that weekends and free time are solely about the dc?

[dampmuddyandcold]

So I’ve genuinely been wondering about this a bit because I’ve realised our lives look quite different from our friends. And in fairness all our friends have just one child while we have two which I think does make a big difference.

Our children are two and five. I work two days a week and the other days I have the two year old, we go to groups, walks when the weather is ok and feed ducks, go to the park, sometimes to a little soft play or farm.

At weekends both children have activities like swimming, sports and so on on both mornings and then the afternoons we will generally do something as a family - national trust place or swimming or soft play (depends on weather) sometimes there’s an event like a birthday party.

Friends I made when dc1 was a baby seem to have more of a ‘normal’ life; they go shopping or out for meals or just chill at home.

I guess I’m just wondering - I think if we just had the one five year old maybe our life would be more like that, I don’t know.

If you have young children, what does your ‘free’ time look like?

NuffsaidSam .The point is as you say,DC wont be small forever.However it really does go so quickly! (I remember my MIL saying this at the time) and its nice to have a little one on one if you can. We often used to do this .DH would take DS to the park, and DD and I would do crafts .Or DD and DH would go swimming and I would feed the ducks with DS. A little tweaking would work well.

To be honest most sport is both weekends AND midweek. DS7 plays a football match on Saturdays at 9am and his practice is at 6 on a weeknight.

I don't get all the hate for weekend activities. The match is done by 10 and then we can all go out for a family breakfast. I've been seeing the same parents every week for 3 years at football and rugby and we have a good chat. Plus we go together and we like watching him play!

If we are away/at a theme park/have a birthday party he really wants to attend we just say no on the poll.

@ShakyFridge its quite normal for the matches to get later as the children get older. DDs is at 2pm this week.

It alternates between 9am Sat and 9am Sun each year here until secondary. He did rugby until last year and all of those are simultaneous at 10am Sundays (big club with loads of space). Totally appreciate it is a pain at 2pm but I'm more referring to those who refuse to do it at any age.

I used to like taking my kids away places at weekends We would jump in the car after school on Friday and return Sunday night. To have a bloody football match every Saturday would be very restrictive to doong anything else.

DS didn't really play weekend football until secondary school age and left it to his dad to spend his bloody time standing by a freezing field. And by that time the others were flown up and left home

Tbh I never arranged weekend stuff for the kids when they were young enough that they had to be taken. Also I worked some weekends so it just wasn't feasible as they'd be either with Dad or grandparents, none of whom lived that close by or drive

Once they were old enough to take themselves places they could do weekend stuff but the deal was if they wanted to join something they figured how to get there and back

In fact it was the cadets ( both army and ATC) that were their choices and they positively encouraged independence rather than parents doing the slog

Our weekend look more like yours, but we both work full time so the weekend is the only time we get quality time with them.

Ah, "bloody football match". Got it!

I don’t get up for my 10 and 7 yo on the weekends! The 3yo yes, but even she now sometimes just plays with her brothers.

Football matches are not my scene. And why should all my kids miss out because one wanted to play? Or are my others unimportant?

@dampmuddyandcold I think what people are struggling to understand is how you're saying its 'only' 30 mins of swimming, or 1 hour of ballet - so how on earth is that all of your free time?

I think what my OP was about was wondering wheat what point weekends or free time stop revolving so much about the children you literally say this, but then enforce that its only 30 mins. So what happens with the remaining 11 hours of the day?!

We have 2 they're 8 and 5. we both work FT - Weeknights are
Monday - DH plays padel.
Tuesday DS2 swim lesson at 5:30
Wednesday DS1 Karate/Me kickboxing both 6-7
Thursday free evening
Friday free evening but DH or I usually sees friends, tends to be every other week. Movie night in with the kids be that one of us with them or both if neither have plans.

Saturday morning - Karate for both of them 9-10, DH usually takes them while I do a food shop.
Sunday Morning ds1 swim lesson 9-9:30. I take him and DH stays home and makes a big breakfast with ds2 for us getting home.

We still manage a lot of downtime, I read before bed most nights, there's always lego on the dining table, I weightlift 3 mornings a week before work (at home, Caroline Girvan)
Saturday afternoons are often either a family day out or DH plays golf or takes one of the boys to the driving range or to the football matches, sometimes DH will go with friends and I'll have the boys at home - just depends on the week.
Sundays are time to clean the house, do some baking with the kids, we usually have a roast and a family walk out weather depending - but we did that pre kids too.

Flip it round though, and you're saying ones wants aren't important because the others aren't interested.

I don't particularly want to spend my Saturday mornings stood on a touchline, but if DD was properly interested, we'd make it happen for her. Because she can't make it happen for herself, she's 4.

