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

You find it odd because you only have the experience of your one child! I’m in a similar position in terms of one child, similar age, and when we are in a good patch it’s easy to see how it can be joyful. When you are still as sleep deprived as the newborn days because they are keeping you up all night and then your child spends literally hours of the day having screaming meltdowns no matter what you do (more typical of my daily life)…then it’s harder to find the joy. I’m not going to apologise for finding that hard and not enjoyable, and I think it would be more odd to enjoy being screamed at for hours, no?

I had a big reply lined up regarding the generations of unrecognized Neuro divergence, the age going up for first time mum's which then ensures parenting coincides with huge life events ( menopause, bereavement etc ) but then I read your age and decided I couldn't be bothered.

Enjoy this stage of youthful ignorance and arrogance. You have a lot to learn, and life will come and get you soon enough to make sure you learn it.

Good luck with that.

Sounds like you're probably neglecting your children's needs to make your life easier. Try reflecting on the life you give your children and will continue to give them as they grow up. We could all ignore our children, we choose not to and are therefore tired.

How would you know?
Only 3 of my closest friends know that I have 3 autoimmune conditions.

Also, how many hours a day do you look after your dad?

You have absolutely no idea what people do.

You can give good boundaries and it doesn't always work. It depends on the child. Why do you think different year groups behave differently at school? The boundaries dont change every year do they? And different siblings too. You dont always get all of your children responding the same way. Some children are more difficult than others.

This is overly personal and very patronising.

A good ‘see you in 15 years when you’ve have 3 teens’ is enough.

I agree OP. Parenting really isn’t that hard. Get fed up with people making out it is.

I’m a stay at home mum of a toddler and agree that this post does come off as a bit judgmental. I also agree that there is too much negativity around parenting.

My child doesn’t have any additional needs and I still find it hard sometimes to say no and manage her tantrums. I don’t want her to have screens or sugar more than just occasionally but those two things are the main causes of tantrums for us.

I also don’t think you can force a child to sleep, and try as you might to follow a routine sometimes a child won’t sleep when you want them to! Overall though I really love being a mum and our life is pretty easy and pleasant.

That doesn’t mean I expect other families to have the same experience as me though. I actually think all of the other parents I know have it a lot harder than me because they all work and I have the luxury of not needing to work in paid employment. Motherhood is work too in its own way, but it’s the most enjoyable and rewarding thing I could ever imagine.

The “SEN brigade”? (How did I miss this bit at the end?) Obviously children don’t come into the world clutching a little piece of paper with a list of any diagnoses they will have, imminently or in the future. It reads like you have decided you are not in the “SEN brigade” - and never will be - which is quite bold imo as it’s pure luck and of course many SEN don’t begin to reveal themselves until much later. It can be a lonely and sometimes totally shit club to be in and I sincerely hope you never have to worry about any of your children after a diagnosis like some of us have (admittedly not for SEN in my DC’s case). My DH and I are only ever as happy as our sickest child. Nothing we did or didn’t do caused it, we have asked and been reassured many times over (so excellent parent alike you aren’t exempt). We were just unlucky.

But surely you must realise that the types of children you have will greatly affect this perfect scenario?? I have 3 WILD (but wonderful boys). And yes it is exhausting to keep it all together. With my work, their endless sports, feeding them, keeping on top of the insane amount of washing and keeping house clean and tidy. I’m surviving of course but it is full on! I’ve been unwell this week and just not had normal energy levels and everything had gone a bit to pot (husband also away with work few nights) , more screens, food not as healthy, later nights to bed. So I can see how it can happen and I’m certainly not judgy.

Same here. The scaremongering started the second I was pregnant and has never stopped. People are determined to scare me about how miserable it will all be but that's not been my experience at all it's been pure joy from the start, I've never been so happy! This has been the experience of other first time mums I know as well, people just can't wait to tell them how awful it's going to be and trying to scare them. It's just bitterness, the people who were doing that to me are the same people who are now annoyed I actually enjoy motherhood and make snide comments about the fact I I don't look like an exhausted dishevelled mess because apparently that's what mums are supposed to look like. It's the same bitterness you see here.

