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Parenting

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Original poster

Should the Perfect Parent, be avoided in the school holidays to save your sanity

27 replies

wotzy · 07/04/2009 18:08

There you are quite happy with your own shortcomings, and juggling 100 things at once as best you can. Luckily your dc gets an invite for a few hours to play with their mate and off they pop for a visit. Good for you, good for them. Great.

Then that thing happens, they come back with stories of their friends Perfect Parent doing activities with them, like making cakes, or creative craft things, or building pottery or clay models, instead of thrusting the little darlings into the garden to look for worms and play with sticks for 2 hours.

Will you stop doing this, you know who you are Perfect Parent. Stop it. I will not be returning the deed.

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

alarkaspree · 07/04/2009 18:10

They are not perfect, they are showing off! I can't believe you didn't see through it.

loujay · 07/04/2009 18:13

Oh shit that sounds like me!!!! Unfortunately I have to "do" stuff with DD to keep her entertained, she has never been able to entertain herself and needs tiring out!!
In my defence I am also passing the doing on to someone elase in the form of easter camp for the next 2 days.........

loujay · 07/04/2009 18:13

and i have never done clay, just cooking and paintingy gluey things

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loujay · 07/04/2009 18:14

but now upon posting i now see that I am diggin g myself an even bigger hole.................I'll get my coat shall I ?

madwomanintheattic · 07/04/2009 18:15

send 'em round here lol. mine have spent three days up to their armpits in a mud pie they have been 'working on'.

no cakes baked in this neck of the woods.

Original poster

wotzy · 07/04/2009 18:16

See you can't help yourselves

OP posts:

JackBauerKilledTheEasterBunny · 07/04/2009 18:16

Well I always make more of an effort with someone else's child than with my own. I fear that flicking lego at them half heartedly while mning doing housework woudl be frowned upon!

JackBauerKilledTheEasterBunny · 07/04/2009 18:17

Although if I had a garden they would be out in it! My fave activity at friends is chukcing the kids out and sitting by the window with coffee and chocolate 'watching' them.

Original poster

wotzy · 07/04/2009 18:18

I might get them to paint next time

the outside fence (it needs a good varnish)

OP posts:

Original poster

wotzy · 07/04/2009 18:19

JackBauerKilledTheEasterBunny

Not even a patch? Are you in a flat? That must be hard.

OP posts:

Niftyblue · 07/04/2009 18:21

I always make an effort with a child visiting
They are allowed to have first pick of the DS intendos games

My dc would show me up if I got a cake mixture out and started buttering the pan (I think thats what you do ,is`nt it)

"mum why are you doing that you have never done that before"

Have these parents never heard/read that IDLE parents are the best

PrimulaVeris · 07/04/2009 18:36

Yes, but HOW perfect are they? Are the cakes made from organic ingredients? Is the garden mud fully approved by the Soil Association? Has their art and craftwork been exhibited locally?

they sound like bumbling amateurs to me

JackBauerKilledTheEasterBunny · 07/04/2009 18:43

I have a lovely gravelled patio with a 3 foot drop all along one edge (we live on a hill so this is how they match levels with the house)and a garage filled with expensive and highly dangerous tools along teh other
It does have a sandpit and swing but I don't trust DD2 out there at the moment, it is a deathtrap. DD1 know to only stay in 3 foot area!

Original poster

wotzy · 07/04/2009 18:45

ahh I see

OP posts:

JackBauerKilledTheEasterBunny · 07/04/2009 18:53

Sorry, that should have read 'lovely' with a face

applepudding · 07/04/2009 22:38

I'm obviously a bit backwards with regard to the 'doing things with children'.

I'll do makes/bakes with my own DS to keep him occupied/quiet but as soon as he's got a playdate then that's my cue to shut them in his bedroom/in the garden and get on with my housework/book/MN

SlartyBartFastlaidanegg · 07/04/2009 22:42

i spect someone made the perfect parent feel she had to do it, just as we, reading this, feel we have to do it to.

for eg. i remember feeling imrpessed that dd had gone to someone's hosue to make pizzas, so next time their dd came here, we did somethign similar.
not competitive, just copying imitation, the most sincere form of flattery doncha know

KTNoo · 07/04/2009 23:02

I think we do quite a lot of contructive stuff with our dc but you wouldn't think it from the "news" they have to write at school, which we then get to see at parents' evening.

e.g. If we went to the museum and made Christmas decorations at the weekend, on Monday dd's news will say something like "We had chips."

mulranno · 10/04/2009 14:17

This "perfect" parent is failing...as they are not nurturing the childs social skills...if a friend is over the parent should but out and let them get on with creative imaginative play with the other child..learning to negotiate, be free, spontaneous etc with out the hovering parent suffocating the situation

pollywobbledoodle · 10/04/2009 14:24

this made me laugh, as today dd (5) and friend have been turfed out into garden between showers and snatches of chat have floated in eg "i'll be the princess and you be the dead horse" and "keep those toilet rolls, we'll need them to wee like boys"...

mulranno · 10/04/2009 14:32

Pollywobbledoodle...brilliant...how would they ever have "achieved" so much...constructing a story, looking for props, role clarity, negoatiating etc...if PP was hovering around in the Cath Kidston apron!

colie · 10/04/2009 14:33

One of the panel on the Wright Stuff this morning said the best piece of parenthood advice he ever got was from a friend who said," you have to teach your child how to be bored. They have to know how to entertain themselves."

I have definately endeavoured to teach my children this life skill over the years.

I agree wholeheartedly. Far too much cake baking, arty stuff and taxi ing (sp) them to clubs etc. going on in my neck of the woods!!

TsarChasm · 10/04/2009 14:43

Oh yes being bored is an invaluable skill.

I thought my input when friends come to play only involved 200 fishfingers, 30 litres of squash and the occasional 'Be careful!' and 'Share it or I'll take it away'

Ikwym though. Dd plays with a friend and 'stuff is done'. Rictus grin from me.

Then there are the others who have to escalate the whole thing into..A Sleepover. Oh god...

PaulaMummyKnowsBest · 10/04/2009 16:18

i do usually get out the baking, craft or art stuff for friends or make lovely "picnics" in the garden

In my defence though I am also a nanny and I feel bad if I only do those things with my charges so I make an extra effort with my children and their friends to make myself feel less guilty about working

Fennel · 10/04/2009 17:43

Some of us who do baking and craft with visiting children would like nothing better than to dump them all in the garden and ignore them. I have 2 dds who will amuse themselves, with or without friends, for ages. And one manic hyperactive one who just can't stop agitating for more baking, crafting, trips out, this that and the other til I give in and let her start more baking or craft just for a quiet life.

Really, it's desperation, I give in to baking and pottery requests as the lesser evils. It's that or constant socialising in attempts to wear her out.

I know she should play alone, my others do, this one seems unable to stop baking and crafting.

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