Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. It's interesting how parenting has changed. Why do you think that is? My mother is always shocked by how many "fun things" I do with my kids--she's always commenting about it, like "you sure do fun things with him." All our vacations are kid-friendly, and every weekend we do one or two kid-friendly activities.

My weekends growing up were all about staying in and watching TV. They never would have attended a family holiday event or taken me to a fair/festival growing up. It was all about what they wanted to do and I just tagged along. I really resented this when I was a child. I was bored a lot and spent a lot of time in my room feeling bored or being bored at fancy restaurants.

How is your marriage though? You don't mention your spouse in your posts, just about your kid.

OP here. Spouse is a surgeon and works about 70 hours per week, plus many weekends. So it's often just me and the kids.

Anonymous wrote:Did you have fun parents growing up? I most definitely did not have fun parents. By that I mean that my parents didn't go out of their way to plan a fun environment for me (I was an only). We never ate at kid-friendly restaurants (only went to fancy ones), we never celebrated holidays (Thanksgiving was eating out at a restaurant, that was it), they didn't ever decorate the house for anything, on the weekends they did not spend time with me going to the zoo, museums, etc.--they did yard work outside while I spent my entire weekend inside watching TV. My house was not kid-friendly either, full of breakables and very sterile-feeling.

I am trying very hard to be a fun parent.

I don’t know if I would say fun. When I hear “fun parents” I think of Amy Poehler’s character from Mean Girls. That said they did plan a lot of activities for us. We went to children’s museums, natural trails, carved pumpkins, made those popcorn chain things, made ice cream, flew kites, made model planes, monitored the stars with a telescope, and all sorts of other stuff. Two things that made it easier was that my mom is just an incredibly active person and my dad was always trying to get us into the kid version of things he was interested in. They also both grew up with parents who worked all. the. time. So maybe it was something that was more important to them?

Anonymous wrote:OP here. It's interesting how parenting has changed. Why do you think that is? My mother is always shocked by how many "fun things" I do with my kids--she's always commenting about it, like "you sure do fun things with him." All our vacations are kid-friendly, and every weekend we do one or two kid-friendly activities.

My weekends growing up were all about staying in and watching TV. They never would have attended a family holiday event or taken me to a fair/festival growing up. It was all about what they wanted to do and I just tagged along. I really resented this when I was a child. I was bored a lot and spent a lot of time in my room feeling bored or being bored at fancy restaurants.

How is your marriage though? You don't mention your spouse in your posts, just about your kid.

OP here. It's interesting how parenting has changed. Why do you think that is? My mother is always shocked by how many "fun things" I do with my kids--she's always commenting about it, like "you sure do fun things with him." All our vacations are kid-friendly, and every weekend we do one or two kid-friendly activities.

My weekends growing up were all about staying in and watching TV. They never would have attended a family holiday event or taken me to a fair/festival growing up. It was all about what they wanted to do and I just tagged along. I really resented this when I was a child. I was bored a lot and spent a lot of time in my room feeling bored or being bored at fancy restaurants.

Define fun I guess. I had several siblings so by default life was more centered around kid activities. When I was young my mom took us to museums, the zoo, concerts, plays, playgrounds, amusement parks.........but I don't actually remember her enjoying it. Maybe bc she was tracking multiple kids? She also never played board games or cards with us, which at the time I thought was what a fun mom did. My dad traveled a lot for work, but when he was home he usually stepped in and did stuff with us, but more of the out in the yard running around or willingly taking us on errands (ie the hardware store and letting us ask a million questions vs. mom who errands were about in/out/done.) We also rarely ate out. McDonalds was a huge treat. I also remember lots of decorations for holidays and "themed food." Thinking about this, I suspect he had more to do with her upbringing (raised mostly by "maiden" aunts) vs my dads upbringing on a farm.

All that said, they did have a pretty active social life with lots of friends, and often went on what would now be called date nights but back then were just what parents did. Plenty of parties at the house as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband did, I didn't. I've learned a lot from him.

