How Much Quality Time?

[Anonymous]

OP here - I get that my structure might be a bit much, but are you PPs saying that you really don't do stuff with your SO or with the kids as a family? Meaning you just work, hang out at home, work, stay home on the weekends, and then start over again? How do you not lose your mind?

[Anonymous]

My husband hates structured time unless I'm carving out time that leads to 14:42. Otherwise it is just another obligation and it is enough effort to keep the train running on time to get the kids to do homework, to their activities, having social time with their friends, getting all the laundry done, not letting the house mess get too bad etc.

How old are the kids? When the kids were younger we had a strict bedtime of 8pm and then had from 8-9 to watch a tv show together like Modern Family or the USA shows like Psych. We would talk during commercials and also had conversations about the show. We would also do some errands on the weekend all together. The kids are now older and the difference in bedtimes is not that much during the work week so most of the alone time is carved out on the weekends after they got to bed or before they get up. Our children are old enough to be left alone for limited amounts of time so we may start taking walks together. We also will text each other about things, sometimes kid related, sometimes not. MY DH will also email different articles he thinks I may be interested in reading. As for family time, I find we each have our thing with the kids and the parent picks what that is. For example, I started doing one on one time with the kids before bedtime. We play card games, Head Banz, talk, dance offs etc. The idea is non-electronic time 1/2 hr before bed, stagger the bedtimes of the two kids so they don't wind each other up, and DH gets quiet time while I am having the one one one time and get to enjoy time with the children where I'm not rushing around. DH has a show he watches with the kids on the weekend, plus he takes them on errands with him on the weekend and drives quite a few carpools during the week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I get that my structure might be a bit much, but are you PPs saying that you really don't do stuff with your SO or with the kids as a family? Meaning you just work, hang out at home, work, stay home on the weekends, and then start over again? How do you not lose your mind?

My DH doesn't like to stay home but he doesn't like to go to many events. He does the grocery shopping, lawn care, and car care for the household and that alone is a few hours on the weekend. Then one kid in recreational soccer (soccer Sarurdays) and another playing a club sport plus Scout activities it's a rare weekend we don't have anything ....and when we do we tend to visit family because our kids won't miss anything if we go that weekend! We joke that work is more relaxing than our weekends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I get that my structure might be a bit much, but are you PPs saying that you really don't do stuff with your SO or with the kids as a family? Meaning you just work, hang out at home, work, stay home on the weekends, and then start over again? How do you not lose your mind?

I like unstructured time, but I don't often get what I want. So, I end up doing stuff with my SO and with the kids as a family.
But it's not like unstructured time is house arrest. It's just that I can figure out what I feel like doing at that particular time, on short notice, and go do it. If it's a nice day, we can go find a trail and take a walk. If the weather isn't so nice, I'm not committed to doing something outside.