In thinking many modern parents take the easy way out

I'm guessing it means ' Can't be assed '' Elllie

I was in £land today. They had a range of Christmas dressing up sets for £5.00. Yes, they are flimsy, but they will only be worn for a few weeks, but at that price who could make them cheaper?

I am quite competent with a sewing machine and enjoy sewing BUT having to have a full time, demanding job, long hours, bringing work home etc I would have chosen to buy a costume rather than cut into valuable time available to spend with my son. I would say best to keep blanket observations to yourself!

Sorry but what do cba stand for ?

I remember making a wind machine - was informed of the need for one at 8am for a junior science lesson the same day. Luckily there were some paper cups in the garage, some wood and I cobbled one together. And we got to school in time! Seriously though, DD2 works full time and usually brings work home in the evenings. She would be very pushed indeed to have to make costumes for school plays.

When I worked at a First School it used to break my heart to see some kids come in with rather dodgy costumes v the expensively bought ones v the beautifully hand made ones and some of the comments which kids invariably compare each other with.
I spent a looooong time rounding up a few bits and managed to gather together some helpful and creative mums and we made a whole wardrobe that covered everything needed which took the pressure off the mums to make, the pressure off the teachers to convince the kids not to lose the letters and no peer pressure for the kids. It was something I could do and I loved every minute of it and the costumes went on for years.

Ooh Annsixty after 22years of fostering 27 babies I would have loved a machine that made bottles for me, all that time standing in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil and all those scoops I've measured out. To say nothing of the changes in policy over the years that I had to keep up with. I looked up these machines, how fabulous and just what I would have bought. I loved making costumes for the children who stayed with me,we often worked on them together with some bizarre results, multi coloured spots, stripes and squares together, but it was their choice, I just put it together. I so miss the children now, but I grabbed every time saving device going as it gave me more cuddle time.

As a child my Sunday school organised a pageant, all us children were to each represent a country and parade through the streets.
I was chosen to represent Wales. Well my mum couldn't sew but she somehow fashioned a costume and made a pointy hat out of cardboard and black crepe paper. I resembled a cross between Professor Mcgonagall and a bag lady.
To add insult to injury my best friends mum had made her a beautiful red and gold Spanish dress complete with mantilla and castanets.
Just when I thought things couldn't get worse they did. It began to rain and my pointy hat disintegrated and the black dye from the crepe ran down my face rendering me looking more like a child from the tropics rather than the valleys.
So good luck to all those mums who can either sew or can buy these outfits.

I get my DIL's Facebook requests occasionally - 'Help, has anyone got Batman costume/football boots/ angel wings/ icing sugar etc etc for tomorrow morning'. Often there are lots of 'offers'. She works full time, and I am really impressed by the way these young mothers help each other out, but equally annoyed by the schools that make these demands. I was a stay at home mum but don't remember being asked to produce all this stuff at a moments notice. (Except for one occasion when supposed to produce fresh fish for a cookery lesson on Monday morning. No Sunday opening then.)

Needless to say that despite working in their business full time, she always made costumes for her own three when they were small. My input was never required!!!!!!!

My DD is excellent with her needle! I am not!! From an early age, about seven, she would help to make any outfit that was required for various events, including ones for her brother! Between us we did pretty well! Without her help it would have been a disaster!

My two GDs aged 6 and 8 have several ready made dresses of various cartoon characters, like Elsa and Cinderella. When they came and stayed with me last summer, I dragged out several of my older dresses, scarves, hats and costume jewellery. They had great fun dressing up and mix and matching their outfits. It's up to us grandparents to show them what a bit of imagination can do. I stayed at home with my children until school started, then went part time and full-time. My MIL took her Maternity Leave then straight back to full time with an hour's journey either side. She has no choice. My little girls have wonderful parents but very busy ones. We were luckier.

I made a lot of fancy dress costumes when dds were small, but then I didn't go back to work until my younger was 5, and then only very P/t.
Things are very different for my dd - two very little ones, both under 3, AND working 4 full days a week in a very demanding job, which she cannot afford to give up.

There are plenty of calls on any spare time and energy she may have -I don't suppose she'd even think of trying to make costumes when they're so often available in charity shops for so little. I think she found a lovely Halloween outfit for her elder for about £2.

Sorry but I do wish I could have spent a tenner instead of loads of time which I didn’t have making costumes . I worked with both my children in our own business, taking them with me to work from being babies and anything that made life easier I jumped at! I dont think today’s parents take the easy option, just the sensible one, leaving time to do something they and their children find more pleasurable.

I agree with many posters here. I'm surprised at the number of occasions my daughter has to provide an outfit for my grandson. Yes, it was a spotted costume a week or so ago. I can see that if you have several children this can become a very stressful situation. Most schools have a PTA. Surely, parents need to voice their concerns to the Head if it's all getting too much. They do have a say.

It's interesting that no one here, that I can see, has mentioned anything about dads running up a quick outfit for the Nativity play. It all falls on mums, it seems. Food for thought.

There have always been in variety of lifestyles. Isn't it a little arrogant to think people should still live the way one poster in particular did things decades ago. I imagine that around any one person, whether it be way back when or now parents will be parenting in different ways.