He bought a drop cloth after our first daughter turned 1, and come Halloween time, I arrived home from work to find he and the baby shirtless on the drop cloth carving pumpkins. It had NEVER OCCURRED to me to carve pumpkins.

He hung a clothesline in our home office and puts up art projects the girls do, changing them out monthly. We do go to fancy restaurants, but always make sure there's something the girls will enjoy. I think we took them to IHoP once.

I grew up always being told to be quiet, but now when our kids want to talk during a conversation with other adults we'll wait for a break and then turn to them with "What did you want to add?"

When our oldest DD was 3, on New Years, we went in to her room, woke her up and sprayed whipped cream into her mouth. She thought it was the highlight of her little life.

This is adorable! I'm going to try it next year

She was so confused and then pleasantly surprised. She still refers to it as "my whipped cream treatment."

Honestly, everything else sounds fun to me but that would have freaked me out... like huh? why are you waking me up?

Yeah, but she doesn't have that personality. She's super easy-going, up for anything type of kid. We knew our audience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband did, I didn't. I've learned a lot from him.

He bought a drop cloth after our first daughter turned 1, and come Halloween time, I arrived home from work to find he and the baby shirtless on the drop cloth carving pumpkins. It had NEVER OCCURRED to me to carve pumpkins.

He hung a clothesline in our home office and puts up art projects the girls do, changing them out monthly. We do go to fancy restaurants, but always make sure there's something the girls will enjoy. I think we took them to IHoP once.

I grew up always being told to be quiet, but now when our kids want to talk during a conversation with other adults we'll wait for a break and then turn to them with "What did you want to add?"

When our oldest DD was 3, on New Years, we went in to her room, woke her up and sprayed whipped cream into her mouth. She thought it was the highlight of her little life.

This is adorable! I'm going to try it next year

She was so confused and then pleasantly surprised. She still refers to it as "my whipped cream treatment."

Honestly, everything else sounds fun to me but that would have freaked me out... like huh? why are you waking me up?

I wish! I plan to give my son the childhood that I never had.
For example take him to zoo,museums,parks, kid friendly restaurants, say I love you him and mean it.

I think my parents struck a very good balance. (I was born in '80.)

My dad loves amusement parks and was always game to take us to any and all, we took a mix of vacations - from Cape Cod to Niagra Falls to Ireland. My mom and I regularly went to NYC to see a show or go to the Central Park Zoo and check out FAO Schwartz; she took us the library every Saturday morning. My dad loves sweets, so he'd always buy the giant Costco size bags of candy and sneak us candy, I remember him being at every school Halloween parade, taking me to the Girl Scout Sock Hop, etc.

However, they had a standing date night every Saturday and routinely went out with friends in addition. My dad was involved in the Elks, Knights, Legion, etc. and went to all their meetings and socials and such. My mom was a union rep and went back to grad school when I was 7. They took several vacations that I remember where we stayed with my aunt and uncle.

So a good balance of being fun parents who focused on us, but who also took time to nurture their marriage, their friendships, interests, and careers.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Here's another example. When I was little, I would occasionally have a friend over to play, but my mother viewed this as a chance to keep me busy and out of her hair so she could have time to herself.

My kids are 2 and 4 and when I told her we don't do drop off playdates yet she was shocked. She was stunned that I have to "entertain the mother too" instead of "having time to myself" when we do playdates. She viewed entertaining the mother has a burden.

I view playdates as a chance to have fun, and most importantly build community for my kids by making family friends with the other family--both parents usually come to the playdate. But it's a chance for me to make friends, build community, and make friends for my kids. In contrast, my father never ever would have taken me to a playdate or birthday party when I was growing up, let alone stayed for the duration, and my parents never had families over for anything. They had lots of adults only dinner parties, but I was expected to stay in my room and not come out during the party.

To be fair, once your kids are in elementary school, that's what playdates are--it's not the norm for parents to stick around. When I was growing up, it wasn't the norm, either. Playdates were for kids, not parents.

