I hosted my daughter's preschool classmates for a fall play date at our home. We did pumpkin painting. I provided all the art supplies and everyone had to bring their own pumpkins. I also provided food and drinks (chicken fil a minis, fruit, crackers, cheese, egg bites, coffee, and juice) A few other moms brought dessert as well. I also rented a bounce house for the kids. I was expecting 15 kids and I knew a bounce house would fit them all. The kids had so much fun. But towards the end... one mom said this was more than what she was expecting and gave me $20. I still have mixed feelings about this. I understand she was trying to be considerate but I wasn't expecting anything in return. I love to host and I have the privilege to host as well. It's not like she has less than. We both live in the same upscale suburb.

It's wild because I've heard of other moms asking for money for play dates. And I'm over here doing the most and just want everyone to have a good time.

How would you have handled this?

Anyone else not like bringing their kids to their family’s houses because they aren’t childproofed and they know they will be the only one chasing their kids around the entire time they are there?

What’s worse is when said family says, “you have your hands full” or “mom you’re no fun” as you’re trying to prevent your child(ren) from breaking things in their home and/or hurting themselves.

Kids are under 3 for reference.

I went swimming with my 4 year old today. He is a well spoken and curious little boy, who also has a loud voice and is even louder when he is enthusiastic.

We were changing into our swimwear and he was noticing all the stuff I brought. His swimming trunks, his floaties etc. At one point I am completely naked an he yells in excitement: mom, you even brought your vagina!

At that moment I hear someone in another stall burst out into laughter, he was definitely heard by others. 😆

Eta: I wrote kids in the title, but it was just my 4 year old.

In a conversation with my husband he mentioned that he would really love for me to look into developing a hobby. He has many, he likes to golf and game and build things and I don’t share a love for any of those (lol) but I can’t keep doomscrolling for the rest of my life and I too would love to have a nice hobby to unwind to or do in my spare time. The downside is, I am a very artsy girl. It’s a downside for me because anything related does the opposite of relax me. Painting, crafting, sewing, pottery all sounds nice in theory but the moment I start I become very particular and often end up stressed out about it not being perfect etc. I also really enjoy writing and have put writing my novel on the back burner but I’m not ready to write yet because, again, it’s not relaxing for me. It feels like a thing I’m doing to get an outcome/result out of. I have a newborn and a 4 year old so leaving the house isn’t in my cards right now but I’m curious to know if anyone has low stim hobbies they could recommend.

Mine just washed the dishes and wiped the counters without being asked after having a huge blowout fight. Makes me think I should pick a fight just to get the house cleaned now and then!

I had two kids at 34 and 36 (1st spontaneous, 2nd IUI), then went through years of IVF and ultimately had a third child using an egg donor at 41. I was completely happy with three kids.

My husband and I were not as careful as we should have been thinking there was no way I could get pregnant spontaneously. Well, I tested positive today at almost 43-years-old. I honestly think it won't be viable. My eggs were already poor quality three years ago. I don't even necessarily want another child. I'm just looking for perspectives.

I am (so lucky) to be a sahm, but I often think - how are working moms doing this?? Between laundry, cleaning, cooking, baby waking at night…how are you guys managing it? And with more than one kid too??
I only have one but want more - HOW? You guys are superheroes!

I have tried every type of gentle parenting for getting my kids to bed since they were little. I never did cry it out, I’ve always answered their calls. Sat in their rooms until they fell asleep. Now they are 3.5 and 5.5 and bedtime makes me want to leap out a window every fucking night. I have no more patience for it. They want me to lay and snuggle in their individual beds, which are in the same room. After books and singing. I can never just say ‘goodnight’ and leave the room. It takes at least an hour. I find myself wishing I just locked them in their rooms to cry when they were younger and wouldn’t remember it so much or have such real fears. Have I just royally fucked myself trying to be a consistent and responsive and reassuring parent? Is the only way to get kids to go the fuck to sleep to shut them in a room screaming until they give up?? Mostly just a rant. I know I’ve done this to myself and should have set firmer boundaries. I used to enjoy laying with them and snuggling them to sleep. Now it makes my skin crawl.

