To envy my sister's freedom?

being a mum is everything to me

Focus on that. Because that means that you can’t, by definition, jet off on your own on a spontaneous last minute trip. You need to plan childcare, even if that’s just agreeing logistics with their dad. But everything in life comes with its own pros and cons. Your sister’s choices give her certain “pros” and this freedom is one of them. But focus on the “pros” of your own life and own choices and try not to dwell too much on the downside.

I think the family holiday is a bit of a sacred cow on MN. You don't have to have a family holiday all the time. You can go off on a solo

Yes very good points! It's easy sometimes to focus on the not so fun bits (hence the bleakness comment),

I can look at people with kids and think ‘they’re having fun’ and smile, but that doesn’t mean I think it would be fun for me.

I’m not sure why that’s bleak for you though. You might look at me playing with my cat or eating lunch out solo & think that wouldn’t be fun for you - it doesn’t change the fact that I’m enjoying it.

Parents can travel all over the world if they have a decent partner and of course money. I have.

Why is it bleak for you?

I'm childfree by choice and love my life. I never have a moment of 'that looks like fun' looking at parents/kids because to me, it doesn't look fun.

But that doesn't mean you're not having fun, we just have different ways of enjoying life.

I enjoy hiking all over the world, but to lots of people that would be their idea of hell!

@user39501790

How about the effects of other people's decisions. Are those a result of our own choices too.

If a man chooses to break my flat's door down, SA me and stab me to death, by your logic, it's purely the result of my choice to rent this property/not go out that night/be home alone. Fuck all to do with his choice to commit a crime?

What about random chance.

What about the limitations of poverty.

What about the limitations of locality or it's laws. You say if you get pregnant, termination is one choice. There are still plenty of places where it is not.

What about being born with a physical disability. You appear to make minor exceptions for the mentally disadvantaged but not the physically impaired.

What about plain old human interaction. One can't go around choosing for everyone else who is involved in our lives.

You are essentially victim blaming every, mentally well, human being who ever had something shitty happen in their lives.

Mums can have solo holidays. I have been having them since my DD was seven months old and got off the breast. DH looked after her for the weekend. And I returned the favour.
You don't have to do family holidays until they are 18.Assuming you have a co-parent.

It's a bit bleak for people with children if people without children never think 'that looks like fun' about any aspect at all, ever-

I don’t. Sorry if that makes people’s life bleak but I really don’t!

I felt the same about a well-dressed woman with a high-end shopping bag yesterday. It would be so nice to buy lovely things for yourself.

I had gone shopping the previous day to buy cheap shoes for the kids and realised when I got home that I had snot on my shoulder from the 2yo. Of course my 2yo is adorable and loves her cheap unicorn shoes.

I kind of see what you mean in theory but real life isn’t like that.

What about if you have a career you love and plan to travel but then your dad dies, your mum has an illness that leaves her disabled and then gets cancer with no one to care for her? You might choose to look after your mum because you love her but the choice wasn’t influenced by any decisions you made.

Then what if you work hard in that career and save money and still plan to travel after your parents died but get made redundant and then the world goes into lockdown and you end up living off savings and struggle to find another job you love
because it was a niche position and you end up in debt?

What if you have a happy marriage with someone from another country who ends up having to return to his family because his parents are dying but it’s not a country safe for you to travel to and live in. What if you end up alone in your late thirties when you always wanted children and assumed it was on the cards for both of you then find out you have early menopause?

What if you have a great career, a happy marriage and you end up having an accident that leaves you paralysed and your husband leaves you, you end up out of work and left to survive on benefits with your adult children caring for you?

All those scenarios are ones that have happened to me and close friends. I don’t see how “stacked up bad decisions” led us to any of it.

A lot of life is luck, you can make all the right decisions but sometimes things happen that change everything and it’s nothing to do with being “mentally well”.

Statements like yours make people who try and try in life but keep getting knocked down feel like they failed when they did everything they could with the cards they were dealt.

I actually think you are lucky for living a life where you haven’t had the chance to understand this yet. I hope your life continues in this way but have some compassion for those who haven’t had the same opportunities.

Ha fair enough. Probably just trying to make myself feel better.

