To think people are being bloody lazy

[SourGrapez]

Not trying to be goady (but probably will be 🙄). I keep seeing post after post about how parenting is “relentless” and “breaking people” and I just don’t really get it?

I’ve got 3 kids, all fairly close together (2 under 4 and DS8), work part-time, house isn’t a tip, kids eat actual food and go to bed at a sensible time. No screens during the week, no running round after them like a headless chicken. They sleep. Don’t beg and boss me about. They behave. Life ticks along.

Obviously there are tired days but some of the stuff on here makes it sound like people are barely surviving and I can’t help wondering what’s going wrong? Kids don’t need entertainment 24/7 and they don’t run the house. If you start as you mean to go on it’s… fine?

I don’t drink wine every night, make healthy dinners, don’t co-sleep, don’t negotiate bedtimes or bathtimes. Maybe that’s the difference? Or maybe people just don’t like being told no anymore (including adults).

Not saying I’m perfect, just genuinely confused how basic routines have become some kind of impossible feat 🤷‍♀️

And before the SEN brigade come and tell me how it’s different with their children, we already know and obviously this isn’t about them.

goes to make tea

I have 2 VERY different children. My second born is easy going. Slept well from birth, follows rules, is flexible and does as they’re asked. My first born is the absolute opposite. If I’d had my second born first I would’ve absolutely thought people were talking out their assholes when they said parenting was hard. As it is, my firstborn has made me realise that your parenting experience is mainly determined by your child’s personality and not your parenting skills.

Well aren't you (and the parental enclave around you) blessed. 😇

Long may it continue. 💅⏳

Are you Mary poppins? And you don’t drink wine? You sound dull. My kids are pretty good too - more by good luck than good management - but they have faults! Unlike your cherubs. I suppose you’re one of these ppl who don’t believe adhd / autism exists!

I’m genuinely happy for you that your children are so easy and well behaved. But. Don’t be so quick to assume it will always be that way. You’re only 8 years into this parenting lark. There’s still plenty of time for any one of them- or even all- to shit all over that, intentionally or otherwise.

Parenting easy going kids is pretty easy. Not all children are like that, and I’m not even necessarily talking about SEN. I have 3 and the eldest is now a young adult. She was a pretty happy, easy going baby and toddler. I thought I’d nailed it. Then I had her brother. Even before his additional needs were evident he taught me not to be too smug and I was just lucky the first time. The youngest is still a baby but I already joke she’s my naughtiest,

It's been ages since I've seen someone be given a biscuit on here, but I agree the OP earned it

Is your son called Casper the ghost

I think that a common but lesser talked about trauma response is to absolutely brainwash yourself into believing that you have a perfect life. Most victims of abuse or trauma end up with frustration or depression due to ruminating over the negatives. However a subset of those will force themselves into believing they've "manifested" their happy ending and do everything in their power to maintain toxic positivity. This seems to be quite prevalent in very religious communities where girls tend to marry and have kids young (Mormons etc).

OP has clearly had a tragic start to life and never realised it. Another common coping strategy is to compare your own emotions and life with those of other people online (MN is obviously a trove of information) and gain a sense of superiority from it. By believing you're coping better with a certain thing like parenting, it provides positive reinforcement that your life is going great and you are not dealing with trauma.

She also has a lot of thinly veiled snark towards SAHM and SEN parents. So in her mind, she is doing better than those which again provides an echo chamber that having two kids from two different men is totally fine and she's living the happy fairytale arc of her life.

There’s so many variables. Support for one. Partner/friends/family. How supportive they are makes such a huge difference to how people cope. How you were raised and whether you were taught things like how to cook, clean, cope with stress. Health plays a huge factor in being able to cope with parental demands. Financial wellbeing. Temperament of your children. Their ages. Not everyone has a perfect life that means parenting is easy.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5459533-1-year-old-exploring-front-gardens-and-xmas-decs-decd

I suspect that this thread is not too far from the type of thread the OP is alluding to.

Giving your toddler free rein in everyone's front gardens because their pregnant mum doesn't want to deal with their tantrum?

You’re 22, married with 3 kids? Bullshit 🤣

Not even eight years into it. Eldest singer SS who has been in her life four years… middle is under four and youngest is brand new newborn.

You haven't got to the teenage years yet - luck can change (and it is luck)

Single mum, work full time and freelance, have 3 dogs. I don’t find it hard either. In fact, being a mum is my greatest joy.

