Boredom wasn’t a crisis in the ‘90s—this dad’s joke is making moms nostalgic

From being dragged through carpet stores to spending Saturdays in garden centers, millennial parents are remembering a time when boredom wasn’t a crisis—it was just part of growing up.

In a TikTok that’s striking a nerve with exhausted parents everywhere, comedian and dad @mrjackskipper sums it up perfectly:

“Nowadays, you gotta do what your kids wanna do. You gotta keep them entertained. But when I was growing up, you just did what your parents wanted to do. You just had to sort of follow them around… and make your own entertainment.”

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His take is funny because it’s true. No curated scavenger hunts, no Pinterest-inspired playdates—just aimlessly wandering through Dorothy Perkins, hoping your mom’s hairdresser’s kid had a dusty box of toys in the corner. “Trying to help mom look for a size 14 dress… that was the closest I came to a scavenger hunt,” he jokes.

@mrjackskipper Am I right? #relatable #parenting #90s ♬ original sound – Jack Skipper

The comments? A full-on millennial flashback.

• “I was dragged around carpet shops.” — @britnspacecowgirl73
•  “Currys, the tip, Sainsbury’s.” — @harrietbolt
•  “Pop to B&Q with ya dad ” — @mr_s
•  “Following parents around the Garden Centre…” — @steviedaleafc
•  “Falling asleep on a pub bench with jackets on you.” — @traNce

But once the laughter fades, something deeper settles in: a collective realization of how drastically parenting has changed—and what may have been lost in the process.

• “In our house, ‘bored’ was a banned word. If you said you were bored, you got given housework to do… needless to say, I learned to occupy myself.” — @hollymurray
• “We were pawns in our parents’ lives, and now we have to champion our kids’ needs (which is right)—but our needs have been completely skipped!” — @thenobscoachandtherapist
• “My mum only took us to shopping centres on the weekend and I used to find it boring, she never did anything fun like farms, days out etc! It was always a town to mooch around, with my daughter I don’t want her to have those memories” — @Jessica | Motherhood

That TikTok hit me on a personal level—because just last week, I found myself staring down the exact same tension.

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My 7-year-old has been on summer break for four days. In that time, we’ve attended his baseball coach’s team party, splashed at a neighbor’s pool, celebrated a trophy ceremony with post-game ice cream, marked Grandma’s birthday, attended a tae kwon do birthday party, and had an all-day pool fest at the grandparents’—complete with a crocodile water slide they lovingly set up for the kids.

Exhausted is an understatement.

So when my sun-kissed, happily worn-out children got home and flopped on the couch, I thought: Surely, this is rest time. A movie, maybe. Quiet play. Blissful nothingness.

Instead, within five minutes, one of them started to say the dreaded words: “We’re bore—…”

I didn’t even let them finish.

“Oh really? Because I could use help putting dishes away, organizing the closet, maybe tracking down those overdue library books…”

They glanced at each other, then settled in. “Actually… we’re happy to relax on the couch.”

That moment stayed with me. When did boredom become such a problem to fix?

Growing up, my summer days blurred together in the best possible way. There were fun outings, yes—but also endless unstructured hours. I was expected to entertain myself. And in those long stretches of “nothing to do,” I learned to get creative (sometimes to my parents’ dismay, like the time I rigged up booby traps around the house for fun). I tore through chapter books. Made up games with my cousins. Invented, imagined, got weird. And I loved it.

We didn’t have themed crafts or color-coded calendars. But we had freedom. And sometimes, freedom looked like boredom.

I’ll admit—I’m guilty of it too. Of trying to squeeze in as much fun, enrichment, and time with friends and family as possible. Especially when school’s out and the weather is warm, I feel that invisible pressure to make it all count. To fill the calendar with playdates, pool days, birthday parties, family outings—because these are the years, right?

But sometimes, in my well-meaning efforts to make every day feel full, I forget that full doesn’t always mean meaningful. That slowing down is its own kind of gift. And that boredom—that thing we all try so hard to avoid—might actually be the gateway to something even better: creativity, independence, and a little bit of breathing room for us all.

Maybe this summer, we all need a little more blank space.

A little more “Come with me—I’ve got errands to run.”

And a little less pressure to turn every weekend into a memory-making marathon.

Could this be the summer we stop scheduling and start letting go?

source https://www.mother.ly/news/dads-90s-parenting-tips/