Why do older parents forget what it's like to have young children???
Comments
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Really? I'm nearly 60 and from my early teens I went out for meals with my parents regularly (at least once a month).
Having said that, and having treated my sons (now in their early 20s) the same way, my sons do tell me that many of their friends have no concept of 'going out for dinner'.
Might be an income thing. We never, ever, ever went out for a meal. The most extravagant food experienced was my brother occasionally coming home on a Saturday afternoon with Cod & chips for my mother and saveloy or spring roll and chips for me. Or having lunch in the BHS cafe with my granddad before he went back to his village. The Saturdays when he'd come back via a shellfish stall with a pint of cockles and winkles were also incredibly rare, but they were very cheap, too - none of these involved getting on a bus and travelling out to eat - and they were paid for out of my brother's pocket, not my mother's.
My kids got to go to curryhouses and pubs occasionally - and I used to take them by myself once a year to a sushi place - but they were the exception, rather than the rule, as there were more important things to spend money on, like food for the rest of the week.
Conversely, OH would go out for drives with his family, meet up with other relatives and have meals out almost every weekend from before he was old enough to remember. But he grew up in rural Devon, so there were pubs and restaurants aplenty and, whilst they weren't rich, they were comfortable, and it was about seeing family more than the food itself.
There wasn't a children's table, they just all sat together - last Christmas, it was the same, with the toddler sitting with different people as she wanted, perfectly well behaved and part of everything, although I did hear a story of one year when there were a couple of new Dads present and the Mums opted to take the babies home after a couple of hours - they finally rolled in eight hours later, having enjoyed themselves thoroughly in that time. And were in trouble for the next two days.
I could dream to wide extremes, I could do or die: I could yawn and be withdrawn and watch the world go by.Yup you are officially Rock n Roll
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Thinking about it even when your kids are older people who are in a different life stage to you, often don't think when arranging something.
Me and DH go away for a few nights just before Xmas each year with another couple. The other couple's only child is an adult. We have to have relatives help out o/night with childcare. Our eldest is now of an age where he can stay alone for a night or two, the youngest isn't and the eldest isn't old enough to be responsible for her. This year the relatives helping out have had major health problems and are slowly recovering. I'm not going to ask them to take my younger child until I know that they are sufficiently healthy enough.
We are being asked to hurry up about booking a hotel but that's not something we're in a position to do at present - something the other party are aware of!0 -
If people are employed how do they manage to get home and prepare a meal in order to eat so early?
My parents eat at 6pm which I think is early and just about everyone else I know eats around 7pm or later.
Me and OH eat at 7.30pm most nights but occasionally it will be later and is always later if we eat out. Even if we are home all day we still would not eat earlier as it would just seem odd plus I would want to eat again before I go to bed at midnight
I live in a semi rural area on the edge of a small town, even the nearest city is pretty easy to get in and out of. No more that maybe a 20 min commute max.
Most people would eat around 5.30-6 tbh. But eating out would be later 7-8 probably on a special occasion.
ali x"Overthinking every little thing
Acknowledge the bell you cant unring"0 -
Where I live dinner is not available before 7pm.0
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Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »Might be an income thing. We never, ever, ever went out for a meal. The most extravagant food experienced was my brother occasionally coming home on a Saturday afternoon with Cod & chips for my mother and saveloy or spring roll and chips for me. Or having lunch in the BHS cafe with my granddad before he went back to his village.
We weren't rich, not even remotely. I'm very nearly 50 so I was a child in the 70s. We ate out sometimes - enough for me to know how to behave at a formal meal & what cutlery to use.
When we had special meals at home we'd have a white table cloth, courses, cutlery & glasses. It doesn't take much effort to lay a table for a special formal meal at home - makes it feel special.
Salt or pepper in their shop containers on the table makes me shudder!!!
I was the same with my daughter (she's 30), I took her to proper restaurants and ordered her half portions of what I was eating. She could shell her own prawns before 4.0 -
We weren't rich, not even remotely. I'm very nearly 50 so I was a child in the 70s. We ate out sometimes - enough for me to know how to behave at a formal meal & what cutlery to use.
When we had special meals at home we'd have a white table cloth, courses, cutlery & glasses. It doesn't take much effort to lay a table for a special formal meal at home - makes it feel special.
Salt or pepper in their shop containers on the table makes me shudder!!!
I was the same with my daughter (she's 30), I took her to proper restaurants and ordered her half portions of what I was eating. She could shell her own prawns before 4.
I didn't say rich, just that I thought money had a bearing on it. IIRC, you worked, so would have had a higher income (and possibly more options for transport) than a widow with 5 children.
I can remember the first time I tried (or saw) many foods we would think are commonplace now, such as prawns, smoked salmon, fresh salmon, Parmesan or Asparagus. All of which happened after I began earning my own money and had my own place, so could risk not liking them.