Husband announced after 20 years of marriage that we are to be separated and his dating other women.
He said, he does not care what I think or feel.
We were on the outs for a while, I stopped doing wifey duties as he refused to spend time with me, children or doing household duties. He just spent time on work, gym, hobbies daily. Ignored me asking for help even though working overtime for months.
His on steroids and like a personality switch so selfish and self centred. His moving in a few weeks and I have been civil as have children at home and his accusing me of being in mood and saying we should still be friends.
Have not informed children yet and his asking eldest today if she dislikes him as she don’t talk to him.
Why would she, when his ignored her for months.
He makes me feel like I should be acting like besties and I am wrong for not.
The audacity makes me feel sick.

I am a 30 year old FTM to a 1.5 year old toddler. Let me preface this by saying yes, I recognize this was me at one point lol but I just need to rant.

Unfortunately, 95% of my friends will probably not have children. They're all single and focused on work/social life/being childfree. I am also the first of all my friends to have a baby. A lot of us in the friend group are age 30-34 (majority of them being 32+).

I have a very difficult toddler, no village, a husband that works 14 hour days so I am absolutely burnt out and a parent with stage 4 cancer/mobility issues due to it. My other parents have chronic health issues. My child is always a menace but within the last 2 days he's been on 100. Being in a psych ward sounds like a spa day right now 😂

Anyways, my friends keep bothering me about Halloween because they want me to come out. And it's been NONSTOP messages the past 2 weeks about finding a place/event to go to and picking one. Today, my friend sent a GIANT list of events she found in the group chat since "no one put any effort into finding one". And then continued to make comments about how she's so busy but made the effort to do it -blah blah blah. And she's demanding we vote our top 3 and then go from there. Honestly, it set me off after the type of day I had plus zero sleep on top of it (since my son wanted to scream cry and wake up 4x last night).

I so badly want to say "I don't give TWO fucks about Halloween and I certainly don't need comments about how hard you worked to research events for the group to go to". I don't even want to celebrate Halloween unless it's related to my child!! I'm an adult with a child! I don't even have a costume! You think that's my fucking priority with everything else going on in my life?

So yeah, my rant is over. Unfortunately, now that I am a mother, the "problems" my childless friends have are so incredibly stupid and annoying 😂 and again, I know this was me at one point but once you have a little human being to take care of, I cannot fathom something as minuscule as finding Halloween plans to be important AT ALL. We are fucking 30+ years old lol and if this post offends you, I'm sorry. Just because we are parents doesn't mean we can't go back to our life before parenthood but I just feel like it's very isolating when none of your friends have kids because they just don't get it. At all.

Pretty much the title. On Sunday, our kids (3, 5) went out with their grandparents. They came back home and my ex had left the house and left behind a suicide note. My ex-MIL called me to pick them up. My 3 yo was oblivious, but my 5 yo was hysterical that her dad was “missing.” She later told me she had read part of the note addressed to her (yes, she can read), but thankfully she didn’t understand it was a suicide note.

He did come home safely. Police were engaged but did not take him on an involuntary hold. He lives with his parents and they are monitoring him. I don’t know details and when I reached out, it agitated him further so I’m staying away.

He texted me that night that he wants to give up custody and not speak to the girls. FWIW I strongly believe that’s the depression or whatever it is talking, not his actual beliefs. He also refuses to talk to the girls and has ignored their FaceTimes. They asked to send him a video, which I sent to him and he asked me not to send more. I did not tell them that.

I’m completely at a loss of how to support my girls. My 3 yo remains oblivious and I’m her preferred parent so she’s just thrilled to be spending more time with me. My 5 yo is super sensitive and she’s having some big emotions (understandably). She keeps asking when she can go back to her grandparents/dads house. I just keep telling her that daddy needs some time, but he loves her very much, and the grownups are helping him get better.

If anyone has any suggestions, I’m all ears. I’m so heartbroken for my girls. I’m simultaneously worried about, angry at, and sad for my ex that he’s going through this. And I’m just barely keeping it together myself.

