To not enjoy being around my children?

[coolwaterinthesea]

I know I’m going to get lots of ‘poor kids’ responses but I really do try my best for them. But I don’t actually enjoy being around them.

I love them but I find their company stressful and exhausting. It just isn’t fun. I look at other mums who seem to be having a great time with their children and actually enjoying it whereas for me if I’m honest every day is an endurance until bedtime.

I think there’s a lot of pressure to enjoy everything about family life but it can be dull, repetitive and hard work - physically and emotionally. I feel just as you do a lot of the time. I also think it’s worth bearing in mind that not everyone wants to be surrounded by other people all the time, children or not. I need my space and that includes space from my children. I need peace to think and plan and process. I often just can’t think with the noise and wondering who is going to break something or hurt someone next. That said, we do have a great time some of the time, but it’s unrealistic to expect it all to be huge fun all the time.

Oh god no you're not being unreasonable to find a 2 year old to not be fun company! Most are a nightmare to be round interspersed with odd moments of cuteness.

When the youngest gets to 5 they'll start to be fun I promise.

At these ages this is completely reasonable, moan away!

It does get more enjoyable.

Don’t beat yourself up, it’s quite normal, those are challenging ages. I much prefer spending time with mine now they’re older and had many days when I was counting down the minutes to bed time.

Having said that could you speak to your GP as you sound on edge which could probably be helped with even a low dose of anxiety medication.

Fair enough I won't go into it.

Except to say your enjoyment of your children sounds like it's being spoiled by their father, if all parenting is down to you.

So don't beat yourself up.

Way to go sister! Maybe we can add some more stuff like asking if they only get fed hand grown organic mist or whether they could speak French in the womb. FFS read the room and show some some bloody empathy. Some people dont live through their children and dont see reproducing as their sole achievement.

@whippersnapper55

I think that's really sad 😔 my children are my favourite people in the world and I enjoy their company more than anyone else.

Not helpful. Pleased for you that your favourite people in the world are your kids and I'm sure OP's children are the same to her too. She needs support, and this kind of reply goes so far in the opposite direction it makes me wonder if there was any awareness when typing it.

I can see how it sounds. I think for me - I pick the older one up from school and one is trying to shoot ahead and the other is lagging behind. Home and bickering and squabbling and moaning and grouching and arguing (sometimes with me and sometimes with one another) starts and seems to last much of the evening, so that the entire evening is just spent longing for bedtime.

Thing is I remember me and my little brother being just the same when we were kids as my kids are now. We were often needling each other, making everything into a competition, couldn't say anything nice to each other at times.

Not all the time by any means! We had our good times, just as my kids do now, but I imagine it was hard on my parents and I know they got heartily sick of our bickering.

We grew out of it and once we were teenagers we were good mates and still are. So I live in hope that my kids will go the same way! Enjoy the good days OP and don't feel guilty that it's not always a dream come true.

You don’t sound well supported ?
can you get your husband or family member to give you some breaks ?
how do you feel about the rest of your life and could you be depressed ? It can make it hard to see the good in things. But exhaustion can also do this to you.

Trust me, many of those other mothers will be struggling too.

You are not alone OP

I find the roleplaying and similar a little tiring. DH is much better at the acting daft, and pretending to be horse, or a shopkeeper, etc. than I am. I prefer more structured stuff or activities like swimming.

Its odd because DH was ambivalent about having a kid, but now he’s like Mr bloody Tumble.

It's a relentless grind and if you're not supported, or if you had any birth trauma or pnd, then it's a double relentless grind.

@JudithsDead LEGEND, what she said.

It get's easier, I know that sounds trite, but I have found it to be true. If you can't wait until then, and I don't think you should, I would look at your support system, it's not designed to be a one player game, and your GP if birth trauma, PND, or other mental health situations are relevant.

Absolutely fine that you don't want to get into it, but I definitely enjoy mine the most when I don't feel everything is on me, e.g., I'm not with them exhausted/thinking about everything I need to do.......

Mine don’t really ask me to do role play. It’s hard to explain; it just all feels like getting through. Nothings easy; you can’t just do anything.