A special meal as a kid was one where a third of us managed to fit at the table at one sitting at 1pm Sunday (the older ones sat next, so stayed watching TV in the other room) and generally involved being given a chicken wing each, a drumstick for the oldest, immersed in red wine sauce from a tin to increase the calories whilst the animals wandered around our legs under the table in the hop of acquiring a titbit. I was usually responsible for those, as I wasn't as keen on gristly chicken wings as the cats and dog were. There were no tablecloths or glasses in such surroundings, as you didn't drink with a meal and the sauce would have ruined a cloth if we'd had one. A once yearly treat in cold/wet weather would be hearts stuffed with sage and onion and braised in the oven - and turkey was for Christmas and Easter Sunday only.
I could, however, pluck and start to draw a pheasant with help for a pie or skin a rabbit by the time I was 5 - and was sent out into the garden on Sunday mornings to retrieve potatoes, beans, cabbages and raspberries/blackberries from about 7. The entire garden was turned over to food production, other than the corner where the pet rabbit lived & the pond, because there was so little money.
I knew that people used different cutlery for different things, because I read books, but never had something sweet with a meal, it was compulsory to wait until 3pm on a Sunday for your one sweet thing of the week (you could have a cup of tea at 2pm) and then you were permitted a single sandwich at 5 before a bath for the week ahead. The first time I saw somebody ask if they could leave a table was a surprise, as at home, you got booted off the moment you had finished so the next batch of children could sit and eat and there were only 3 seats in either room for 6 of us, so we had to take it in shifts. I always got the rug on the floor in front of the fire (with the animals), as that way more of the others could sit down [strike]and I preferred the company of the animals to the larger squabbling, angry humans of the household in any case[/strike].
It's not trying to outdo anybody in terms of hardness, but 'not being rich', as many people describe it (but being able to go out for meals, holidays or run a car) is something I have only experienced for a few brief months in my life. The rest of the time has been just trying to make the bills, just as it is now. Myself and the OH don't starve, he puts tea on the table shortly after I get in from work, we have a Sunday Dinner each week (costing about a tenner including 3-4 additional meals from the leftovers/stock/soup made from the carcass) - but at no point would we think of going out for a meal when there's cheaper food to be made at home, unless some of his family have travelled up (and then we're surreptitiously trying to keep the cost down, as it's about seeing them, not spending loads of money).
Personally, I've got a tiny kitchen table covered in an oilcloth, it gets flowers from the garden shoved in an old jam jar when possible and it's really nice to sit down with a candle burning instead of the main lights - but that's our time together, not spending over twenty quid a head to go somewhere where the chef isn't as competent - or cute.I could dream to wide extremes, I could do or die: I could yawn and be withdrawn and watch the world go by.Yup you are officially Rock n Roll0 -
Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »I didn't say rich, just that I thought money had a bearing on it. IIRC, you worked, so would have had a higher income (and possibly more options for transport) than a widow with 5 children.
I can remember the first time I tried (or saw) many foods we would think are commonplace now, such as prawns, smoked salmon, fresh salmon, Parmesan or Asparagus. All of which happened after I began earning my own money and had my own place, so could risk not liking them.
A special meal as a kid was one where a third of us managed to fit at the table at one sitting at 1pm Sunday (the older ones sat next, so stayed watching TV in the other room) and generally involved being given a chicken wing each, a drumstick for the oldest, immersed in red wine sauce from a tin to increase the calories whilst the animals wandered around our legs under the table in the hop of acquiring a titbit. I was usually responsible for those, as I wasn't as keen on gristly chicken wings as the cats and dog were. There were no tablecloths or glasses in such surroundings, as you didn't drink with a meal and the sauce would have ruined a cloth if we'd had one. A once yearly treat in cold/wet weather would be hearts stuffed with sage and onion and braised in the oven - and turkey was for Christmas and Easter Sunday only.
I could, however, pluck and start to draw a pheasant with help for a pie or skin a rabbit by the time I was 5 - and was sent out into the garden on Sunday mornings to retrieve potatoes, beans, cabbages and raspberries/blackberries from about 7. The entire garden was turned over to food production, other than the corner where the pet rabbit lived & the pond, because there was so little money.
I knew that people used different cutlery for different things, because I read books, but never had something sweet with a meal, it was compulsory to wait until 3pm on a Sunday for your one sweet thing of the week (you could have a cup of tea at 2pm) and then you were permitted a single sandwich at 5 before a bath for the week ahead. The first time I saw somebody ask if they could leave a table was a surprise, as at home, you got booted off the moment you had finished so the next batch of children could sit and eat and there were only 3 seats in either room for 6 of us, so we had to take it in shifts. I always got the rug on the floor in front of the fire (with the animals), as that way more of the others could sit down [strike]and I preferred the company of the animals to the larger squabbling, angry humans of the household in any case[/strike].
It's not trying to outdo anybody in terms of hardness, but 'not being rich', as many people describe it (but being able to go out for meals, holidays or run a car) is something I have only experienced for a few brief months in my life. The rest of the time has been just trying to make the bills, just as it is now. Myself and the OH don't starve, he puts tea on the table shortly after I get in from work, we have a Sunday Dinner each week (costing about a tenner including 3-4 additional meals from the leftovers/stock/soup made from the carcass) - but at no point would we think of going out for a meal when there's cheaper food to be made at home, unless some of his family have travelled up (and then we're surreptitiously trying to keep the cost down, as it's about seeing them, not spending loads of money).