I wouldn't be allowing ANY of them to do something that took up EVERY weekend for the whole family. We were a family not just one person gets to do something at the expense of everyone.

So they did thing when they could sort it themselves - or in the case of DS his dad could take him.

Even discounting him though how would it work if the other 2 wanted to do different things every Sat morning that I was expected to take them to? Who gets priority as I couldn't be in two places at once. Or none of them when I was working

But there's two of you parenting, right? So not ALL of you have to spend the time assisting one with an interest. One parent takes, the other has the other kid(s).

You could even maybe get a few activities at the same sort of time in the same kind of place and let them ALL do something they liked. Or the others get some special time with mum or dad while the one gets some time with the other parent (to and fro).

I got to quite a high level of show jumping when I was younger, and I wouldn't have been able to do that if my parents took your stance. My younger sister had one on one time with the parent that didn't take me, the elder was old enough to chill on her own for a bit. We were done by 1030 most Sunday mornings so other than needing a shower we still had the whole day. Events we split with other parents from the group.

It sounds like you're basically saying they all do everything together and no one gets to follow their own interests. Seems quite unfair to all of them.

Nobody gets priority. You talk to the other parents and organise lift shares, or they don't do it every week. Our coach picks some kids up. There are 11 kids on DS's team and max 8 go to every match so at least 3 have the week off. Sounds like you're done with all that though so why so defensive?

My football comment was just an observation that most of Mumsnet hates football. And as for the snippy comment about Cadets fostering independence - DS will be able to get himself to sports when he's 12 aka Cadet age and I think it fosters some great attributes and attitudes.

You edited this as I was replying. It's unfair on you that you were responsible for getting everyone everywhere.

I have 2 children. They do clubs throughout the week. And one lesson on a Sunday morning. We do boring mundane stuff at a weekend 🤣

I was a single parent and the only driver. Even when living with my DDs dad he worked most weekends.. Lots of people are in similar situations

Yet there are heaps of parents ( both here and irl that are slaves to their teenagers wants

And there are also lots of single parents who find ways to support their child's interests. It's choices and just because people's are different to yours doesn't make them wrong.

You chose not to let any of your children pursue interests that took up weekends. That may have prevented them from finding something they loved/were brilliant at. Other people facilitate absolutely everything which might result in children burning out. Both are extremes and there can be a balance.

How exactly do you facilitate 3 kids doing different things every weekend and a job that involves weekend work then? I'd love to know.

And they did have interests that took up weekends. Once they could get themselves to them They also did stuff in the week when they were younger. Just because you don't devote every weekend to kiss stuff doesn't mean they don't partake in anything. When they were smaller they did brownies on Tuesdays for example, one did church club Thursdays etc

I think it depends on the nature of your child/ren as well.

I have one 3yo (pregnant with #2) and it is hard work being at home for prolonged periods because she doesn't want to entertain herself and just wants me to play game after game with her, even more open-ended art/craft activities don't hold her attention for very long.

She does do one activity for 45 mins on a Saturday morning just to get us up and out, and then our weekends mainly look very much like you've described your friends' - walking round the shops, out for lunch maybe, park if nice weather, just anything to keep us out and about for a few hours. We do the odd bigger day out too but here and there - I'm not sure we could cope with doing NT/softplay-type days every weekend.

That said, I completely get how the things that we do at the moment might not seem to doable or even enjoyable with 2 children to wrangle. I'll update you next year 😂

You enlist help from other parents of kids doing the activities. They don't go every single weekend, they take turns.

Things like football there will be other parents there. Riding there was a class of 4 of us and another class of 4 at the same time, so 8 opportunities to provide support to one another.

It can't be everything but there is ways and means. There are some pretty famous faces raised by single parents of multiple children who clearly managed to get them to the activities they now excel at and do professionally.

You chose not to. Fine. Don't judge parents who choose to.

My son's father co parented him. My daughter's dad didn't have anything to do with them.

Do there wasn't 2 of us parenting.

What would have happened to your sister while you did the show jumping ( can tell you are not from a working class family lol) if your dad wasn't around and sometimes your mum had to work and leave you 30 miles away with a grandparent?@

And I do t think there was much they would ALL like. Not sure what a 13 year old girl could enjoy the same as a toddler boy

How the hell do I get to know the other parents then without taking 3 kids to one thing when 2 of them will be bored rigid. And many sports teams do expect you to turn up every week

I am very much from a working class background. When I was small we had one small income and sometimes didn't have enough to buy food for the week.

I got into riding because my dad's family were farm hands and I could hop onto the horses while there with them. And then they made sacrifices to enable me to do it. It turned into show jumping later. But if they hadn't made those sacrifices for me, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

I'm a big advocate for children having downtime but equally if they express interest, you make it happen for them.