My niece is turning 16 soon. She just got her first car and I wanted to make her a bag she could keep in the glove box for emergencies like mints, pads, chapstick, stain remover etc. What would yall want in a bag like that? (Im sure her parents have given her things for real emergencies, just looking for things to make her life easier)

It’s nauseating. For some reason, the interactions I’ve had lately have just all been the same. For reference, I have two kids with different abilities. One is very high in certain areas but struggles in some areas and has pull-outs, and my other is very high academically. But I don’t know, I don’t go around bragging about it. Basically, I feel like over and over again lately, some mom wants to tell me how gifted her kid is and the rest of the kids are bringing them down OR how great they are at sports and the rec league is below them.

900 variations of this:

-Little Johnny is GIFTED (emphasized very dramatically) and I’m so worried he will be bored and the “bad kids” will distract him.

-I am trying to stack the basketball team so that we get all the good players and can win (youth rec sports).

The thing is, I don’t care how f-ing gifted your kid is at academics or sports, the very vast majority are not playing for the NBA. Additionally, it’s great they are gifted. Apply for gifted programs. Do extracurriculars. But when they graduate, I can’t tell you the number of average or just below average kids who doing just fine in the workforce and as an adult, even surpassing the gifted ones. My point is, do what you need to/want to, to help your kid soar athletically and academically, but maybe just don’t be an ahole about it, ya know?

It starts as babies and who potty trains first, and keeps on going from there.

Do you regularly experience competitive moms? Why aren’t dads like this?

It was actually a conservation commission meeting. There’s a big condo development planned to go behind my and many of my neighbors homes in the woods and I got word last minute I should show up to the meeting to advocate against it. No babysitter to be had so 2 year old came with! I got him a usually forbidden lollipop at the drugstore first to keep him quiet and he did so well! I even got to stand up and speak at the podium with him! I’m usually a pretty anxious homebody and my little man quite shy so I was really proud of us and just wanted to share.

My daughter’s daycare places all food brought from home in the fridge. Normally I use an insulated thermos, but that doesn’t really work for certain foods. Has anyone come across a tray or bento box type lunch container that is also insulated as well as the thermos is? Thanks!

I get the cuteness and the snuggles but I feel so damn guilty at the end of the night when bed time routine was rough or I was waiting for nap time all day.

1. Am I going to regret or feel guilty for feeling like I’m in survival mode most days?
   
2. Any advice for a mom with kids under 5 🥺

We started our 2yo in daycare earlier this month and it has been a hard transition for him. He has been going to a babysitter for about six months and does great with her. She takes really good care of him. Our budget doesn't allow for us to send him to her full time. There was a transition when we started with her but not as bad as daycare. She did a really great job of settling him, distracting him , and comforting him. Now when we pick him up he doesn't want to leave. The daycare only had a spot for two days a week, so that's what we signed up for until more became available. Before all this he was staying home with me while I WFH. It was really hard and I was losing my mind.

I have two older kids who also had a hard time transitioning to daycare. They eventually got used to it and were fine after a few weeks. I know that could be the case with my toddler, but I asked the teacher how he did today and she let me know he did a little better around nap time. She also told me that most of the time they put him in the playhouse in the corner and tell him he can't come out until he stops crying. That immediately made my heart hurt for him. Is this normal? It doesn't seem like a normal thing to me. She was saying that if they don't do that he just follows them around crying for me. I understand they have other kids to take care of but it just seems cruel to make him sit in a corner crying by himself.

We have one child who is 18months. We’re the first amongst the entire friend group to have children so we always feel the gap between our lives and theirs. Every year we have hosted the Friendsgiving party as we have the biggest house.

This year I’m feeling nervous because my daughter will be present during the beginning of the party. Last year she was asleep before any guests arrived and slept through the entire party. This year I’m sure she will sleep fine due to the location of her room and sound machine. But she will definitely see some people and be present downstairs as we are inviting everyone earlier (around 6) and she might push bedtime slightly later due to excitement. But overall she will go down for the night pretty easily as she loves bedtime and her sleep haha.

