Why do older parents forget what it's like to have young children???

barbarawright wrote: »

I thought sitting outside pubs with a Pepsi and a bag of ready salted while your dad had a drink inside was a standard feature of 70s childhoods. It can't have been *just* me...

I thought this was just something you saw on TV! I was a child in the 70s but my parents would never have done this.:eek:

I too was taken to the family room at pubs usually on holiday where 2 drinks and then home was the norm. DH remembers the wall and the bag of crisps instead, occasionally there was a swing in the pub garden.

My friends and sis in law had their first babies in the early 90s, there were definitely kids menus with chips then, because I used to be the accompanying childless 'auntie' that went there with them.

Put in the same situation as the OP, I'd be taking a pushchair and hoping a walk/drive prior to that would send LO off to sleep for the duration of the night out.

*max* wrote: »

I'm French, lived here for over 15 years, and I'm still astounded when people say their kids have dinner at 5 and bed at 7 or so.

I don't have kids myself, but kids having dinner at 5pm and in bed at 7pm is completely alien to me. I finish work at 5, most people do, so what happens? How do working parents do it?

In France, kids have school 9-4 or 5 from a very young age (2/3). They get a snack after school at home, then dinner around 7/8, then bed around 9. Of course in kindergarten they get a nap during the day.

A 7pm dinner would be perfectly normal, and kids would be used to it in France, and wouldn't be particularly upset, except for enjoying/getting excited about all the new people if it was a party.

Horses for courses I guess.

I could never get my head around how parents would say their kids were in bed asleep by six. I couldn't even get to the childminder that quickly after work finished, never mind walk them home, crash through some urgent housework (feed cats, put washload on, make a salad with chicken, etc, as the childminder fed them pretty well when they got in from school), get them ready for a bath, then, all warm, pyjamas on, eat together and snuggle up on the sofa before bed. The earliest I could ever get the youngest asleep by was 8.30pm when she was 4 months - 5 years. By 6, 9pm was the earliest bedtime, and then they'd both be up at 7. She did have an hour's nap every afternoon and would be woken up by 2pm for the school run until she was 3, whether it was with me or the childminder, but she wasn't ever crabby due to overtiredness. In any case, they'd have missed the Fresh Prince of Bel Air if I'd sent them to bed any earlier - and that would have been an absolute disaster .

I think the people who did the 6pm thing tended to be parents at home - and they were also up by 5am with the children.


Thinking back to when we did have late nights for special occasions, I made sure they had a good snack at teatime, took some particularly comfortable clothes, two snuggly blankets and, if she'd have been tired, the youngest could have taken herself off into the buggy. It never happened, though, she just adapted and slept well from later on the evening. There would have been occasional carrying her out half asleep, but that didn't matter, everybody had enjoyed themselves.


It's not so much IMO that people have forgotten, it's that they remember that they didn't follow rigid routines every single day, despite what Gina Ford or the like might claim was done. There were general rhythms to life, but it wasn't a disaster if they were different for a night.


I'm sure it'll be fine if you go, OP. Bring some snacks - sandwich? Yoghurt? Cucumber sticks?
Try and get the afternoon nap delayed a little bit, maybe let it run a little longer if possible, but if that doesn't happen, LO will be asleep in a buggy, bundled up in a blanket on your lap and/or in the car on the way home in any case.

The best piece of parenting advice I was ever given is that "the baby comes home with you, you don't go to the baby's home" My boys are 18 and 11 and they've always fitted in with our schedules. They've had working parenting so that had to happen!

Our main meal is always around 7pm and my children have always eaten it with us. I could never understand my friends who cooked dinner twice! My husband didn't get home from work until 6:30pm and left at 7am so he would never have seen the children on a weekday otherwise.

It's always been a meal at the dining table so 'formal' eating (normal mealtime IMO) is the norm. My children have eaten in restaurants regularly. My youngest went to his first restaurant at 6 days old. My youngest is a really fussy eater due to medical issues but will usually opt for a rare steak if it's available. It always makes me laugh when the waiting staff glance over at me or my husband to check that it's ok.

1970's child. Also remember being sitting in a pub garden with crisps and a Britvic orange. I used to love going on a Sunday lunch time with my Dad, him and his mates inside and I'd play with loads of random kids. We didn't have a car but I know my husband and his siblings would get left with crisps and drink.

barbarawright wrote: »

I thought sitting outside pubs with a Pepsi and a bag of ready salted while your dad had a drink inside was a standard feature of 70s childhoods. It can't have been *just* me...

LOL Cheese and Onion was my flavour. And yes is a valid point about how people get in from work and manage to eat so early. At home the earliest we tend to eat is 6.30 but often later. Doesnt stop my 13 year old munching rubbish when hge gets in from school though