Did your summers look like this?

I can’t take the not listening anymore


I hate summer break. We’re one week in and 9 weeks to go. At 9am this morning I started crying. Went to take a shower and locked the door so my 6 year old leaves me alone.

Y’all. He DOeS NOT LISTEN. Not to instructions, not to rules, to to me asking him to do a chore, clean up after himself …. Nothing.

Friday was his first official day of summer break. I took him to a trampoline park. Over the weekend we swam and had a bbq, he got to see his grandparents. Tuesday I took him to an aquarium. Wednesday I took him to a splash park. Today is Thursday and his ten month twin sisters have a dr appointment. I can’t take or do anything fun with him today.

We’re having renovations done to our back master bedroom and everyone’s schedules are thrown off. The workers are here for about ten hours, which is why I’ve been trying to do fun things out of the house.

I’m beat and over it.

My son acts up and frankly, doesn’t deserve all I do for him. He wants more, more, more. More play time, another park, another movie, another game. He’s never been good at independent play. For some reason he never goes to his dad. It’s always me. He’s with me 12 plus hours a day. I need space. He’s more work than my ten month old medical needs twins!!! That’s not even an exaggeration.

I’ve already played in his room today. We built some castle thing with his blocks and then did a party with his stuffed animals. It’s hard to find it “fun” when a baby is crying in the next room and my house is a mess. Laundry, dishes, clutter.

If I go to take a nap in another room, he follows me to wake me up. He HATES when I nap. What he doesn’t see is I was woken up four times last night by one of the twins. Other nights I’m up 7 times. I think I get 3 hours max a night consecutive of sleep.

And so I’m snapping. I’ve cussed at him. Been overly rude. “Why can’t you leave me alone!?” My parents would have already lost patience and slapped me out of pure frustration. He’s bringing out the worst in me. I’m negative. Impatient. Regretting this life.

Are children meant to completely break you?? This feels like a torture tactic.

Will he ever leave me alone ??

EDIT: He’s going to a summer reading program for the entire month of June. From 8am - 12. I’m hoping that helps with his boredom. He’s also going to a one week camp at the zoo in mid July. In the inbetween weeks I’m trying to set up play dates with other moms and their children. I thought about signing him up for karate during the week, but honestly, it feels like another reward for his awful behavior. Money I’m spending, and I’d be the one loading the twins up and driving him around.

https://www.reddit.com/r/breakingmom/comments/1tq8dkt/i_cant_take_the_not_listening_anymore/
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Why do these moos, and it's basically all of them mind you, make themselves a cruise director for the summer? My summers were outside playing w/ kids on the block or by myself as an only child, otherwise my neighbors played w/ their sibs. Why can't today's moos have (and teach) their offspring how to play independently and hopefully somewhat quietly? Did any of you have an event outing every single day of the week? Or anything? As an older teen, I recall some of the young moms sunning themselves everyday while kids played in sprinklers and kiddie pools, that's it.

I think being CF is becoming more popular becz the Breeders have made it 24/7 hands on instead of just 'go out and play', so either birth rate is gonna continue to go down, or the pendulum will finally swing back to free range childhoods(and maybe parents getting stricter so their kids know how to act from a young age, on their own, so not to create havoc or kill themselves while out and about)

Even a moo on one of these Reddits said my mom didnt have me around for 10 hrs of the day, she had it so much better than me as a parent. Well, learn from that. How do these likely educated women not know how to control your day? Sure I'm not a parent, but it is obvious they LET their kids do all this, and rule the roost. Lead the day as the adult, and if they dont follow, put in consequences every time. And, dont have a 2nd or 3rd kid for heaven's sake!

Reading these subreddits is so entertaining I just cant stop. Sounds soooo worth it.

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cfuter
Why do these moos, and it's basically all of them mind you, make themselves a cruise director for the summer?

I'm right there with you on that, too. This part:

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My son acts up and frankly, doesn’t deserve all I do for him.

made me wonder why she has a problem with her kid not listening. He's being a brat? No play time. No parks. No movies. No anything extraneous until he behaves. It really seems like she should be using her willingness to play servant against the little monster.

The only shit I did in summertime as a kid was swimming lessons for four summers in a row so I didn't die in the water and went to the skating rink some weekends. Other than that, it was go the fuck outside and amuse yourself until dinner. I lived in a neighborhood overrun with stray cats, so I was always outside making friends with them. I honestly didn't want or expect adults to play with me because they were usually the ones who interrupted my fun in the first place. I had a bike, sidewalk chalk, coloring books, cartoons/TV, video games, drawing supplies, stuffed animals, there was a playground around the corner. I'd go with my grandma on errands sometimes. My family had a garden a few blocks from where I lived, so I'd occasionally bike down there and pick a couple ripe things to bring home.