Gosh I really did not mean to be at all disdainful to childfree women. I was just basing that a couple of friends very happy to be child free with very fulfilling lives who sometimes like to enjoy more kid focused activities with us/our kids as well (and like to leave at the end of the day).

It's a bit bleak for people with children if people without children never think 'that looks like fun' about any aspect at all, ever.

Why can't you have solo holidays?

Or not. I’m child free by choice and I’ve never envied my siblings for having kids. 😂

Or maybe this woman is someone you know nothing about and it’s comments like this that genuinely make me believe women with children have a distain towards childless women. It’s very much a superior attitude.

When I lived alone the comments I’d get were horrible “but aren’t you lonely on your own?” And “that house is too big for just you”.

Thank you! Such a weird comment and outlook on life.

OP I’m not going to put down your sisters life like some others have. Ultimately you will be envious of other people at times and people will be envious of you at times. And those are perfectly valid feelings.

Do you have a partner? Can you and your partner take turns staying home with the children, so you can both have solo holidays?

Even if she didn't have children through her own choice she probably has fleeting moments of envy of you and your family.

@user39501790 But our choices are constrained by the circumstances of our lives. If I get pregnant accidentally my options are narrowed to three, and I'll be stabbing in the dark when I make my choice, because how do I know in advance if it's a 'bad decision' or not? Perhaps I can make an informed choice if I'm reasonably intelligent, understand myself, and have some wisdom and experience of the world. But what if I'm a 16-year-old victim of lifelong abuse? Am I equipped to make sound decisions? Has anyone ever taught me how? Do I even know what it feels like to have agency over my life?

Where we end up is largely down to luck - 'There but for the grace of God go I'.

@TreesWelliesKnees
^^
'Every mentally well adult has the life they choose. 100s and 100s of decisions over years have led you to where you are today. So your situation is your choice. If you have serious envy, then that may mean you've made a series of stacked up bad decisions that have led to a place you don't want to be in.'
Really? You think people never end up in a life they didn't choose? Or if they do that means they aren't 'mentally well'? Wow.

Yes I do. By the phrase mentally well - I meant not suffering from some intellectual disability that affects intelligence so that they have no real opportunities in life to learn and get and education.

It's absolutely true. Everyone chooses their own path whatever their circumstances.

Of course everyone faces accidents and adversity but how you deal with that is your own choice.

You can choose to work hard at school or smoke round the back of the bikesheds and bunk off. You choose who you are willing to even go on a date with let alone entertain a relationship with.

Once you discover your partner is a bastard/drug user/cheat/alcoholic you can choose whether to stay or to leave.

You get pregnant - you can choose whether to have the child, terminate it or give it up for adoption.

If you choose to get married and have children, you know that you are choosing a life that may put you in a position of being a single mother - it's a risk because men leave, men die unexpectedly. But the underlying choice to have children puts you on that path. If you don't want to take that risk, don't have children.

No matter what life throws at you - barring an intellectual inability to learn and attain education - you choose your path every day a million times a day.

What you eat, whether you exercise, which jobs you apply for, whether you give up, whether you keep trying.

Whatever you are doing today, it is a thousand choices you have made over your life that put you there. If you didn't like any of it at any point you could have chosen to do something else. If you really think that is not true, it is a sign you aren't taking responsiblity for your own situation.

This is fair. You chose your life as your sister chose hers.

There's nothing wrong with envy. It's just a feeling of 'Ooh, you lucky bugger, I wish I could do that...'. Don't we all feel like that from time to time? It's different to jealousy, which is more like 'She's a fucking nasty cow, she doesn't deserve a holiday, why can't I have one...'.

@user39501790
'Every mentally well adult has the life they choose. 100s and 100s of decisions over years have led you to where you are today. So your situation is your choice. If you have serious envy, then that may mean you've made a series of stacked up bad decisions that have led to a place you don't want to be in.'

Really? You think people never end up in a life they didn't choose? Or if they do that means they aren't 'mentally well'? Wow.

Can your husband or partner look after the kids one weekend so you can go away to catch up with friends, book a solo night in a hotel somewhere nice or just go out locally? I did this occasionally when my children were little and so did one of my friends, you can do the same for him another weekend.