Parenting short cuts - things you skip or do the bare minimum on

[Anonymous]

Generally much less research on everything. It takes lots of bandwidth and (putting on my work hat) people are usually overestimating both the upsides and downsides of making a choice, provided there even is a right and a wrong choice.

No playdates until they start setting them up themselves. Otherwise, it's playground and they hang out with whoever happens to be there at the time.

No travel sports or other similarly time/money/energy consuming ECs unless child is begging for it and showing amazing results. This includes music lessons, and I am saying it as a spouse of a professional musician and a serious amateur musician myself. If a child is not practicing by themselves for hours, they get a music teacher that is affordable, available and conveniently located, not the one with a take it or leave it schedule that is located an hour away.

[Anonymous]

No travel sports or dance company nonsense that takes a lot of time and money.

No elf on the shelf.

Don’t care about anything that would be on Pinterest.

Kid handles their own homework

My husband does adult laundry and nanny does kid laundry. My husband will take kid laundry when we stop the nanny. I have no idea how often our sheets are changed — maybe every other month.

Don’t clean bathrooms at all in between every other week cleaning service unless we had a guest and then I would make sure their sink and toilet were clean. Doesn’t happen often.

Don’t care much what kid eats within reason of some fruit and veg each day. If she wants to make herself toast for dinner with a banana — who cares?

Don’t do field trips — my husband does them occasionally

No gift bags for parties we have. You can show up and run around in my yard and eat pizza and a cupcake. Kids seem to have fun.

[Anonymous]

Y'all, not doing elf on the shelf isn't a "shortcut"

Doing elf on the shelf and other BS like that is a way to make parenting a million times harder than it needs to be (which is already hard enough). Skipping that stuff isn't some kind of sneaky trick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y'all, not doing elf on the shelf isn't a "shortcut"

Doing elf on the shelf and other BS like that is a way to make parenting a million times harder than it needs to be (which is already hard enough). Skipping that stuff isn't some kind of sneaky trick.

Haha! I had the same thought. Elf on the Shelf is not a requirement, people!

My own shortcuts include not really checking or caring whether preschooler wears underwear. He went to school yesterday just wearing sweatpants! But in my defense he rarely wears pants more than once before washing.

[Anonymous]

Cooking:

Chicken nuggets with frozen broccoli 🥦 in the microwave
Cheerios with yogurt for DINNER
Hot dogs with sliced apples

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mean that's a terrible example because the reason summer camp takes longer for me is not because I'm agonizing over camps or polling all my friends, but because camps fill instantly, my DD hated the camp I signed her up for last year, some camps don't go for all the weeks I need them and I have to cobble together, etc. But I guess if you have good availability, not a lot of cost constraints, and get on it early enough, it could take an hour.

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Yes.. The camps that I can afford FILL UP. The $600 a week one is easy to say "oh you'll go there all summer" but I am not paying that.

[Anonymous]

I ask my DD's best friend's mom what she's doing for certain things and just do that. Best hack ever. She is a huge research nerd.

[Anonymous]

I googled elf on a shelf and still don’t understand what this is…some sort of book?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I googled elf on a shelf and still don’t understand what this is…some sort of book?

Really? You're so cool you have never heard of elf on a shelf? How old are your kids?

[Anonymous]

Don’t overschedule yourselves or the kids. Seriously, quit with the elf on the shelf stuff that just makes your life so much harder. Either the kids eat exactly what you eat for dinner (or components) or you do the plainest easiest microwavable foods for them to eat. Basically, don’t stress out about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean that's a terrible example because the reason summer camp takes longer for me is not because I'm agonizing over camps or polling all my friends, but because camps fill instantly, my DD hated the camp I signed her up for last year, some camps don't go for all the weeks I need them and I have to cobble together, etc. But I guess if you have good availability, not a lot of cost constraints, and get on it early enough, it could take an hour.

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Yes.. The camps that I can afford FILL UP. The $600 a week one is easy to say "oh you'll go there all summer" but I am not paying that.

DP, but my kids go to the camps run by their aftercare company (Kids After Hours). They’re definitely not $600/week, and while they do fill up, it’s not instant. It probably took me 30 minutes to sign all three kids up this summer. I don’t care about fancy, I want my kids to be well-cared for and have fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll start -

No toddler music/gymboree classes
Wash sheets monthly
No elf on the shelf

+1 to all of these

Same (though sheets are every two weeks). Kids are 5 and 7. No after-school activities yet. Rarely do playdates.

+1. I also don’t read to my kids until they are over the age of 1 or so and show an interest in board books. I do talk to them a lot though!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y'all, not doing elf on the shelf isn't a "shortcut"

Doing elf on the shelf and other BS like that is a way to make parenting a million times harder than it needs to be (which is already hard enough). Skipping that stuff isn't some kind of sneaky trick.

That same parent only washes sheets once a month. That's gross.

[Anonymous]

I am a very lazy parent.

We set out cereal and milk the night before (milk in the fridge drawer) and my kids get up, get dressed, eat cereal and watch a show before we come down (sometimes they sleep in and don't get through all of that

My four and six year old can get dressed without any assistance because we made them learn without helping very much

Baths only once a week, sometimes longer, eek. They are not smelly! This is a much more frequent activity though in the summer with sunscreen and swimming and sweat etc.

They are not in a lot of extra curriculars at all (I do have them in swim because survival)

I create a lot of parenting systems like that other thread had designed to make less effort for everyone. My husband and I have an absolutely set in stone rotation of duties (wake ups/bedtimes/etc) too to ensure that no favoritism or anything is rewarded to upend the workload too.

[Anonymous]

-AFTERCARE. Boy will I be sad when we age out of this. Now you can do aftercare AND enrichment classes - win/win!

-I don't do any holiday decorating except gel clings (and a Christmas Tree)

-I never buy new clothes, just bags of hand me downs like PP said.