Tell Matalan what modern family life looks like for you - £250 prize draw! NOW CLOSED

[MichelleMumsnet]

Matalan have asked us to find out about your modern family life… who do you consider “family”, how do you stay connected, what makes you laugh out loud together?

Here’s what they say, “A family-run business for thirty years, Matalan has always worked to support UK families by taking the time to listen, understand and evolve in order to make sure our products are the right fit for happy homes.

What’s right for the modern family however, looks very different to what it did when we first opened our doors three decades ago. We’re seeing that family today comes in many different sizes and forms and that it is being reshaped and redefined to meet the demands of modern life”.

So what does family mean to you? Tell us about your favourite things you do as a family, what makes you smile and how you stay connected with loved ones.

Everyone who comments on this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win £250 to spend in store or online at Matalan.co.uk!

Thanks and good luck

MNHQ

It's great to have a nice family and to keep connect all the time whereas I do not have that however we tried much as we could.

Family to me means a lot of things. My own little family is my husband and daughter, then we have my mum, dad and sisters and also my husband's side of the family. They are all part of our big family!

My family is abroad so we stay in touch via Skype and visit each other too. My husband's side is local so we see each other every week for a few hours and catch up like that.

I love sharing meals and experiences (days out and travel) with my family.

1. What bakes did you and your DC create? Please post a photo or two on the thread of the finished result or of the baking session!

We made a chocolate cake.

2. What was your child’s favourite aspect of the baking process? Getting messy, licking the bowl at the end or anything in between!

Watching and sampling!

3. What was your favourite aspect of baking with your DC?

Teaching kids new things.

4. If you don't normally use Anchor, do you think that your bakes taste different when using Anchor butter compared to your normal butter? Please explain.

I usually use a butter spread but Anchor has a much fuller taste of real butter.

6. Do you normally use butter or margarine for baking? Do you usually use unsalted or salted butter for baking? How aware were you that using unsalted butter is great for baking?

I usually use unsalted butter if I have it, if not I use salted but never margarine.

7. Were you pleased with the results of your baking?

Very!

8. Would you use Anchor butter again for your baking? Why? Were you aware Anchor was the original block butter company having made butter for over 125 years? Is this important to you?

I would. No, I didn't know that. But I like it! It's traditional!

9. If it came up in conversation, would you recommend Anchor butter to friends and family? Why?

Yes because the result was great!

I posted this on the wrong thread - sorry!

Family is me, DH, DS1 and DS2. Our other family we see maybe quarterly as they don't live close by.
Family time and family outings to enforce that time are very important to us. Sometimes that just means we all go on the bikes to the park together. Sometimes it means a 'day out' to a stately home, or a play area further afield, or to the woods, or a local fair etc.
During the week time is limited before they have to go to bed, so after the children are collected they have downtime - food and tv or playtime and trampoline if they prefer. Then a bit of homework time. Then we spend the half hour after bathtime reading to them/listening to them read/sitting with them.

My immediate family is me, DH and 2 little ones but we also have a young relative staying with us long term.

We love getting back to nature & geocaching, day trips to fun places & lots of meals out.

I do not have any close extended family so we are just the 5 of us. It works well but I always wish that my children had the fun of grandparents, cousins etc.

My close family is me, dh, ds and did. We love walks along beach spending time together. Other family is not so close but we keep in touch as much as we can via text, social media and phone.

Family life for me as the head of the family is very different from when I was a child. I am a single, working Mum which is the total opposite of my upbringing. The downside is that I wish I had more time to learn to do things like making costumes for plays and accompanying my daughter on school trips. The upside is that (while I am very much the parent) we are best friends. I am incredibly proud that I own my own home, earn my own money and provide my daughter with everything she needs - without spoiling her. My friends adore her and I can take her anywhere. I am saving to take us on holiday together next year. Family life for us is busy but I try very hard not to make it 'hectic'. When her Dad and I split I dropped to working four days a week. I do all the housework, cleaning, washing and shopping on my day off so I am more organised and have more time to spend with her.