The holidays are looming and I’m worried about this too.

I feel exactly the same way.

I spend my day looking forward to their bedtime.

I obviously love them, but from the minute they wake up it’s ‘Mum, can you get this, can you do that, can you play a game’ (while I have a 7 month old screaming in my arms). It’s just relentless. They talk and talk and talk and my ears could just burst. They follow me everywhere & in all honestly, I’m screaming ‘fuck off’ in my head. I do my best not to show how I feel, but I imagine they can tell. I find them really annoying.

Do you enjoy being with them 1 2 1? Doing various activities?

I think this is spot on. Much gets made out of what they do in tribal communities, with everyone in the village looking after the children for each other, but the truth is, the adults aren't doing what we're expected to do with kids. Everyone has work to do. The kids have jobs to do. Kids play isn't some organised event/day trip/ sit down and do fun crafting with the adults. Nobody has time for that.

As we are all having smaller families now, children don't have so many siblings to watch them/play with them. Adults spend more time with their children, despite school/wraparound care etc and full time jobs than my 70s/80s parents ever did, they just shoved us out to play, or told us to find something to do, or we'd get a chore. There was none of this sitting down and playing for hours with us, and it wasn't expected there would be. It wasn't because they didn't love us, there just wasn't the expectation that we should always be the centre of their universe.

It can be completely exhausting, particularly I find as an introverted parent. I think they only really get easier after the age of 3 and a half when you can slowly start to switch off that bit of your mind that constantly worries they'll do something dangerous or eat batteries.

I was a mess when my kids were that age. Didn't enjoy it at all.

Do you have any time for yourself to focus on what you enjoy/your sense of identity? Do you tag team with their other parent to give you both a break? Whilst mine are still difficult at times, it has got easier. Mine are now school age and can entertain themselves for hours, getting back into my hobbies and fitness has made world of difference (plus treating my early perimenopause has made everything feel much easier but that's a different story).

It is possible to completely love your children and not enjoy their company at any time but particularly when you're completely burned out.

What's your weekly schedule like? Do you work? Does the little one go to nursery? Do you have a partner? In other words do you ever get time away from them? If not it can become utterly relentless, I do feel you. Mine are similar ages and sometimes I'm ashamed to admit I do long for Monday morning when we have nursery and a proper routine back. And my kids have plenty of weekend activities, they just want entertaining EVERY SINGLE minute in between.

Also with the summer holidays it can feel totally overwhelming just thinking Jesus wtf am I going to do for 6 weeks, that is so many days to fill.

No real advice really aside from trying to snatch some You time whenever possible. Leave them with your partner, grandparents, aunty for an afternoon? Any neighbours have uni kids home for the holidays who you can pay to entertain them for a couple of hours?

Same. Hasn’t gone away either, I’ve felt this way for years.

Good enough parenting is genuinely good enough. Show them you enjoy them even if another trip to the park makes you cry a bit inside. Sometimes I absolutely fake it so they don’t know I’m having a rough day because it’s usually not them they’re just being kids it’s me feeling pressure/knackered/hormonal/worried about something

Find the joy where you can, fuck comparison and thinking everyone is loving life! My 6.5 year old is a doddle, her younger brother is lovely in a different way and I find them together really hard somedays. 3 is tough, it does change as they get older!

You’re not being unreasonable and I think it’s quite common to feel this way. Personally i don’t think kids are interesting until they get a bit older anyway.

This 100%.

Once my kids hit 5 / 6 I started genuinely enjoying time with them (which hasn't stopped since) and stopped wanting a break all the time, now I want to be with them every minute because they are fun.

And I realised the baby and toddler stage just wasn't for me. Partly a me problem as I don't much enjoy stuff that's boring and repetitive and I found trying to argue with little sociopaths as to why they couldn't smear their food on the wall just exhausting and zero fun. Loved them yes. Enjoy the grind? No. And partly a my kids problem as they were very tricky kids, colicky babies, didn't sleep, very emotional toddlers with constant tantrums.

But those difficult toddlers grew into amazing big kids and now being with them is fun not just because I love them but because it's actually fun.

Yabu, your choice to have kids. If you don't like children why have them?