What is your best childhood memories?

[Freshflower]

I really worry that I'm giving my dc a boring childhood and he will grow up with no proper childhood memories?
I don't have much family around, they either live abroad or much further away from where we are. I have another adult relative at home but usually they are at work or university, so it's mostly just myself and 5 yr old dc. Dc thrives at school and we go on play dates and attend birthday parties sometimes. We usually just go to the local park or play indoors , lego, watch films , do some learning etc. I find I'm busy a lot of the time with household tasks and making meals , so feel run down and don't do too much indoors. Occasionally we have bigger days out such as pool, cinema, farm...basic things like that. Growing up I was beside the seaside so spent every day of the summer there splashing in the sea ,building sandcastles and family picnics. Great memories . I played outdoors with friends every day and had siblings so had loads to do indoors , make dens , pretend play , everything!!!
Would you say my child has a boring childhood? What are your best memories? Are they simple little things? Or were the full of family , friends and lots of holidays and adventures?

Definitely simple things. Playing in the garden, making up dances to the music channels, my mum and dad making me laugh, really simple local/free days out in the holidays like swimming, day at the park with a picnic. It’s more about what you feel than what you do. He will remember stuff you don’t even think about

I think that's plenty at 5 years old. In the holidays you will have more time to do things ( day trips etc). But the everyday stuff....its plenty. My sons aged 19 and 16 were talking about there best childhood memories. The days we took a picnic to a different park. Or made a den with the clothes airer, blankets and had an indoor picnic. Happy times for them x

Listening to my Mom talking about her childhood and how different it was. Holidays in the UK (much happier than the holidays abroad because I was always rather scared abroad). Visits to interactive museums where I could push buttons to hear bird noises or make machines move.

My favourite memories from when I was a child was spending time with people. My DF always read to me, my DGF helped me with homework, I made jam tarts with my DGM.

My DS has two favourite memories. Playing outside with his friends on long summer days and when he and I used to walk down to the canal and eat fish and chips. We did loads together but these are his favourite two.

It's hard because you still have to juggle life but as a single parent I could just say let's go wherever it was.

Thank you x They all sound like really sweet memories and simple but very happy ones. I agree to it's how you feel there not what you do. You could just be cuddled on the sofa watcha movie and the feeling of being loved and safe. Maybe it's because I'm worrying that I'm boring him that I'm not feeling the joy of the moment.
Thank you :)

I once asked my DS what his favourite childhood memories were and it was all simple stuff as well - try asking him, and ask him if there's anything he would put on a bucket list.

My absolute favourite memory is staying outside late in the summer holidays. I remember I had my pyjamas on and I was just playing in the garden, but it felt really magical when I was a kid.

Some of my favourite memories wouldn't have cost my parents much at all in terms of time or money. I think that as parents, we are often our own worst critics.

Days at the beach, with gritty sandwiches and warm squash, followed by an ice cream on the way home. Building camps in the nearby waste ground. Listening to Peter and the Wolf and War of the Worlds with my grandad. Going to get fish and chips for lunch when at my dad's house. I can still remember the smell and my sister and I would fight over who carried them back. Saturday tea times with sausages and spaghetti hoops in front of Dr Who and the Pink Panther. We did hardly any outings.

Making mid pies, playing hide and seek in hay barns, going to the shop with 20p and getting sweets for 1p each, my nan’s Christmas parties, getting up in the summer holidays and being on my bike with all my friends until my mum called me in for dinner or until the street lights came on, jam sandwiches, playing with barbies with my friend, making dams in the brook, looking for treasure in the brook, rope swings across the brook, using the garden hose and placing it on the top of the slide and the blow up swimming pool at the bottom of the slide and then sliding all the way down to the bottom, climbing trees, getting the bus into town with my mum and her buying me a sausage roll, the bonfire, going on walks with my grandad (they lived in the countryside) and him using a plant to make a sound and playing it like a pipe, my grandad playing the harmonica, using the chair to stand on to get to the sweets and biscuits tin in the cupboard at my grandparents, bouncing on my grandparents’ spare room bed with my cousins, the farm close by and putting the kittens they had in a kids pram and pushing them around close by (the mum needed a break) visiting my aunts and uncles on a weekend and having food that I’ll never taste like that again (they weren’t English), sports day at school, playing rounders, reading Enid Blyton before bed (The Magic Faraway Tree), having a tamagotchi, watching Sharkie and George, the crime busters of the sea!