I consider my family to be small, my DH, my DD and my sis (and the cats!!)

I'm lucky that I get to spend a lot of time with DD which I didn't have as a child, this makes me very happy. Generally I think it's the little things that are important - eating together most days, playing games, bedtime stories. My most favourite times are walks in the country, or sledging (not that we get the weather for that very often!)

Our family is a 'blended' family, with myself and my husband and our 3 children: my daughter and my husband's 2 children. My daughter lives with us all the time, my step-daughter nearly all the time, with some time at her mum's and my step-son splits his time between our house and his mum's, so it is varied, but we are very much a family. We have had a tough time in many ways, but we know that when things are hard we can be there to love each other and look after each other and help each other to feel better. The hard stuff has helped us to see that it's the little things that make us happy and that we need very little to have a good time. We love getting together with our relatives and my nieces and nephews make us giggle. We also recently rescued a cat, which has brought out the soppy side to all of us! We keep in touch by phone, text and Facebook when we are not with each other and I love my family incredibly.

We're pretty similar to how most families were 34-40 years ago. Mum, Dad, DS & two DDs,
We both work and eat most evening meals sitting at the dinner table together. It's not always easy to juggle but it's worth it to us. No interruptions, mobiles, TV.... it's a great time to catch up on the day & find out what's going on in each others life.
We've got a new dog so spend a lot of time walking him together,

Our family is a close knitted four sum , there is myself my 2 sons and my husband who is disabled, so we all work together to try and make each day work for us , my mum has just got an iPhone so even though she lives close she works long hours we can still send the odd pic in the morning saying " Ellooo nanny have a great day !"
I also use an app on my iPad called " touch note " it's great and it's uploads pictures as postcards and I send one a month to great grandparents I use whatsapp to chat to my uncle in the U.S. And Facebook messenger to chat with my Russian step mum , if you ask me it's easier now than ever to keep in touch with loved ones and family as we struggle to get out as a family with my husbands disability, but u cannot beat a brew and a slice of lemon drizzle with your mum and nan ??

Family to me is my own nuclear family (DW and 2 DCs) and my brothers and their families and parents, although all of the latter lives hours away from us (and each other) so meet-ups are few and far between. We keep in touch thro' FB and via email! DW is actually better at maintaining day-to-day contact with the whole family (hers and mine) than I am .

Yes family life is a juggling act and not as relaxed as it should be. I work two hours away from your home so I am almost an 'absent father' during the week as I'm out 7am - 7.30pm. I thought it would get easier as the children grew up but in some ways I think they need both parents around more...It's an uphill battle juggling everything!

Anything to do with being a Geordie raises more than smile and slapstick humour (Mr Bean, The Young Ones...)

My immediate family is myself, hubby and three sons. We have a huge extended family with 2 Mums, 6 siblings, 10 nieces and nephews, and loads of cousins, aunties and uncles.

We use Skype, Facebook and our mobiles to stay in touch with family members (including our eldest two sons, who are away at uni), as much as possible. We make sure we spend the most of the time we do have together, by arranging family days out (anything from a theme park to a picnic in the local park), or having movie nights or we spend an evening playing board games.

DH and I both have relatives in Ireland, but live in England, so last year we hired a cottage there for a week and used it as a base to meet up with as many of our relatives as we could. It was fantastic.

I think it's much easier to keep in touch nowadays, we're very lucky to have the communication technology we have. It's certainly made me worry less about my boys leaving home, as I can talk to them face to face and see that they are ok :)

Modern family life - hubby and 2 daughters, spending as much time together as we can juggling school, uni and 2 full time jobs x

I count my family as DH, DS and impending arrival. There are relatives, but family to me is just the three/ soon to be four of us. We spend time with PIL and I value the relationship they have with DS, but my focus is just the immediate us.
We just hang out, enjoy home life, no rushing or stress, just trying to live simply, with adventures and calm. I just want the DC to look back and feel that they had many happy times, a secure and safe childhood, and happy travels. We homeschool, and love the freedom.

my family is myself and my five fantastic children who i love so much. i am a single parent so have to be mum and dad to them. My mum is very supportive too my dad passed away when i was two, and my nan and grandad were really loving and supportive to me as i grew up and helped with my children. they have sadly passed away now but will never be forgotten.

