a smaller cake with candles. We'd do karaoke using YouTube and eat party food. Used to send out cheap invites. The party would last a couple of hours. Just put kpop demon hunters sing along on. It'll be fine. Don't expect perfection because it doesn't exist and don't stress. Just be present. It got more expensive as they got older, and don't get me started on Prom omg 😧

It’s crazy and I like nothing better than a dump and run party these days. I knew things were turning for the worse when my youngest arrived home wanting a Bento Box and an . The school had to email parents to stop Stanley cups coming into school complete with all the accessories because the shelves in the classroom weren’t big enough to accommodate them all, junior school kids with accessorised bloody Stanley’s! It’s mental how so many kids are materialistic at 10 years old. I’ve said no to everything that has come my way. It’s pathetic.

I mean you’re right. But there’s a very easy solution. To anybody who is capable of saying “no” to their children. Which is a necessary precondition of being a good parent.

I agree with some of your points but dont think a jam or honey sandwich, apple and penguin bar has ever been an acceptable lunch. Nutrition aside it's sweet, sweet and sweet. Where's the savoury part of the meal? (SEN aside)

One of my mums' group friends never let me forget having said "we're supposed to enjoy this shit?!" - I can't remember exactly what had happened but picture shoals of children and the usual household disaster limitation exercises. She laughed herself silly.

I'm extremely glad that I will never again have to put an acceptable lunchbox together.

They will all have syndromes.

It is possible to have a "home party" with 5yr olds. No more than 8 or, at a push, 10. But you need TWO adults, one to lead the games, one to manage the music & background bits & pieces; you HAVE to be very highly organised and you need to go at a smart pace from one game to another. No time for kids to get bored or start a fight. Lots of pre-prepped pass-the-parcels (with a single sweet inside each wrapping and a mini-box of smarties in the middle). Musical statues; Sleeping Lions; Sneaky Pete (this is better with 6 - 10yr olds & is a brilliant party game); teach them the Hokey-Cokey - they love to "all fall down" at the end; run to a strict time-table (say 2pm till 4pm); have the "tea" with cake/candles near the end (water & juice only - no fizzy); have a SMALL party-bag (1xballoon; 1xbubblemix; 1xparty-blower; 1x party-size Haribo or similar) to leave with (helps get them out of the door). Get the parents to come back (if, indeed, they leave at all) half-hour before end of party. Ply parents with chilled white wine (or apple juice for drivers). Smile an awful lot & be RELENTLESSLY CHEERFUL. Job done.😅

You do know you can change things and not get sucked into the trends don’t you? Traditional party games were great fun and loved by all. Get you kids outside and switch off the TV. Teach your kids to be individual and think for themselves.

I'd blame yourself if your kids are still climbing into bed or children's tv on constantly.. its up to parents to put a stop to that and make time for yourselves.

Well I've been to plenty of local community hall parties recently and my god they're boring. Cost effective though. I think I've seen a balloon arch once or twice.

A lot of this is self inflicted tbh. DD sleeps in her own bed and hasn't woken in the night since she was in preschool. We had her party here a few weeks ago and did pass the parcel, a disco with a light and karaoke microphone I borrowed from a neighbour, pinata. No one moaned about being bored but there was a lot of excited screaming. I put up some bunting but no balloon arches, massively wasteful in my opinion.

She does snack a lot but she's very active and no weight issues so I don't fight it tbh. Just make sure there's balance and she doesn't have sweets everyday. She knows she needs to eat her veg at dinner. Lunchbox is a sandwich, crisps, cucumber sticks, some fruit and maybe a squeeze yoghurt. It's not that deep

Yep, agree and it’s obscene really when there are kids in other countries starving to death and fighting for their lives. While we argue about whether to have vaccines they’d sell a kidney for.
That said, when I do OTT parenting it’s because I’m trying to fill a hole where extended family should be I think.

i think what you’ve described has become the norm for a lot of families, but we don’t do half of the stuff you have described. I will caveat this by saying that our children both compete at a high level in sports and do quite a lot of training, as do we. However they have never hung around me at home expecting to be entertained. I do play with them outside when I get time, but they spend a lot of time playing and roaming together. We live on a farm so they have loads of freedom but also play out in the village with friends a fair bit and have done since they were about 8 years old. We also have simple birthday parties on the beach or at home in the garden, and most of their friends do similar - presents are a £5 or £10 in a card now, and when they were littler it was a small Lego set or similar.

If we want to watch tv we do - the boys both enjoy nature documentaries, and obviously if we want to watch something that is not age appropriate for them (line of duty for example) then we’d watch that after they’ve gone to bed. They weren’t allowed any tablets / phones until they were 11 (youngest is 11 almost 12 and has just got a basic phone now), and we have really strict rules about what they can have on their phones (no social media until they are 18 etc). My friends at work think my kids have a 1950s childhood, playing outside and being wholesome, but in reality it’s much more 1980s - plenty of time to entertain themselves, but with small amounts of tv thrown in, and a good deal of respect for their parents (although I like to think we are much more emotionally open than our parents were, and encourage our children to talk to us and we are quite an open family).

As I said we do spend a fair bit of our time in the mornings and evenings driving the boys to various different training, but we make sure either we use a bit of the time to go for a walk or run, or for some of their sports either my husband or I are part of the coaching team. We also carve out time for our individual hobbies. Life occasionally feels hard but to be honest that’s more to do with work stresses than anything else.