My gran’s house
Brownies
Holidays at the beach
Playing in the paddling pool
Our cat

Definitely don't fret!
My kids barely remember the more expensive foreign holidays we had when they were little or the places we went that we thought would make amazing memories!
I would say to anyone with young kids to keep it simple with holidays & days out - don't waste your money!

It's the fun times at home, with family & friends, visiting family etc that they remember & cherish.

Not paying bills.
Not thinking of dinners and cooking every damn day.
Not adulting basically.

Funny I was having a downer day yesterday in angst if I was “making wonderful memories” with my kids

my happy memories are watching tv with my mum or dad eating biscuit , I’d give anything to be able to do that again

I felt that if I wasn’t baking , crafting , dancing playing with my kids in between popping out to the bee hive to get ingredients for their organic lunch was failing them

I’ve given my head a wobble today and slapped an hRT patch on feel much better

-Playing out in the fields and forests (and desert when we were back home!) with my siblings.
-sitting in my DGF’s library, watching him do translating old texts (Aramaic, Latin and Greek) and calligraphy. I used to sit for hours, just watching and trying to learn what he was doing. He was an amazing man, very patient and a wonderful teacher.
-cooking with my Mum, Grandmother and Aunts.
-big family gatherings and meals!
-running about the fields with our goats and our dog.
-sitting on the floor in the garage, watching my Dad and older brother tinker with their motorbikes. I still love the smell of WD40!
-reading and learning things.
-decorating hard boiled eggs for Easter. We would have egg “fights” after Mass.
-camping, riding bikes, sailing, swimming.
-playing with Lego, Barbies and GI Joe.
-watching Fraggle Rock, the Muppets, Scooby Doo, Thundercats, The A-Team, Airwolf, Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies.
-also…Monty Python, Inspector Clouseau, Dad’s Army, Faulty Towers and Steptoe.
-swapping marbles and playing marbles with my school friends.
-singing stuff with my friends, or we’d play music together.

I think it’s the simple stuff that is the loveliest :)

It’s the simple things I have the fondest memories of. My mum taking me to the supermarket and getting a video from blockbuster on a Saturday night. My nan picking me up from school and doing me tea at her house. Caravan holidays. Playing with friends. I think it’s just feeling taken care of and spending time with friends and family that makes a nice childhood.

Horse riding.

I askedy adult son this the only the other day what were his favourite childhood memories. This DC has been up the Eiffel tower and the Leaning tower of Pisa, up a volcano, under the sea in a yellow submarine, many expensive foreign holidays which he loved but he said he loved me playing Ludo with him and his sister on a wet Sunday afternoon and having hot chocolate with squirty cream on which was rare when they were DC. He said he also had enjoyed playing football with his school friends in the field opposite our house. I was quite surprised tbh. Just ordinary little things. My favourite memories from when I was a DC were being taken to the seaside by parents and Aunties. We live miles from the sea so only went a few times each summer. We'd take a picnic and my aunties would buy us ice cream. It was magical. My parents and Aunties are long dead now but I still miss them.

I was remembering last night when I woke up in the middle of the night how much I LOVED our annual family holidays when I was small.

Tenerife? The Maldives? Centre Parxs?

No. A caravan with no loo on a little site in mid Wales not far from the sea. We went for one week a year and it was borrowed from a friend.

I still remember the excitement of putting my wellies on to go to the loo block in the dark and the scent of the washed concrete there. The little latches on the caravan windows. My father getting up early to light the little gas fire. The table with booth benches. Exploring the site (on a farm) and the thrill of driving the 10 mins down to the seaside village nearby, catching crabs off the pier and being bought an icecream.

plus the fact that we had a (glass🤣) bottle of Del Monte orange juice and Harvest Crunch cereal as a special treat for the holidays.

(it was the late 70s/early 80s)

honestly no child loved their holiday more than me!

your kids will remember the simplest things 👍

Spending time with my dad. His sister had a farm and we went there a lot I'd ride ponies collect eggs, help with piglets and rattle around the fields in a tractor with my cousins.

NOT being bored to tears listening to a string quartet which was my mother's idea of entertainment for a 9 year old.