AIBU to think that “mundane” stuff is actually an important part of childhood?

[Onepink]

Everyone is so busy and I read a lot on here about people trying to balance work and life and everything else. Specifically, when it comes to work and parenting, there seems to be a majority voice on MN that maintaining a career is vital for all sorts of reasons beyond the obvious immediate financial benefit. It’s often recommended to outsource as much as possible, including childcare.

I totally understand these views. I know that work is usually necessary and often important. I work full time and have young children.

But… I just can’t help thinking that some of the narrative is kind of stuff we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better? Lots of what is referred to as “drudgery” is sort of their childhood? Those chats on the school run and an unhurried evening in the garden? Watching TV after school or fighting with a sibling.

The children I know seem to do loads and loads of clubs and activities and scheduled things. But very limited just not-doing-much time with family, compared to what I remember from when I was younger.

I don’t know. I’m not articulating it well. Maybe I’m being romantic and eaten by guilt. But I can’t help feeling that, if work wasn’t necessary, what would genuinely benefit my kids is just having a parent at home more, just to do the mundane stuff of day to day life together.

Am I being unreasonable? Probably.

YABU because you’ve specifically mentioned one parent (aka mums) working instead of having a parent at home. As if having a career is a negative factor here.

I have a career and work full time. I also do all of the above mentioned mundane things with my kids, constantly. We’ve just spent all evening (3.30-6.30pm) messing in the garden together.

Kids are at school the vast majority of the working day. School ends at 3.15pm. The working day ends at 5pm. That’s 1hr 45 mins of “life” “mundanity” “precious memories” etc that working mums “miss out on”, per all these mumsnet posts about the tragedy of working parents. It’s really not worth giving your career up. Working parents spend every other hour of the week with their children, on school runs, dinner together, family time. All the stuff stay at home parents do.

Not to mention modern schedules of WFH, compressed hours, part time, that mean many working parents actually spend even that couple of hrs after school with their kids, too. I often spend time with my kids from pickup to bedtime, then work on my laptop in the evening.

I personally couldn’t simply do nothing between the hours of 9am-3pm every day for a decade or so of my life. We are all different.

Yanbu OP.
I'm a single mum with one ds17. It's been just us for 15 years and I've worked full time all that time.
However, I have done every school run, every pick up. Ds has always known I will be there for him.
We co-slept from 2y - 5y. We have spent every evening, every weekend together except when he has been on a school trip. I taught him to swim, to cycle, to ski, to cook.

It is security that counts. Ds is absolutely secure in his home life. Currently proceeding calmly and cheerfully through his a'levels.

My kids do a lot of clubs, we have managed to work our lives around having one of us at home all the time. The sacrifice for this is we are very rarely ever both at home.
DD10 does swimming, football training x2 and at least 1 match at a weekend, guides,
DD9 does exactly the same but Brownies not guides
DS5 Does swimming, dance, squirrels and football.

Football is only September-May. We still manage to fit in lots of relaxed days and the scouting/girl guiding movement is fabulous for giving children opportunities. Ours are always on trips or off on adventures at very minimal cost which I think is fabulous for them. The 5 year old has even been camping with his squirrel drey. We have a lot more arguing and fighting on days without plans so I do prefer to have a routine and structure.

Being "bored" is actually an incredibly good life skill.

Children really shouldn't be entertained 24/7.

There's massive benefits to just sitting and chilling out, letting the brain relax, whether reading a book, watching "boring" TV, playing quietly with lego etc., drawing/paining or just day-dreaming.

I cringe when I watch children's TV and it's mostly "high speed" with running around, jumping around, noisy, bright lights, etc. Likewise kids being frog-marched by parents around attractions/parks, etc being hyped up.

Real life involves a lot of drudgery, most jobs are, to an extent, boring, and we need to accept and embrace those times, not fight against them.

I very deliberately didn’t refer to mums, because I don’t mean mums. I was musing about parents and family life in general, and reflecting on my own experience.

As it happens, I am a mum, with a relatively full-on career that cannot be done flexibly or from home (hospital consultant). So I do not intend to denigrate parents with careers or jobs or SAHP or any other combination! Most people and families are doing what works best for them. I’m just thinking, really.

Some of my best times with the children are when we spend ages dawdling home from school and picking weeds and chatting. I know my career doesn’t exempt me from doing this, but the honest truth is that it does limit it, and makes those moments of zero rushing feel few and far between.

I don't think those things are mutually exclusive. The majority of working parents that I know drop their kids off at school, head to work, and then do a mixture of afterschool clubs and flexible or part time hours for one parent to do pick ups at least some of the time.

I often think this.

I had a very happy, very boring, stable, predictable and low key childhood. I loved it. My parents did both work but were on a tight budget. We were looked after by them or by friend's parents and neighbours. We spent so much time outdoors with other kids, playing in the garden and on our bikes around the local area.

We didn't really go on holidays - we went for day trips to the seaside or hills or rivers and we went to stay with grandparents or family friends. We didn't ever go abroad or to a theme park or even really to the theatre or cinema. We went to the library and sometimes to a museum or local fete or fayre.