I agree OP. Those suggesting charity shops for fancy dress costumes clearly haven’t been into charity shops recently. The ones around us are really expensive, and depressingly it’d probably be cheaper to by some polyester tat from Amazon.

My mum used to take us to the local shopping centre and leave us looking at books in WHSmiths for an hour or so while she did what she needed to. Zero chance we’d do that to ours. I think that because of the modern convenience of online everything children haven’t had to adapt to just rolling with family chores.

I feel like this all the time. It's relentless.

This isn't about your kids at all.

Your problems, stress, overwhelm, all of it, is entirely about you. You care what the other mums think. That's why you're keeping up with this merry go round of perfect parenting nonsense. Just let it all go. They don't care about what you're doing, they're too busy thinking that you're judging them. Is a game of one upmanship we're all playing but non of us want to. It driven by companies and influencers who want our money. You can stop.

I think the modern way of parenting is terrible for everyone involved.

I totally agree and DH and I try as much as possible to parent the way we were brought up (in the 80s/early 90s.)

Snacks are the fruit bowl, cheese out of the fridge or crackers out of the tin. DDs are 8 and 6 and it is all they know so all they ask for. If they're hungry, they can go and get an apple.

We don't co-sleep. They were sleep trained as babies/young toddlers and yes, that was tough at the time but they sleep well, all night in their own beds. My sister on the other hand is still having to stay with my 7 year old niece before she goes to sleep or else she gets very upset. We had a lot of heated discussions about sleep training when DD and DNiece were younger about all the damage I was apparently doing to DD by using controlled crying but I fail to see how DNiece's situation is better to be honest.

We have never gone in for the big birthday party. We usually have a few of their friends over to the house, do party food and pass the parcel and then they play. Now DD is 8 it's even easier because I can just say pick two friends and we'll take you to the cinema and to KFC afterwards. Job done.

They do have too much screen time. But kids TV stops at 6pm and then 6pm to 7pm is adults' TV. To be fair they now quite like The Repair Shop 🤣. 7pm is TV off time and we read our books, then DDs' bedtime at 8pm. I need my downtime too. If they don't want to watch what is on TV or read their books they can go and play in their rooms.

They have to do jobs for pocket money. Each job earns them 5p. They've done this since they were about 3. Helping load the washing machine or pick up their toys or whatever. I'm not martyring myself for my children....they know they need to help out.

I do agree that things are busier nowadays. Both my mum and MIL were SAHMs. Now families have both parents working, people are time poor and stretched and I think it's too easy to then give in and choose the path of least resistance with the kids.

I didn’t do it this way but I was brought up that way (which is why I didn’t do it like that) but I now wish I had. My kids are grown now and although they are lovely thoughtful and kind human beings I do think the child centric approach I took contributed to the terrible anxiety they experienced in their teens. The structure, the respect and doing things for others are the foundations of self care that I didn’t fully understand until my kids started to really struggle with their mental health. I thought I was saving them from the kind of strict rules I’d had doing everything for them and being flexible over bedtimes, food, tv etc but I now realise it wasn’t my parents trying to control me (which is how it felt) it was them teaching me about the important stuff like how to keep going when you’ve lost your motivation, how your feelings aren’t always the most important in the room etc Respect to you.

Their mums buy the Rimmel ones, well at least I do.

So true, kids have become the centre of everything everywhere! It seems to have become a norm for lavish celebrations for any event that has been manifested to be one.

As for school lunches, tick boxes for the promoting healthy eating award etc.

And all of course to be showcased on SM to feel the need to confirm to the world what great parents you are. Just.too.much. xx

YANBU. The parties haven't even started for me yet and I'm dreading it. Things were better before they were OTT.

I get you.

My kids are a bit older so not really relevant anymore but they always slept in their own bedrooms from 3 months old so were used to it and never slept in our bed. They watched kids TV a lot but if I wanted to watch something else, I'd turn it off and if they cried about it, tough teabags. They'd eventually go play. Luckily our schools are all about the underprivileged kids so they're not encouraged to dress up etc. Just wear pyjamas usually. Actually, it's the only thing I love that school for lol

However, my sister has 4 kids. Older one is 14. He's ok. Was a bit of. Whinge as a baby and toddler but he's quite a decent young man now. The baby, we haven't sussed yet. Toddler has full control of the TV all day until he goes to bed. Absolutely no changing it unless he says so. Princess (aged 5) sleeps in with mummy and dad every night. After sleeping in. A next to me crib for the first 6 months of her life. No idea how the toddler and the baby were conceived lol must have been a quickie on his days off when she was at nursery!

Their kids very much rule the roost. It drives me bonkers.

Yup.

Wow, I was thinking about all this earlier, nearly word for word 😂
It must be alot of people feeling like this.
I wonder where it went wrong, like what was the turning point?

You are right. Don't go there. As for kid's birthday parties, I gave up on that one and changed to taking just the family to a restaurant, have a meal and the restaurant baked cakes and sang happy birthday to you.

Someone has to make a stand.

Packed lunches are the worse. I was lucky that my youngest threw up one day in year 1 in the lunch box holder box. As it was almost lunch time all packed lunches had to have school dinner that day they happened to serve cake and custard for pudding. She was sold and had school dinners from then on. Absolute game changer. Thank goodness she vomitted