Mom Says She Enjoys Sleeping in Because She Tells Her Kids “No” Every Time They Ask to Play With Her

Mom and TikToker KC Davis (@domesticblisters) says that she's established a "culture" in her home where adults don't play with toys, or pretend, with her children.

She says that while she spends time with them and engages in activities with them, she's able to sleep in on a weekend or read a book and eat Indian Food in bed because of this no-play rule.

KC says that she was able to get to this point of having her kids not rely on or turn to her for entertainment due to constantly telling them "no," practice that one X user found "sinister" after referencing the way KC "mock[ed]" her children asking her to play with them.

"I can already hear the hate comments on this video but I'm gonna give you this precious parenting information anyway. The reason that I have children who are four and six that let me sleep in on a Saturday because they'll just go play the reason I can go and read a book while they play that they're able to play independently is because I just said no to them every single time they asked me to play with them for years," KC says in her initial video about her controversial approach to playing with her kids.

She continued to explain why she's not a fan of playing with her children and what she meant by her aforementioned statement: "And eventually they stopped asking and just went off and played. Oh my God, what a horrible parent you don't play with your kids! Simmer down. Hear what I'm saying not what I'm not. I'm not saying don't spend time with your kids. I'm not saying don't be playful with your kids."

"I'm not saying don't connect with them, okay? I'm saying that I established a culture in my house that adults do not play with toys. Adults do not pretend play. I bake with my kids. I do art with my kids. I go on walks with my kids. We go to the museum with my kids. We just got done making a scale model of The Solar System together because they said they were interested in planets," she says, flipping the camera around to show the model in question to her viewership.

"Then my husband set up...science experiments for them in the shower and they're now doing that by themselves. We just ordered some Indian food when they get out of the shower I'm gonna probably get in bed and read a book and eat some Indian food with their Dad and they will be expected to just play, like kids," she says into the camera.

"But nobody tells you that the way that you get there is by saying no...a lot. And they're sad about it and they're mad about it, please Mommy play with me and you feel like you're the worst parent in the world for saying no to them and hurting their feelings but I can tell you..." the video cuts out at this point.

There were tons of different reactions to KC's video, there were some folks who defended the mom and said that they, too, don't ever recall playing make-believe with their parents when they were growing up but remember spending time with them and having fond memories with their non-playing folks.

Others said that she was being completely "reasonable" about her approach that kids will always find ways to "entertain themselves especially if there are other kids around," and that adults shouldn't be shamed for having their own lives.

However, some users took issue with what she said, with one user stating it's because of the stance that she took against playing with her children that more kids can't read these days.

Numerous other X users said that they played with their parents all of the time and had a great relationship with them as a result of it. Someone else darkly joked that when she's older and in a nursing home and asks her children to come and see her they're going to keep telling her "no" until she will eventually need to entertain herself.

KC responded to some of the criticism she received from her initial video, stating that she had a great relationship with her own mother who took nearly the same approach to child rearing with her when she was a kid.

"Let me just share with you despite how controversial this take has been, and how, very strong feelings have behind it, I am just doing what my mom did. Okay? My mom, I don't have a single memory of my mom playing pretend with me or playing with toys with me. But she is my best friend till this day," the TikToker stated in her clip.

She continued, "I remember my mom as the best mom in the world. I remember her building forts with me, I remember she built a whole outdoor fort underneath a staircase and helped me decorate it with paint and chalk. I remember a time we found a pig outside and brought it home and made a mud pit for it because that's what we thought we were supposed to do."

KC shared even more fond memories of the times she spent with her mother as a child. "I remember wanting to know the lyrics to 'A Whole New World' and she sat with me for an hour while we listened to it on VHS and rewound it over and over and over while she wrote down all of the words"

"I remember my mom taking me to playgrounds, I remember my mom comforting me. I remember my mom tickling my back. I remember my mom having this little thing when I was younger where she would say like the tickle monster's coming and she would go and tickle me. I remember my mom reading books to me and taking me to Art Festivals and being a generally attuned to my emotional needs."

"So I'm fairly confident I am not f----- my kids up. Because, all of the people that talk about how awful and traumatic it was for their parents to not play for them, always have this weird post-script at the end where they're like well they also...beat me. Like, something else horrible but she also ignored me all day and it's like okay well I had an experience of a parent that was very engaged and it was not traumatic that she didn't play pretend," she says at the end of the clip.