My parents weren't "fun" as in "trying to be their kids' friends." They were fun in the sense that they did participate in kid-centered stuff and try to make it special--helping us with Halloween costumes, decorating the tree for Christmas, etc. And our vacations were chosen with kids in mind. My mom certainly altered her repertoire of meals, but she didn't make only "kid food," and there weren't that many "kid-friendly" restaurants, either, because eating out was less common. Kid-friendly probably meant fast food or Denny's-type places. Parents didn't play with their kids that much--the culture was just different. My parents had adult-only parties--I actually think those were more common. Families would be invited to a backyard BBQ, but not a dinner party. I think adults used to expect to lead more adult lives, and kids weren't expected to be included in everything.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband did, I didn't. I've learned a lot from him.

He bought a drop cloth after our first daughter turned 1, and come Halloween time, I arrived home from work to find he and the baby shirtless on the drop cloth carving pumpkins. It had NEVER OCCURRED to me to carve pumpkins.

He hung a clothesline in our home office and puts up art projects the girls do, changing them out monthly. We do go to fancy restaurants, but always make sure there's something the girls will enjoy. I think we took them to IHoP once.

I grew up always being told to be quiet, but now when our kids want to talk during a conversation with other adults we'll wait for a break and then turn to them with "What did you want to add?"

When our oldest DD was 3, on New Years, we went in to her room, woke her up and sprayed whipped cream into her mouth. She thought it was the highlight of her little life.

This is adorable! I'm going to try it next year

She was so confused and then pleasantly surprised. She still refers to it as "my whipped cream treatment."

My parents were fun, but not in the way you describe (kid-friendly restaurants and kid-focused family activities). They did what they wanted to do and we tagged along when reasonable. My sister and I were often the only kids at grown-up dinners and parties. They had their own hobbies and interests, while I played in the neighborhood (unsupervised!) with the other kids on the block. Looking back on it, the least-kid-friendly things my parents did ended up being the most inspirational to me as an adult.

My parents were very kid-centric, but they were never *fun.* My mom was kind, but she was always doing a million chores, and my dad was obsessed with making sure we exercised, and was in the habit of launching into long lectures, so it might have been better if we got babysitters instead. Still, we always knew they cared about us, which counted for a lot.

I have more of my own life than my parents did, but I try harder to occasionally be a fun parent, in ways that don't feel totally fake.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a newish mom and don't see what's so important about going to kid friendly restaurants? My 2 year old eats whatever we eat. I'm not taking her to Michelin star restaurants, but likewise, refuse to go to McDonalds, Chilis, Ihop, Chuck E Cheese. I'm a really fun mom and love to cook.

+1 My husband and I get countless comments about our 10 yr old's "advanced" palate from other parents, friends, waiters, etc. From an early age (2ish), our child ate what we ate, from raw mussels to roasted Brussel sprouts!

Yes, but you are probably engaging with your 10 year old at the table, teaching them about the foods, looking at the restaurant menu with them, treating them like they're part of the experience, etc. So you're making it fun. Versus I bet OP's parents just plunked the kid down in a chair, told the child to be quiet, and gave them whatever to eat quietly, hoping the child didn't interrupt the adult conversation.

OP here, yes you have a point. We do engage our son about food and include him in the conversation. He also likes to help cook so he sees the experience as fun and bonding.

Anonymous wrote:My husband did, I didn't. I've learned a lot from him.

He bought a drop cloth after our first daughter turned 1, and come Halloween time, I arrived home from work to find he and the baby shirtless on the drop cloth carving pumpkins. It had NEVER OCCURRED to me to carve pumpkins.

He hung a clothesline in our home office and puts up art projects the girls do, changing them out monthly. We do go to fancy restaurants, but always make sure there's something the girls will enjoy. I think we took them to IHoP once.

I grew up always being told to be quiet, but now when our kids want to talk during a conversation with other adults we'll wait for a break and then turn to them with "What did you want to add?"

When our oldest DD was 3, on New Years, we went in to her room, woke her up and sprayed whipped cream into her mouth. She thought it was the highlight of her little life.

This is adorable! I'm going to try it next year