And the winner is... MUMMY! (Lighthearted)

[DriveVerySlowlyPastNumber23IWantThemToSeeMyHat]

Anybody else get slightly pissed off at Easter bonnet parades etc when the winners picked have clearly been created by the parents? 😂

I’m still irritated by one that was clearly made by a florist, when my DD was about 7. She’s 29 now.

Yep it’s irritating. My kid spent hours on a school project building a village out of clay. Then in come the projects clearly done by the parents and they are told they are the best! So unfair.

YANBU.
DDs school was quite good at picking winners which looked like they’d been made by the child .

Absolutely. Well done Timmy, mummy is very talented.

Some people have too much time on their hands.

It can work the other way round too - when my DS was about 10, he made a fabulous Easter hat all on his own - other than providing the materials he asked for, I had nothing at all to do with it - but he didn't win because the teachers said he'd clearly not made it himself.

Meh, can't get too excited about it either way. I just told him to take it as a compliment .

I remember once we were supposed to build something out of cardboard, in the style of Blue Peter.
One of my friends, whose mother was a teacher, came with a really brilliant model house. Turns out the mother had been an architect and retrained on having children.

Totally agree. Though it's actually not that light hearted. Must be so upsetting for children whose parents can't or don't provide them with a showstopper, but who have tried very hard themselves to never be acknowledged. Worse still for those whose parents dont enable them to participate at all. If the schools want to do these things, they need to make them with the DC in school.

It's pathetic. What's he point of pretending your child made something that you made? A win from that is meaningless.
Is boasting and faking pride that important?
And how does the child who 'won' feel?
They know they didn't do it.
God knows what they learn from that.

God I still remember the nursery easter bonnet parade where DD was the only 3 year old who had genuinely made her own, all by herself. It looked like a meadow had gone through a blender and bits dropped off it as she walked around. She was so upset especially when she saw all the Pinterest worthy creations the other 3 year olds their parents had magically come up with.

Surely the obvious solution is that nurseries and early years kids should make these things at nursery or school. It’s a perfect fine motor activity, they have all the right kit, it’s not another damn thing on the parents’ to do list and it means the child has definitely made their own bonnet.

DS hated anything to do with crafts, painting, sewing etc and I often did it for him, but on the condition that I did it really badly to keep it credible. In return he had to do something for me, such as unload the dishwasher or vacuum, but to keep it credible had to do it well. 😂

😆

It was the same in the 70s with the fancy dress parades. Most parents would cobble together a costume but the prize always went to thr child who had a shop-bought costume.

We won a competition last year that we’d forgotten about until the morning of, so I did a hasty job while the kids ate breakfast. So hasty that it could feasibly have been done by a 5 year old. Imagine my surprise when DC came out clutching their prize! Having seen the photo of all the entries later that day the teachers definitely picked one they thought had actually been made by a child – so many of them were incredible entries but 100% done by the parents! I feel slightly guilty about it.

Likewise the pumpkin competition at school. Looked like a lot of parents had a brilliant time carving and decorating!

Totally agree, and definitely the same with fancy dress. I remember one 'celebration assembly' where there had been a competition for children to write a poem about something they enjoy at school. The parents winner had written, performed and recorded a rap about a particular subject and how it would help her in later life. None of it sounded like anything a child would say (including 'buzz words' the parents used all the time). It was played in assembly and was an uncomfortable watch.

My daughter won an Easter Bonnet competition once - the nursery manager told me afterwards it was because it was the only one that was obviously done by the kid and not the adult. I'd sat her at the table with a load of plastic chickens, plastic eggs, glue, and stickers from memory.

Still got the prize somewhere, 12+ years on...

If it helps, my friend had a make your own hat competition for her wedding (don't ask), and my husband's got one of the prizes, and I bloody made both of them!

I felt similar about the world book day costume prize.

The one DD and I made (more me, realistically, but she is only little) was not good as I’m really not creative, so DD was never going to win. But there were some good home made ones, and the prize went to a shop bought one. Why bother with a prize for searching Amazon for a costume?

Hahahah yes! I remember my two year old at nursery had a decorate the egg comp. I boiled an egg and let my 2 year old go to town with the paint. Et voila. The winner… a full on egg gruffalo scene…the gruffalo had eyes legs arm purple prickles the lot with all the animals from the story too. Her mum must have had a lovely time making it.

It's really annoying. It's also quite sad that the kids can't all turn up in absolute monstrosities that at least they had fun making, just because little Eloise's mother has sat up for 3 weeks making a replica faberge egg in bonnet form.

I’m still fuming about the kid in the Amazon knock off k-pop demon hunter costume who won the World Book Day dress up competition.

DD’s school not doing anything for Easter beyond making a few cornflake nests I think, which is probably for the best 😄

I’ve ‘helped’ my kids make their Easter bonnets but I’ve never won a prize because I am REALLY bad at arts and crafts.

Yes, and doing it in nursery/school means they all have access to the same materials and equipment. Not all families have drawers full of odds and sods, paint, glue etc.

(Tangent….Is anyone else old enough to have regularly been annoyed by Blue Peter, where their craft builds often required quite a lot of materials?) Even though DM was a primary teacher and therefore I did have access to crepe and sugar paper we never had any damned sticky backed plastic)

Conversely, my friend’s son is now in his 30s. When he was at the village primary school they had a fancy dress day. She spent ages making him a costume and his was clearly the best, even though she’s had no training, just a sewing machine.

He didn’t win the prize and when she asked him why not, he said that the school wouldn’t believe that his mother had made the costume and insisted that she’d bought it.

I am still bitter about the village fete fancy dress competition in 1988ish. Three entries in my age group. First prize was well deserved. Second prize went to a boy in ordinary clothes, a cowboy hat, a plastic sheriff badge and a toy gun - all bought. I had a home made costume based on the name of the village. Not super slick, but you could tell a lot of effort had gone in and photos show it was pretty good. I really need to let it go...

They don’t do prizes at my DDs infant school but they do have a parade. It seems like half of the kids have made the bonnets themselves and the other half have parent made creations. I like a middle ground where I create the hat and DD creates the decorations and shows me where to glue gun them on. It is quite spectacular and shit but we love doing it together rather than me just leaving her to it.