I work full time and my kids don’t know their routine despite having been at school for 2 & 5 years respectively. I spend 10 minutes of a morning periodically reminding my middle child to brush his teeth, he finally walks off to the bathroom… and forgets to brush his teeth. Ditto pack his basketball last week. Ditto everything else, he wears his pants inside out and his tshirt back wards some days. The 10yo is harder. The 3 yo is chaos. I work full time, in the office 3 days, Dh works full time and can’t do from home, do 2 drop offs, my sporty kids do non stop sport all weekend and some weekdays so we just chauffeur them around. They eat home cooked meals and go to bed roughly on time after being told 10 times to do every step of bedtime, because we work our actual assess off to get these things done. They don’t get screens much. We contribute to our school and community, organise sports, volunteer role at nursery, evening meetings and manage some of the kids teams, because that’s what parents do. I have evening meetings for work too and fit my exercise into some weekday evenings and a run at the weekend. Life is very full on, my kids are lucky to have us; and you can fuck the absolute fuck off.

I swear my 10 year old would go to school without her shoes on if I didn’t remind her.

🤣

Yes my kids went to bed and slept well because I had a routine from day one. As did my friends kids who also instilled a routine (this was the Gina Ford era). I always had a shower, got dressed and went out daily with my children when I wasn’t working. I also had a young teenage stepson living with us full time, who didn’t need looking after per se but was another person in the mix. I found teenagers- the psychological toll, much much harder. Kids were easy, though they are fairly relentless in that you can’t just plop them down and go about your business - but it wasn’t hard.

Ok so for the most part I actually agree, however if you’d wanted to be goady you couldn’t have worded it better!

These things I have noticed massively though (through work and as a parent of four)
In the last 5yrs;
• Potty training average age has gone from 2yrs - 4yrs (mostly due to permissive parenting/waiting for the children to tell them, rather than taking initiative.)
• Parents ASK kids permission for everything from such a young age it’s often bizarre.
• Parents ASK kids what they’d like to eat, again from a very young age, therefore choices aren’t necessarily informed or healthy.
• Parents apologise to their children constantly. By this I don’t mean when necessary, I mean when they tantrum.
• Parents second guess their own actions and opinions constantly. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been asked if what they did was right in various ‘normal’ situations.
• Childcare institutions are often parenting, as opposed to parents.
• Standards and expectations have drastically dropped, with regards to behaviour, concentration and gross motor skills.
• Interestingly fine motor skills are better.

Basically parenting has changed since Covid, and who is parenting and for how long. Parents work longer hours, and nurseries, although they often spend more waking hours with the children, there just isn’t that level of affection, expectation or ownership.
Pop into the balance that often schools and nurseries are too scared to discipline adequately and act scared just in case a child is ND, and the kids rule the roost now.

Stressful for everyone, and in addition to having to work longer hours to keep up with unattainable influences and social media…burn out all round.

So maybe not lazy so much as overly influenced by others opinions?

Perhaps with your more complicated family history, parental exhaustion will come later for you. I hope not and more so for the children. But don’t rag on us tired mums doing all the stuff

Is it so hard to see that others do not experience life in the same way as you for a whole range of reasons? Well done you on not being perfect but having life pretty much sorted as you see it. If you are genuinely curious and unable to imagine how different circumstances might mean different experiences then I suggest you read more perhaps to develop a sense of empathy. I’m not sure of the reasons of your post. On the face of it it seems a little self-aggrandising and I wonder why the need to frame things in the way you have.

Gosh, maybe people wil find YOU bloody lazy for only working part time..🤔 looking at your history, one of your kids iis also a newborn? What job do you do?

Why aren’t you working full time?

Lucky you…. Try adding an autistic and disabled child into that mix and I’m sure you’d reach a few hiccups.
everyones story is different…. Great your a martyr in yours, but for others it’s not that straightforward…be a bit more mindful

Work full time and it will be a whole different story. Financially I can afford to work part time, but my job is in project management and it just won’t work part time! So I work full time and do love my job, but the days are bloody long and I struggle to find time for myself.

You work part time….try working full time - well more than full time because you’re on a deadline and up writing a report until 3am then the following day your three year old gets sick so you’re going into two days of sleepless nights off the back of three hours sleep and oh good that deadline is still there.