If this child is this fucking clingy and needs this much adult attention, it's because Moo made him that way by not letting him do stuff on his own. Duh needs to get off his ass and do stuff with his kid if Moo needs a break. This whole dynamic of her doing it all and him doing nothing happens because she let it happen. It's his damn kid too! Let him take the kid to the zoo and leave him there once in a while! If he won't let her nap, lock his ass out of the room and invest in good earplugs for when he inevitably screams and slaps the door.

And if he's acting like a rotten little shit, he loses privileges. If a trip to the water park or wherever was planned and Bratley cops an attitude, then guess what? No trip! You don't get to be an asshole and have fun. Seven is plenty old enough to understand the concept of "you don't get to do (fun thing) because you were bad."

She said she considered signing him up for karate, but that's just going to be a waste of money. You have to actually LISTEN to the sensei when taking martial arts because that's how you bloody learn. This little fuckstain doesn't listen, so Moo is just going to be throwing money away for Junior to refuse to cooperate with his teacher.

This moo is insane.

When I was a kid, my parents gave me a box and told me to go play. When I was older (8 or 9) I walked to the town pool every day in the summer in my bathing suit, down a busy, county road. It was a drive, but my parents refused to drive me when I could walk. I wasn't the only one; lots of kids were walking to and from the pool, too. Others rode their bikes to the pool. It was that, or go play outside until dark. When I was 12, I had to start mowing the lawn every Saturday afternoon, trim hedges, do the dishes nightly and other chores. The idea of my mother babysitting me and driving me to one activity or another was unheard of. She had her housework to do and I was left to free roam. Only the rich kids went to summer camps, parks, museums and water parks with their mothers or the au pair.

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This moo is insane.

For sure, and in more ways than one.

I see so many of them complaining over on FB (I regret having children) that their kids do not listen. Yeah I get it that kids can try your nerves, but my 1970's parents did not have these kinds of problems. They laid down the law and if I didn't like it, tough titty.

Eat what is served or make yourself a peanut butter sandwich. If you are "bored" have some chores--otherwise go amuse yourself.

Don't touch our stuff--we paid for it and it does not belong to you. If you want your own stuff, go out and earn your own money
to pay for it.

I was in after school activities and sports because I wanted to be, not because someone was watching.
I took the late bus home.

It was a harsh way to grow up in many ways but it taught me self-sufficiency. It taught me how to function in the workplace and in life.

Moos cater to these brats and then they wonder why their lives are a living Hell. Kids will push boundaries--it's just part of it.

I am fortunate that my best friend's kids, who are kind of like nieces and nephews to me, are not pushovers. Their kids, for the most part, are good kids, including two who are on the autism spectrum. They also have only children and they pay appropriate attention to them. One of them is a teacher herself--she teaches 4th grade and she DOES NOT PUT UP WITH ANY SHIT. She CORRECTS her child if he starts acting like a brat. He knows who is in charge and that's that.

It can be done, but it requires a spine.

100% Bell-Flower, 100%

Kids don't listen because there are no consequences for when they don't listen. I was a kid 30 years ago and I still remember plenty of friends who knew when to listen: when Mom started counting to three and got to two, and when she called them by their full legal name. They knew if they kept being shits after hearing those things, they'd get their asses whooped. Sometimes they decided to keep right on acting like retards and got spanked, and then guess what? They didn't do that shit again -next time Mom said "TWO," they knocked off whatever they were doing.

But since discipline now is considered abuse unless it's "gentle" parenting, kids have absolutely nothing to fear. They don't get spanked, they don't lose privileges, they don't get put in time out, they don't get screamed at, nothing. What is the incentive to stop their bad behavior? The belt was the disciplinary method of choice for some parents and there is an entire generation of adults who still cringe if they hear the snap of a leather belt.

Parents completely kowtow to their kids and then bitch about how hard it is. They make it hard on themselves! Instead of telling the fuckers "eat what I made or go hungry," they become short order cooks. Instead of disciplining them when they act up, they want to hug it out and discuss feelings. If the kid has real or Mommy-diagnosed autism, the parents use it as an excuse to not discipline them at all. Autism does not mean no discipline - it just means either more discipline or different discipline. But nope, parents will just do fucking nothing thinking their job ends at making a child and then wonder why their kids are unholy terrors. They don't even potty train them anymore - they send them to school still shitting their drawers figuring teachers will show them how to use a toilet.