[TheOnlyPink]

On the really crappy and stress-filled days, me and my husband love to plan and dream about when the kids are all grown up. The places we are going to visit, what it will be like to stay in bed till 9.30am at the weekends, eating out wherever we want, not just the places that have a good kids menu, reading an actual newspaper again (i used to love the sunday papers, now i dont have time!) etc....


Do you and your partner plan for when the kids are all grown up and out on their own?
What kinds of things do you like to dream about?


(i just want to add, i dont mean to sound like i'm wishing their lives away. I love being a mom and everything that goes with it. This is ment as a lighthearted thread! )

[*Kiliki*]

honestly i hate thinking about my kids being grown up and out of the house makes me sad...i want them to stay kids forever!! everything seems to be going by so fast as it is!!

[3OhioBoys]

I'm with you Robyn. DH and I are young enough that we will still have a lot of time to enjoy things and just be together once the kids are grown. I think dreaming like that is part of staying in love with your partner.

[youngwoman]

Yep, we do daydream and say, "Someday, we'll..." Very similar to what you described, Robyn - restaurants we can try because they're fancier and not kid-friendly, spending the whole day lounging around the house, taking a trip somewhere just the two of us, etc. I love being a mom but I also love/miss alone time with my husband.

[LoveMySonshine]

I daydream sometimes about what I'll do, but since I'm not happy with SO and know we aren't going to last, he isn't involved in the fantasy

[lapoema]

Sometimes DH talks about getting a condo on the beach... but that's more his dream than mine. I am too busy stressing about what I'm going to do with myself when youngest is in school, to think that far ahead. (I don't really like being a SAHM)

[MidgeMadge]

Sure we do!

Call me a terrible mother, but I never ever liked the baby stage. So, it's been wonderful to enter the more "older" years, especially this past one where Alexis went to school and I could watch her learn sooooo much more.

Because we have an only child, I think it's even easier to envision parts of the future- because she's the only one that needs to grow up! (and no, I'm definitely not rushing it. But, we DO look forward to the future).

I always tell DH I wanna retire us to NYC. I wanna live in Manhattan. We can afford to live there sans child because we wouldn't need the space. He best make it happen, lol.

[ShawnaCAN]

We're both pretty sure that when the kids are grown we're still going to be pretty busy - with the grandkids! Helping babysit, going to their soccer games, etc. I'm sure we'll do lots of interesting things alone too, but we try to make a few opportunities for that now anyway. We're able to get away overnight a few times a year, we took a trip to Portugal and Spain last summer for our 10th anniversary (not that we plan to leave the kids that long again anytime soon!) We tend to think more about the things we want to do with the kids when they are a bit bigger.

I don't really like waiting for "someday" to do things. Not that daydreaming about it is bad (not at all!!!) but I think because a few people in my life have taken it to such an extreme that it just bothers me to do it myself.

My Mom was always talking about all the things she would do "someday" and that day never came for her. Most of those things she could have done along the way if she'd really wanted to! She wasted a lot of years missing out on happy times that were right in front of her.

DH's Grandpa was the same. He had so many plans for their retirement, but then Grandma got MS and was too sick to do any of it. He's spent those years looking after her. They worked incredibly hard all their lives and never spent anything on themselves, saving up for retirement. He's been so bitter and resentful about it ever since. I think, was it worth it? Why not have enjoyed things a little more along the way you know?

[Momof4Boyz]

Yep, we do this a lot actually. Like you said, not really wishing it away just thinking of how different our life will be then. Honestly we'll probably be horrible depressed when the time is here and be the annoying parents who always are around lol. But I do look forward to husband-wife time like going to the beach and walking down the shore line without chasing a toddler or pulling sand out of a baby's mouth. Dinner out without having to eat super fast because you know you only have X amount of time before everyone has a meltdown. We also talk about how much some of that stuff drives us crazy but how much we're going to miss it once it's over.

[-Bailey-]

Well my life as a mother has just begun, so I'm nowhere near dreaming of it being 'over' [not that it ever is. But when we have all our kids and they are all grown up] I also don't like to think about that far into the future, there is still so much more we need to accomplish first.

DF on the other hand has NO concept of time. We are going to live with my parents for awhile so DF can go to school and we can save for a house...and he already tells me constantly to look at houses...as if we can buy one soon.
So he has dreams of sailing all over the world, or moving to Ireland, or a million other fantasies of what he wants to do later in life.

[LindsayMom09]

I honestly don't think we have ever openly talked about the future like that. Once or twice we may have said "When Harvey is older and married we will...." but when I really think about my darling little boy married I just wanna cry! I want him to stay my little boy forever <3