Love how there are loads of replies to you saying how easy babies are and it's going to get worse, just you wait! 😂 Posters on MN are always wanting on about "the trenches", newborns being hell and how brutal the early years are and how it gets dramatically easier after age 4 so just hang in there! So it's demonstrably not true and they're just trying to piss on your chips.

Also funny is the "wait until you have more!" brigade, does it not occur to these people some women choose to only have one child because they want a calm, enjoyable life? Making the choice to have 3 kids then complaining about the predictable chaos makes no sense to me, it also tells me just having one is the right choice, they're really not selling the idea of a big family!

You work part-time, so there's that.

And 'the SEN brigade' (where's the vomit emoji when you need it?) tend to be very well represented on MN because we have more problems and fewer people in real life to talk with about them. So we do find parenting harder, whether we are SEN or our children are or both.

Pretty pointless to say: 'Why do people find it so hard? I don't. By the way please don't reply if you have children who are hard work because you don't count.'

You work part time. Let’s have this conversation when both of you are working full time.

This is SO true. I had two children - one SEN, one not. The NT one slept and ate like a dream - I once read that Gina Ford book and thought - oh DS already does this, naturally.

The other had complex SEN issues from birth, along with a number of physical problems. But we had no idea. In those days - before widespread internet - there was no information. No doctors ever explained that his complex physical ailments and refusal to sleep or eat indicated autism. If I had had two DS1-style children, I'd have been unbearably smug. If I'd had two DS2-style children, I'd have thought I was the worst mother in the world.

Using your example of school: a good teacher manages to get even difficult classes sitting down, following rules and learning something. A incompetent/inexperienced teacher would have the same class running riot. The difference is the adult's management style.

The same applies to parenting. Some kids do fine with normal parenting while some need truly high-level, expert parenting. But the quality of parenting does matter and has a big effect.

It varies from year to year, ask me how I know. All children aren't a cookie cutter experience shaped only by the input of parents who are either doing it the wrong or the right way. What Victorian thinking.

I'm a teacher. I've seen some colleagues work miracles with difficult classes. I'm amazed at how good they are at their job. I've seen others who find even the 'easy' classes challenging.

There are definitely some teachers who are better at classroom management than others. Similarly, there are some parents who are better at handling difficult behaviour than others.

As to 'cookie cutter' children, no where have I said anything of the sort. I specifically said different kids have different needs.

You don’t think the OP was overly personal and patronising?

Some of the things I see online make me laugh.
“I’m glad I had an abortion last year so I don’t have to do elf on the shelf now” or “I’m glad I didn’t have kids so I don’t have to go to 8am paw patrol parties”

like you know you don’t HAVE to do elf on the shelf parties right?
and there’s no 8am parties.

I mean I’m 24 and I agree, I’ve got an 8 year old btw why would that give a 30 year old with a 1 year old more right to speak on this than me. And No my parents don’t help me either and I have useless siblings just because you’re young doesn’t mean your family do everything for you

Yes and Probably in an unpressurised job where she isnt under constant performance review and /or is at risk of redundancy.

additionally her ability to keep a roof.over her kids heads isnt contingent on her continued employment/ income.

I'd love her to come back once shes been in work for 20 years with work a high pressured job, sick parents and a fat mortgage THEN have a couple more kids and tell us how easy 2 under 4 is.

I imagine it is a piss of piss if you work part time tax payers top up your earnings, you're in good relationship, your parents are young and in good health and you have a guaranteed tenancy somewhere....

I disagree with OP completely, but I can’t see where she was overly personal, no. She’s just sanctimonious about her parenting and it’s a bit grating.

Criticising her life choices to have children is too far, it wouldn’t be ok to say you feel sorry for an older mother imo and not a fair criticism.

Young parents don’t necessarily have parents who help, I had my eldest at 16 and have done everything myself

I didn’t criticise her at all. I said I personally wouldn’t like that life.

You were snidely making out her life is shit. You intended to upset her.