It was just so wonderfully undemanding and pressure free. I spent weeks not caring about what day or time it was. I read and read and read. We built treehouses and dens and go karts and played with dolls and made potions and mud pies.

I have often felt sad that my dc are much more on the clock than I ever felt. We have necessarily had a lot of structure and formal childcare and activities. They have had to go to holiday clubs and wrap around etc.

Luckily we had covid and so they do know what absolute boredom and having to build a den and stay in the garden all day feels like!!

I do think a lot of parents now feel that everything has to look good and be slick and professional and expensive. Like holidays and christmas. I loved christmas as a child but never ever went to a single christmas experience, event or activity beyond the town hall santa and the am dram panto in the village hall. Now people spend hundreds and weeks going to light shows and theatres and experiences and everything and I am not remotely convinced children have a better time than I did years ago.

Avoiding the conflict is not healthy. They should learn to negotiate differences and live well together. What a shame those siblings are disconnected.

I'm with you OP. I think it's really important to have unscheduled time, to unwind, be bored, get creative etc.

Inspiring

They’ll remember more than you think. I have so so many wonderful wonderful memories of doing the ‘mundane’ things with my Grandad. I don’t have any memories of anything like this with my parents.

I completely agree with you OP. I’ve always said this too.

I remember a friend telling me when I had my first child that although everyone says quality time is better than quantity time, you can't actually plan quality time becuase it happens randomly during quantity time. It always stuck with me and reminded me to spend all the time I possibly could with them while they were young. How much time that actually is will vary for everyone.

Well, lovely, but do your children know how to actually entertain themselves? If you turfed them out in to the garden to just play what would they do?

Being bored and knowing how to cope with that is no bad thing.

Yes probably. It is the mundane, daily life that builds the foundations for who the child will become as an adult I think. A feeling of safety & security from a peaceful childhood. But in terms of memories, I don’t remember any of the walks to school or the quiet afternoons or the low key things, really if I’m honest. The childhood highlight reel in my mind for my own childhood is the holidays spent on the beach abroad, big birthday parties, performing in shows with my drama club, team sport tournaments, travelling to the other side of Europe by train. The bigger stuff (that probably took a lot of effort from the parents).

In my local FB mother’s group, every rainy day will see panicked posts from mums asking where they can take their toddlers because they will climb the walls if they can’t go to the park. And I wonder how we got to a point where we can’t spend a single day with our own children without an activity. And then I look at teenagers and young adults and it feels like there’s an epidemic of anxiety and insecurity. Maybe filling every day with activity isn’t good for them. Perhaps the slower pace of unstructured family life is more important than we give it credit for. And possibly parents being around for the mundane rather than just snatched highlights to ‘make memories’ gives kids a secure platform to launch from without the pressure of needing to perform just so when mum and dad are paying attention.

I found my old busy book from primary a while back. In it I described my perfect day. I assumed when I saw the title it would be a trip to the zoo or the beach or something. But my perfect day when I was about 8 years old was going to a music lesson on a Saturday with my dad in the morning (we were learning the organ together) and then going to the local market in the afternoon with my mum to choose fabric for clothes she was making me. It wasn't about the activities. It was about the time I got to spend with them.

What about when children grow up , how on earth are they going to cope with all the mundane tasks that make up modern life, if there lives have been a whirl of activities and fun?

What about when children grow up , how on earth are they going to cope with all the mundane tasks that make up modern life, if there lives have been a whirl of activities and fun?

It depends on the child
I have one child who does a couple of activities a week. And even then sometimes chooses not to go
And one child who would do activities 24/7 and the only thing stopping her is my reluctance to spend my entire life as a taxi driver. 5 days a week is enough for me and I treasure our Friday evenings and Sundays where there aren't any clubs

Between school and clubs she crams in endless time climbing trees with friends or making up dance routines with them

Outsource the mundane housework and continue to live life in a whirl of activities and fun? Thats what I do. I value my high earning job and love it enough that I would do it for free (don't tell my employer) and I am very grateful that means I can pay for a cleaner /housekeeper and for help with gardening and DIY and still have plenty left over for fun
Some of the hobbies I did developed the skills I needed to become successful at work

My mum worked full time and then some and I still have memories of going shopping on Saturdays, paying for things with cheques, going on long bus rides to see grandparents, going to the car wash with dad, hours in the hairdressers with older relatives, spending all day playing out etc etc. Some of what people are doing are romanticising the world pre Sunday trading laws changing and the internet I think.

I work full time and we have trips to theme parks and the theatre and we have days where we do a bit of gardening or go for a walk. It doesn’t have to be either/or it can be and.

Exactly. Life’s too short to do housework.

Most of us are just doing the best we can.

It’s more about spending time with the children and actually being present, rather than the activity. Drudgery can be fun or at least engaging, and an opportunity to connect and chat about anything and everything. A billion clubs or theme parks won’t achieve that unless the parent is actively involved and talking to the child.

Ideally it’s a mix of both with an engaged, present parent where possible.