Personally, I've got a tiny kitchen table covered in an oilcloth, it gets flowers from the garden shoved in an old jam jar when possible and it's really nice to sit down with a candle burning instead of the main lights - but that's our time together, not spending over twenty quid a head to go somewhere where the chef isn't as competent - or cute.
It sounds as if when you had funds you did eat out, but now due to financial constraints you can't, which can't be easy, You then go on to denigrate eating out, which seems to suggest that it does rankle that you can no longer do that and so you have to convince yourself that you wouldn't enjoy it. Life isn't static, there may come a time when finances improve and you can make a choice to have someone else cook for you occasionally.0 -
happyandcontented wrote: »It sounds as if when you had funds you did eat out, but now due to financial constraints you can't, which can't be easy, You then go on to denigrate eating out, which seems to suggest that it does rankle that you can no longer do that and so you have to convince yourself that you wouldn't enjoy it. Life isn't static, there may come a time when finances improve and you can make a choice to have someone else cook for you occasionally.
I'm not denigrating it. It was simply something that was outside my experience as a child due to lack of money - and that's why I think it is something not comprehended by others. I gave an example earlier that my OH went out almost every weekend, but they had a completely different life (and income) to my family's.
I don't rate much on restaurant food. I've worked in the places and know the ones where it all comes in packets to be microwaved or shoved in a deep fat fryer from frozen and then sold at the best part of thirty quid with the addition of a handful of leaves and a drizzle of supermarket quality oil. I've also seen what the ice cream maker looks like on the inside if it hasn't been cleaned properly for a while _pale_. I went out because the ex angrily insisted that it was 'what normal people did' and I did it a couple of times a year for the girls because they had become accustomed to what he said was normal, although it wasn't the type of places he chose - I took them places where I could see the food being prepared by hand, because if I had to bang out that sort of money to fulfil their expectations occasionally, I was going to make damn sure it was in some way at least half the work I did in the kitchen to cook for them.
The OH, however, understood from a child that whilst they went out frequently, a lot of his friends didn't. So he adapted to not having enough money quite happily, as it was always more about seeing family than being seen doing it - and if that meant having the cheapest thing on the menu and sharing it, or a starter instead of a main course, so be it. If we lived nearer, I'd be perfectly happy for his family to come around for meals instead. It's more intimate, the food's better/delivered more quickly (whether I cook, OH cooks - as he does almost every night, anyway - or whether we both do) and I'd simply be more comfortable, knowing we could give them better food in the comfort of our own home.
Yes, maybe one day we'll have more money. I suspect that we'd both far rather use that cash to do things we enjoy more than sitting in restaurants waiting for food of unknown quality/competence, though. And maybe those other people who have no idea of what it's like going out for a meal weren't in a position to afford such things to think they were normal, and feel the same way now.
After all, if somebody says they weren't rich, maybe what they're actually saying is that their family chose to spend the extra money they had on things like meals out (or holidays. Or cars. Or pony riding lessons. Or school fees.). Or maybe it's just that they didn't feel rich because they hadn't ever met people whose idea of a posh meal was getting a piece of breastmeat and a seat to themselves until they were ready to leave, rather than a scraggy chicken wing and an older brother ordering you to hurry up because it was his turn to have dinner now.
It's a matter of perspective. Some cringe when they see a pepper grinder from Bart spices on the table, some cringe when they don't see a blue glass and sterling silver salt cellar with a tiny spoon.
I've never had a place big enough to have a dining table before, even if it is wedged against the cupboard under the stairs, up on blocks to make it possible to get the vacuum cleaner out, and we even have a chair each. So I'm exceeding the expectations of my childhood with every meal. But I'm sure somebody else would be cringing at a tiny table in that position with a pale blue and white polka dot oilcloth stuck on it. Others, though, would see a table, a tablecloth and an attempt to make it look pretty and think it was really rather sweet and special compared to a plate on the sofa in front of the telly that they've only ever known.I could dream to wide extremes, I could do or die: I could yawn and be withdrawn and watch the world go by.Yup you are officially Rock n Roll0 -
More of a venting post this one but need to ask what others think.
I'm travelling 150 miles this weekend to see family for a significant birthday. A local restaurant has been hired out for a large family gathering. I am taking my 3 year old with me and my dad decides it would be a good idea to book the table for 7pm - bang on my child's bedtime. Seriously!!!!
"Oh it'll be ok, they'll be fine" is the usual response I get. Or on trips out previously where my child has been tired and cranky and just wants to sleep I'd get "Oh, they're not tired, they just want to play".
Does anyone else get this from their parents now that you have a young child? Just interested.
I havent read other posts but my first thought was perhaps Dad doesnt want a 3yrs old at a nice family meal and ultimately most adults enjoy an evening meal for a special occasion.0 -
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