Times Article: Have you let your kids take over your life?

[Romilly70]

I thought the writer was speaking a lot of sense...

women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article7138329.ece

Lots of parents have become slaves to their children's whims

err... this was kind of a rant than a post, sorry Bad morning...

Aaah - my children are perfect and well adjusted because I have done everything right so why doesn't everyone else do what I do I was left to sit in a car with a packet of crisps whilst my parents went to the pub and look how wonderful and well adjusted I am ........etc etc

There seems to be a lot of these articles at the moment.

What would happen to a columnist who wrote something new and original that noone had ever thought of? Would they get sacked?

probably, cory! or not published, anyway

Someone needs to tell the writer it's OK to let your hair down and not just do pretentious "grown up" stuff all the time. Then again, if she took the stick out of her arse, she might feel less inclined to blame me for my son's ADHD and then how would she be able to find cheap, lazy, meaningless material for her journalistic efforts.

Ha, ha... The very first time I find out stereotyping Spanish as 'adult-friendly' society compared to UK... Well, once you start this bad-taste thing of stereotyping you may as well say whatever.

HMC... DS normally orders two entree plates.

No offence taken!

The reason I always decline the kiddie menu is I feel the poor kids are missing out on the best flavoured food, and that the menu insults them.

Genuinely confused, are theme parks, centerparks and legoland, mutually exclusive from national trust trips and art galleries?!

Yes my children have taken over my life. Of course they have. What a stupid thing to say. They are as much part of my life as I am of theirs. So we do plenty of things - some of them mostly for the children, some of them mostly for the adults. But the DC have more of an influence I guess because, well, they are children and they will only be children once. And we will only have children with us for a short time and want to make the most of it.

I'm not entirely sure what she thinks we should do with our children. As she seems to think time spent relating to them in any way is boring and wasted. How strange.

I do agree with her about being overprotective and overinvolved at times but that isn't the same as ignoring them and preferring anything to spending time with them. Quite sad TBH.

Oh and she isn't funny just unpleasant.

Snort at "How's my parenting?" badges !

I didn't find her any more irritating than any other Times articles about parenting TBH - roll on the time when we have to pay to see the Times and so can avoid it completely!

What a strange article. Plus saying kids are "slapped hard & early" in france imho not right. Can we see the refs for such shocking statements.

I didn't mind this article actually, maybe it's because my children are older now, so are less demanding anyway but I agree with much of what is said.
See, many people seem to be polarised - it's not all or nothing, it's about a balance.
sometimes we 'drag' the children round garden centres or something they don't want to do, and it is up to them to garner what enjoyment and diversion they can from such trips.
Likewise, we deliberately avoided in-car dvds, thinking the kids need to learn how to pass a long boring car journey. (Once they proved we could travel from the north to cornwall without dying of boredom - we bought puzzle books, played games, listened to the radio and read books.)
Sometimes in life, we have to sit and wait. I have taught them a useful life skill.

other times, it is their choice, but I refuse to spend the day at a 4th rate film because they want to. So no, I won't fork out £40+ to go and see Alvin and the chipmunks - the squeakel, but I will pay to go and see something like how to train your dragon which was a genuinely entertaining film for us all.

"So no, I won't fork out £40+ to go and see Alvin and the chipmunks - the squeakel, but I will pay to go and see something like how to train your dragon which was a genuinely entertaining film for us all. "

Oh I quite agree. Have resisted the lure of that bloody chipmunk but loved the dragon film. I think we went to see it twice All about compromise. The article seemed to imply that any concessions to childhood were weak and undesirable.

yy Orm, compromise! and some posters on here (and in RL!) seems to believe that parenthood=martrydom)

I think most parents do a bit of both tbh, thats why I hate articles like this - she paints herself as the lone voice of reason, surrounded by idiotic parents, I just don't think life is like that really.

I think she raises some fair points (although I don't agree with it all.) We are doing our children a disservice if we bring them up thinking that the world can be shaped to suit and entertain them. Cold hard reality will hit them at some point. They need to understand that they can't always eat exactly the food they want, or have activities laid on. I certainly agree that children need to learn to sit at a table and eat food in a relatively well-mannered and a sociable way...and the only way that this will happen is by expecting them to do it at an early age.

That said, I quite enjoy Disney and as another OP mentioned, there are plenty of films that entertain all the family, with no one feeling left out. I'm not sure why the writer is so sniffy about Dr Who!

Re the points on different parenting norms...there have been a large number of threads on here about the cultural difference across Europe. One of the things that came up repeatedly is that French parents appear much to more likely to use a smack and a shout to enforce discipline at an early age, and this is not frowned upon. It is done openly, and across the gamute of society (i.e not just a stereotypical poor/single/not coping mother.)

wasn't too keen on the tone of the article but it raised good points.

not at all surprised to hear about kids playing DS or whatever during gigs/meals out - I HATE that. mp3 players too.

There is a time and stage for all parenting techniques from attachment when they are tiny, to helicopter when they are learning to walk through to lying in bed waiting to hear the key in the door at 3am.
At the end of the day who are a family and if one person is calling all the shoots it won't work beyond toddler years, even then you always decide when bedtime is.

Well yes, Italian kids are expected to eat adult food but that's because we feed them pizza and ice-cream three times a week

Pile of preachy bollocks. Next.

"Swedish families are severe about respecting elders and good table manners."

Snorts at memories of the fraternal dinner table.

Do people leave their children in the car and go to the pub?

Choose their car because it's what Little Oliver likes?

Spend good money on a trip to the Swiss alps and then stay home because their daughter prefers to watch TV?

Seems like a load of rubbish. Or maybe the author just has really stupid friends.

God yet another article rubbishing parents, really its time the media actually found something new to write about.

What a lot of sense in that article