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

@thelakeisle1 I think the kids walking home thing depends on the area. At my kids’ school (SW) they can walk home from year 4 (age 8-9) and many do. In London I can imagine the traffic makes that more risky

I totally get this. When my eldest was a baby, I felt obliged to take her to all kinds of "extra-curricular" things like music events, baby sensory, baby yoga.....
Now I realise all she needed was nurturing and a spot of social life with other babies.
I didn't bother with any of the extra-curricular stuff with my younger DD
Sympathies! I hope you get enough sleep

What a bloomin' cheek of the pre-school!

I think all that stuff is supposed to be more for the mums to make friends tbh. I never did make any friends and felt like a complete failure

What did I just read here?! Good for you for resisting

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

Why is there the obsession with balloons arches now for Instagram pictures, very tacky. So much crap bought and disposed off later, a real waste in many ways.

I agree. I felt like it was more a mum’s social thing. I was lucky to meet some people I clicked with early on when I had my first and we then used to just meet up at the park or a coffee shop or each other’s houses. I went along with my second aiming to do the same but didn’t really click so decided not to bother after first few weeks. It definitely wasn’t you, just luck of the draw if you end up with other mums you have stuff in common with beyond just having a baby that happen to go to the same groups.

That’s another thing that’s changed. Once they were school age, parents of invited children did not stay at birthday parties with them. Much easier for hosts to run the party how they want without other parents there. Children usually behave better for other people than they do for their parents (as they do at school).

I agree with you OP. I blame the parents.

You can choose the life you lead and the attitudes and values you espouse. My kids did play outside, they did play independently, they did walk to school themselves, birthday parties were usually an activity such as bike ride or cooking hot chocolate in the woods, I did not get drawn into other people's values or standards - so my kids did not watch 18 films aged 12, they did not spend hours and hours on screen with latest game or even have screens in their rooms until they were 17, we attended a few out of school clubs such as Boys Brigade and local mountain bike club, but we spent weekends out climbing mountains, canoeing and cycling as family or with friends, etc. I chose a jobs and locations which enabled me and my ex to see the kids and have time, while also being near nature in a great community.

We do not have to be sucked into this odd fallacy of materialism and image on Instagram life - go your own way.

We live in a different world now. It’s not the same place I grew up in (I’m 51 years old, Gen X, raised ourselves!). It’s hard to parent like we were parented in this different world. We can try to not conform to allll the things around us, but it’s a challenge being the odd one out.

It’s hard if you are in an area where everyone is doing lots.
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Just aim for more low key days.
I’m in an affluent area and children very scheduled so school, activities every night, expensive parties and foreign holidays. I’m a volunteer girl guiding leader and we did a very low key brownies pack holiday - 7/8 yrs old they loved. They played out together for ages. They loved simple games (just needs dice and paper), pouring own cereal, making own lunch, washing up. There’s obviously an element of fact there’s a group of them but the simple little things were genuinely exciting for them. With older group age 10-13 we find they are often genuinely happy with simple crafts or games, we are massively oversubscribed so doing something right.

I love sleeping with my babies, well, I can only sleep with my youngest, 7, as my eldest, 11, has a top bunk but if he had a normal bed I'd absolutely sleep with him too.

But it would be lovely if the 7yr old could sleep past 5am 🥱

OP, your kids are not going to remember how much you spent on parties and they won't think in their 20s or 30s, I remember my 6th birthday party where I didn't have a balloon arch.

I totally get where you're coming from though and I don't think you BU.
Just dance to the beat of your drum mate. Show up, that's all they need and will remember. x

I wonder how many babies who have been subjected to this contrived programme of 'activities' will ever remember them or even benefit from them?
Maybe if your 7 year old wasn't 'co-sleeping' he would sleep longer, I'm sure that this fad is the reason so many parents and children don't sleep well, each disturbing the other.

If my DD asks me to sleep with her, I'm happy to do so.
We didn't bond until she was 20 months old due to my mental health issues so I feel blessed that she wants me and we love it.
It's not every night but it had been for a couple of weeks at one point.
Not a problem.

Waking up at 5 is just how it is for some people. She's usually asleep by 8pm so I'm sure she's had enough of it.
I put some guided affirmations on and she was asleep within 5 minutes as was I 🙂

It’s quite natural for families to sleep together- it happens all over the world! Why would I sleep with a partner I love but not my own child?

Im due in December and absolutely determined to raise him the way I was raised. I knew how to be bored or entertain myself without needing constant entertainment or stimulation. Also taught to sit quietly at a restaurant rather than needing screens etc. It's all too much.

I can't bare being around friends children who constantly need interaction, interrupting conversations etc. I wouldn't have dreamed of it!!!

I think that’s what everybody thinks before they have kids 😂

You will barely remember before you were five.

You will have the odd snatched memory of that time but nothing concrete. Just as history favours the winners, so do our own memories and we tend to remember when we behaved beautifully, not when we were whingey, arsey, restless or whatever.

Come back in five or six years time and tell us how you get on please, we can’t wait to hear!!

And I say this as someone who was and is anti screens at the table, but has absolutely used them when out very occasionally to have an actual break. Good luck in particular on the no interrupting part, I’d love to hear how you manage it.

Don't start parties. Not only physically draining, but who do you invite? With a small class of about 20 you could invite them all. Once you start asking DC who their friends are, you make a rod for your own back. They change friends too often for comfort.

Have a birthday treat or meal somewhere. Your dc probably won't get asked back, but does it matter?

You’ll be probably able to manage most of these, but some interruptions will happen and are inevitable with young DC.

They come and ‘disrupt’ your life, that’s the nature of having them!

I feel exhausted just reading about your life! YOUR style of parenting isn't benefitting either parents or children. You should watch a few episodes of "Super Nanny". I feel sure it would really help you.

Cosmetics at 11..sheesh times have changed. I didn’t get any till I was 16 and then I was forced by mother. I wasn’t interested and no one I knew bothered either. 17/ 18 yeah to sneak into clubs / pubs underage , but 11?
There was a ‘don’t encourage perverts ‘ too.

Even now, I won’t pay £23 for lip gloss. That’s a week’s food for one fgs. No wonder people complain they can’t manage on their income.
Never did lunch boxes for mine, though I took a lunch box in my high school, But only because it was forbidden. No one else did. It wasn’t an option. But they couldn’t force school dinner on me as I hadn’t paid, and couldn’t send me home cos I was outwith my catchment area in the next county 2 busses away. The power was mine .

Parties for my kids were games in the yard followed by food , later ages to a football place or dry skiing or 10 pin bowling. When did kids get so complicated? Did the co-sleeping from birth. By 3 they wanted their own beds. Looks like a lot of parents are making a rod for their own backs..or for other parents’ backs.
Where do kids get the money for expensive, or any , cosmetics? We didn’t get money handed to us. My kids ( wisely) chose to get things as they needed them over a weekly allowance. Which would not have been enough for the things kids nowadays buy. The world has gone mad

😆