Family is the people you choose to be with. Just hanging around thehouse doing normal things. Staying connected through spending time together every day

Family is hard to define for us because we have several siblings with blended families, so we have an open door policy with our family and friends. We also only have one grandparent for our children so they miss out on that older generation. Instead we have honourary "Aunts and Uncles" They may be close friends, neighbours or families that make up our support network and us theirs. It helps the children to know that even though we may not be related the title means that this is a person mummy and daddy trust as family.

What do we do? EAT mainly and trips to the seaside, days out together picnic but more often then not its making the mundane seem like an adventure, taking the dogs for a walk becomes an exploration (even if it isn't) and a hot chocolate or a forage for leaves.

A trip to the sea is a sandcastle contest with a picnic and a game of rounders.

Anything we can do to make it more fun for everyone parents included by tag teaming childcare between us. With a real kind of community feeling

Thats family to us

What does family mean is an interesting one. The boundaries are very blurred. I have "family" who have never met DH or the DC, and friends who are so family-like that DD occasionally demands to know what relation they are to her (she invented the term "god-cousins" for friends where they are godparents to our DC and we are to theirs..) - so I would accept both "the people who love you" and "the people you related to" as being different but equally valid definitions.

Family fun comes from mutual enjoyment - of a sunny day in the garden, a good meal eaten together, a silly discussion of particle physics or philosophy (, but true). Of these things precious memories are made.

were a very small family, no parents alive so just us and the kids. All very close though and all very happy- bthats the important thing to us

Family is DH, I and 2 DC (5 and 2)
Wider family includes grandparents and aunts and uncles.
Extended family we see occasionally includes DHs and my aunts and uncles and cousins.

We stay connected through sharing food. DH and I occasionally indulge in a takeaway for 2. However, now the DC are older they too love sharing an indian or Chinese. It's nice to include them.

We spend lots of time outside in the fresh air together. Usually taking some kind of picnic. We love it when we go to the coast which is 90 minutes away so a real treat when we go.

We enjoy the kids showings at the Cinema too. We can all go and have proper cinema snacks for £20.

We stay connected by making the most of our weekends. We can do this as we try and stay in top of housework so we don't have to catch up at weekends.

There is me, dh and our two dds and we are blessed to have wonderful grandparents for them in his mum, his dad and step mum, my mum and step dad and my step mum (beloved dad died 2 years ago). I am incredibly close to my childless dsis and two cousins who are also sisters, and we holiday together a few times a year, usually weekend cottage breaks. We have made so many happy memories and it's wonderful to see the bond develop between my dds - I can only hope they are as close as sisters as we all are when they grow up!

Despite being a mixed family we get together on dds birthday and they are so very loved by everyone.

The reality of a modern family is changes and additions beyond that of a traditional and nuclear family system, but the benefits can be greater support systems and more people to love!

My family means the world to me and I work hard to ensure we are all a good unit. Family to me is my husband and four mad but wonderful children. I am not close to my biological parents and my husband hasn't spoken to his for many years so I ensure that my own family is close knit and always looks out for each other.

We tend to just get in the car most weekends and drive to see where we end up, often letting the kids take it in turns to choose. Saturday is our family day where nobody has any activities planned and it will continue to stay this way for as long as it is practically possible!

Just being at home when all my children come home and listening to their rants of how their school day went makes me smile. The simple things in life mean much more to me now that I am a parent and I try to remind myself everyday, not matter how hard it can get at times, that I won't have these moments for ever so I will cherish them in every way that I can.