The odd one would have had a nanny - who I imagine did the potty training - now we have more parents who can make use of shared nannies, child care, and even one offs like potty training, etc. Some will have leant over the fence and gossiped about how everyone around them behaved - others probably didn't notice or were not so judgemental.

I expect there are still some who gossip and some who don't. But that is all this is. A 'Psst, have you seen what she does' comment. Except the OP is happy to be able to enjoy the changes in society which allow her to enjoy that gossip on a large forum instead of over a fence or over a cup of tea so obviously progress is something to enjoy when it suits you.

willsmadnan

I agree with you that the current situation is sad and that too often, money becomes the only expedient solution.

The real reason is that we live in a time where it's no longer safe for children to play independently, the way we did once upon a time.

It's also true that this is a First World problem. In today's highly competitive environments, education, high marks and well rounded skills and talent, are being given more attention than ever before. Today's parenting requires an inordinate amount of ferrying to numerous activities, a lot of parental intervention and plenty of adult supervision. Almost every waking hour in the life of a child has to be watched and monitored, whether it be a parent, teacher, coach, instructor or somebody else's parent.

Many children today are also being raised by a single parent. When a mother has to work outside the home, the logistics become more demanding still. Indeed, it was lovely when mothers had time to sew, read or bake cookies, while the children played outside (for hours), but alas, those were much simpler times and sadly, they are gone now.

I was on the receiving end of a Mum who 'made everything' for school plays and I have never forgotten coming home and telling her I was to be Mary's Little Lamb in the school Christmas play. There I was, dreaming of wearing a pair of new white tights, black shoes, white shorts and a long sleeved white t-shirt with a very cute and cuddly little lamb face mask. No - Mum set to work with a white hearth rug she cadged from someone, a couple of metal coathangers and two large plastic dolls eyes left over from a long gone dolly. She did produce a very realistic lamb head, it weighed a ton and I am sure gave some of the smaller children who watched the play nightmares. It was a pig of a thing to wear as well, made me so hot! After that I was only ever given parts in the choir - I think even the teachers were taken aback at my Lamb head! I did make costumes for my two children, we did skeletons for Halloween one year and they both wore black leotards and tights with white paper bones tack stitched on to them. Never attempted anything in the realms of Mum's handiwork though! My daughter mixes and matches - she buys some bits and we make other bits of costume ourselves -but I usually do any sewing needed

I wonder though why the schools wouldn't ask the parents to recycle and donate the costumes so that the children could use them again the following year. This would save the others mothers a lot of time and money, shopping or making more outfits year in and year out. I am sure they would appreciate having the costumes provided very much.

I don't know how parents of young children cope these days. Often both working they have to fit in dropping kids off at school breakfast clubs, do a days work, pick them up again, feed them and take them to various after school activities let alone coping with illnesses, very young babies and heaven knows what else! If supermarket costumes are available for a few pounds that's surely a good thing. I don't actually remember ever making a costume for either of my sons - both were shepherds at infant school and the youngest was a chimney sweep when he was about 11 but the school must have supplied the costumes. Neither went to after school activities - they came home and played with their toys or when they got older with (a very early) computer or in the case of the youngest sitting in the garage bashing away on a £10 drum kit (stood him in good stead as he's made a career of that) I do remember him frequently informing me on cookery morning that he needed ingredients for some such dish - one particular day we both stood in the pantry looking at the sparse array of tins having hysterics over nothing at all - pure hysteria lol.

My daughter is a f/t teacher with a 6 year old and one at 16 months. My SiL works from 5 30am to 4.30pm. When the kids are fed, bathed and in bed she starts marking/prep. She would love to be able to stay at home and be an old fashioned mum but doesn't have a choice! I find this post thoughtless and blinkered

Pleased to say DGC's school keep all the Nativity clothes in store from year to year, saves parents a lot of hassle. Of course not everybody made the costumes but in the past there did seem to be more people able to do it. Having said that DD's seem to be quite inventive on occasion.

I remember standing at the school gate with the other mums waiting to hear what role our children had been allocated in the nativity. Mary, Joseph, Angel, shepherd or king- easy, but the dread of having to make a costume for a sheep, donkey or camel was met by all mums with a heavy heart. Oh to have been able to pop to the supermarket for a ready made outfit, lucky mums today.

" If they can afford the easier option who can blame them, and if it leaves a bit more time for cuddles and play it’s win win."

Hmmm.
I am thinking out loud really but frozen pastry does not equate to more time for cuddles and play - does it?

I think some of us are going down the ad man's 'happy family, mum dad, two kids, (one of each, natch) holding hands and grinning like idiots as they visit B&Q' road. Sick bucket please.

Spare minutes aren't for getting out the tin foil and sticky back plastic and become engrossed in our children, in reality - they are for cleaning windows, grabbing a cup of coffee and for flicking through a mag.

Let's not paint any parents as paragons of virtue just because they have a ready made costume to hand. They aren't necessarily better, more involved mothers. It's the equivalent of using the ghastly "yummy mummy" phrase.

It's nice to have time saving measures to hand, always, but they do not necessarily mean child care improves or becomes top quality. Realism rules.