The crowd we are inviting are not crazy young ppl anymore… I don’t foresee any rowdiness at all by anyone nor will I allow it if it happens. Im throwing a very classy dinner with everyone contributing a dish and it being mainly couples. I think it will be about 30 people. I’m mainly nervous about my child being around all adults and no kids… seeing them drinking champagne (I’m restricting the party to only wine and champagne. No hard alc). We don’t drink at home and have never had this around her in any case as our families do not drink. Nor do we want to in the future for personal reasons.

Because she’s so young I know she won’t remember anything yet and she truly will only be downstairs for maybe an hour before I’ll take her to bed. I guess my question is do u guys still have slightly larger friend gatherings around your kids? And for those with a different perspective, do you feel as though being in that environment as young child surrounded by adults was anxiety inducing for you?

I know I’m probably overthinking everything but I’m a ftm so every ounce of regularity I allow myself feels like a crime against my child lol.

1) if we want to be a part of any Friendsgiving festivities we have to host because of her early bedtime and no one has a kid friendly house. It’s a hassle to try and make her adjust elsewhere just to leave at 7pm for bedtime so I’d rather just do it myself.

2) this won’t be a regular thing as we are planning on baby #2 soon and I don’t see troubling myself for this event in the future. It’s most likely going to be our last Friendsgiving for at least 2-3 years until a) other people start having kids so we can adjust the overall timings and b) our kids are all old enough where I can manage hosting again. It’s easy with one toddler.

I have two kids ages 10 and 8. The older they get, the more I desperately wish I had more support. The emotions and problems my kids go through often leave me overwhelmed and not knowing what to do.

Whenever I call my mom and tell her the struggles I've been having she says "Oh they just need to be slapped" or "kids are brats, just ignore them"

My dad is dead and my FIL has severe anger problems so we cut ties. And my MIL lives in a different country and gave up custody of her kids when they were under 7 years old so she doesnt know a lot about raising kids.

I dont have close friends, or friendly neighbors. I feel so alone and that everything is on me and my husband.

Growing up I had grandparents and aunts and cousins to learn from and feel loved by. My kids dont have that...and there is nothing I can do.

Has anyone else been in this situation? did you find therapy for your kids?

My kids, aged 4 and 7, found my dad essentially dead in the floor following a cardiac arrest last week. My 7 yr old acted responsibly where medical providers were able to get his heart started for long enough to get family here to say goodbye.

I appreciate any tips. we are heartbroken.

Are we doing that?

I am looking at applying to jobs but don’t want to get a job without childcare. And don’t want to secure paid childcare without actually having a job yet. My parents work full time and my husbands mom is states away. It would only be part time for me so daycare makes less sense than a nanny so I’m not paying for a whole week and not using it. I have no idea how long it takes to find a reliable and trustworthy nanny in my area?? I’m struggling, halp

I’m not looking for financial help or help finding a nanny. Just need help with the timeline and how to go about this.

I’m going to try and make this short and to the point.

I have 4 kids ages 8, 5, 4, and 1. Before I had my second me and my first only had each other and my world revolved around her. Now she is 8 and she’s been acting out for attention. She doesn’t get as much as she should because I’m always so busy with the younger ones. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before but she doesn’t need all of the help that my younger ones do, which causes me to over look her unintentionally.

My heart is broken for her. She told me that I don’t love her as much as everyone else and when I realized why she said it I couldn’t stop crying. She came home from her friends house came in my room and gave ME a hug and told me it was okay. I told her it wasn’t and how sorry i was over and over. I feel like I’ve failed at being a mom. How does someone not realize that their child isn’t getting as much attention as everyone else? I know that I’m going to get eaten alive in the comments but I have to fix this. Has this happened to anyone else? If it has what did you do to repair the relationship? Obviously I’m going to make sure I give her more attention but I feel like that’s not doing enough. She’s sleeping in my bed with me right now and I just want to wake her up and tell her how much I love her over and over and over. I’m just so sad I let this happen.