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

I think this is just a rant from a not terribly nice person with some stupid friends/acquaintances. There's another one all about attachment parenting that uses the same sort of line - ie everyone else has got it oh so wrong and we are terribly perfect. Irritating codswallop really.

I have never met a family that would let a young child decide what make car to get or to back out of seeing a play that was already booked. It is of course possible that such families exist. But "lots of parents" sounds like a gross exaggeration. The writer needs to get out more.

I agree with almost all of this article. My parents weren't the greatest in the world - they were just normal - and I often think back to family holidays incredulously compared to todays' families, remembering how we were taken to villages, markets, squares and galleries but never a theme park or a water park. But in retrospect there are many things I am very grateful for - we were taught from an early age to entertain ourselves and my parents continued to have a life. And I'm very thankful that we were taken on holiday at all

I'm not sure I'd agree with everything in the article, but I do remember empathising hugely with John O'Farrell hen he said once that, when he was a child, he'd had to do what his parents wanted all the time, and now he was a dad he had to do what the kids wanted all the time... and wondered, not unreasonably, when it might be his turn!

I don't agree with the article. It all says ME, ME, I DO IT BETTER THAN YOU.

And I'm tired of it.

I love doing things like joyrides, building sandcastles, making bubbles and being silly with my little one because having her with me lets me enjoy the childhood I grew out of and the things I forgot that were so much fun.

But surely it is a balance?

It is good to focus on your children at times, to play with them and do childish things. But also it is important to leave them to it sometimes and give them some freedom.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Surely if either approach has too much focus then it may lead to unhealthy attitudes.

Surely it was his turn all the time between growing up and having children and will be again once his children aren't dependent on him? So most of his life really?