Older relatives not understanding WFH...

This is not a very kind response. I am sure Fromthestart is very aware that many people have difficult relationships with their Mothers. She is missing the sense of family that I think most of us are fortunate to have experienced.

How lovely 🥰

I have a mum and she would never ever call me , even less ask how I am. She will however use me as an unpaid pa and admin assistant and, until I trained her out of it would also expect me to drop everything if she’d got a letter she couldn’t be arsed to read . I’ll point her in your direction?!

I don’t WFH but I have a chronic illness so I’m not always up for coffee & chat. My solution is a Ring doorbell which I ignore if I’m not feeling up to it and I just don’t answer calls/texts when I can’t engage in conversation.
As long as your WFH office isn’t next to your front door, I would say this would work in this situation. If someone says why didn’t you answer/text back just say you were working. They’ll soon catch on!

@FormerlyPathologicallyHappy

I do love her very much,but we certainly couldn't live together. When I was a child, I assumed that once I grew up I'd understand what it was that adults needed to do for 20-30 minutes before leaving the house, after being purportedly ready to leave. I thought it was some sort of mysterious but necessary adult business which we kids just had to wait in the car/by the door for.

It's not! It's faffing! Its literally just faffing! When I'm ready to leave I just leave! 😂

Oh God you’ve just reminded me of the time my mum’s boyfriend, who didn’t live with her, arranged to have something delivered to her house so that I could go there and receive it for him. They didn’t tell me about it until the morning of delivery and just assumed I’d do it no bother. I was absolutely fuming and it caused a big row!

Oh Yes. So relate to this.
At the other end of the spectrum, my 92 Yr old dad thinks everyone WFH is a slacker, particularly public sector employees. He of course has no concept of endless Teams messages, calls and meetings, plenty of assigned deliverables and tasks that can't be shirked, and the absence of a "leaving time".
And then he merrily tells me about his 3-4 hr boozy lunches in the Good 'Ol Days.

My neighbour “ you’re basically a SAHM now” um. No. I am working.

I sympathise (to a point!) with both sides. I'm a pensioner in my 70s, mum to 2 adults DDs (one with teenagers herself) who both often work from home. I had a career myself that involved a lot of home working and tho my DM didn't ring me whenever she met me she would ask when I was getting a proper job!

I respect my DDs need to be "in the office" whether they are at home or not (and their need to work late - one DD communicates a lot with people on the other side of the world hence in the middle of the night!) but over the past few years I've felt a bit envious of other grans whose offspring are more available. Guess I'm a bit lonely at times. But I haven't got to the stage of ringing them unless I have to - usually I send a text if it's something more urgent and wait for them to get back to me.

I'm surprised your "older" parents don't remember being busy themselves at a similar stage in their lives.

Exactly the same life. Completely identify.

What a lovely post. I’m glad you, your son and DIL have found what works for you.

My DH says when i"m wfh, he says sure your off tomorrow no im wfh.

In fairness, if they are already dead, there’s not much you can do about it now, so you might as well finish your work

I suspect people who think like that have the belief that because working from home means you are not under the watchful eye of the manager, you have the opportunity to take a few minutes off the job when you feel like it therefore everyone MUST be doing that. Probably a case of judging others by their own standards. Someone's opinion of me who has never met or interacted with me is irrelevant and can be ignored if I so choose.

I think it is more that some older people have been retired for so long and don't have much to do in their life, they have forgotten what it means to have commitments and responsibilities. Some people can also be very inward looking and project their world onto everyone else; I have free time today therefore so does my son/daughter so I'll pop round for a coffee.

I have a friend who is like this. She’s had various part time jobs and is now a mature student, but for a long time she would send me texts asking if I was free to meet for coffee/ have lunch/ watch her dogs/ sit in her house and wait for furniture deliveries! During Covid my mum would complain I never phoned her which was terrible as I was furloughed. I was working from home with a small child: it was awful. I explained I wasn’t furloughed, but working from home. She was like “it’s the same thing”. Arrgghh. She gets it now. Even the evri delivery man gives a very short ring of the doorbell to alert me to his presence and then he pops the package in the safe place

My mum used to be like this even when I worked in an office.

She would ring, ask me where I was, and when I'd say, "It's 3pm, I'm at work, and will be for another three hours...." she would respond with outrage.... "What! Do they want blood out of you? Ridiculous!".... weird because she has often worked long hours herself.

Now I work for myself from home and most people still don't get it.

Maybe your neighbour has very early or late work calls. Maybe they have periods of working 14 hrs days and so makes the most of quieter periods.
Unless your neighbour has said "I am being paid when I am not working ha ha ha, aren't I smart" you have no idea.

I'm the same as you OP, self employed and working from home. When there's a deadline, I can't stop. My MiL still goes on about the time she called from the airport and expected me to pick her up then and there because she knew I was home. I was like, why don't you call your son who is also working but in an office? Of course she wouldn't. DH was a bit like this too before Covid and he got a full taste of WFH meant work, not hanging about so I could assist someone!

There are many types of WFH in my experience, especially if you are an employee rather than self-employed. Take my neighbour, washing the car, walking the dog, runs to the shop, it is no wonder so many companies are reigning it all back in to get back to productivity!!

Mine seem to find it a new frontier to wfh they listen with interest when it’s mentioned.

I feel my dad would have taken to it because he had an office job. I think though my mum would have hated it because it would mean he would have been home all of the time.

Pillow over the face 😃

Different scenario but for me relatives seem to find it difficult to understand working nights involves sleeping in the day despite my doing it for 20 plus years.
DM will ring while I’m asleep then when I return call she’ll act surprised that I was still in bed at midday. It leaves me exasperated and I’m sick of explaining that my sleep is as important as a day worker sleeping at night 🤬

I have a remote job too that is very stressful. My children understand that they can't disturb me (unless of ourselves it's an emergency) but I would give anything to have a mum call me and ask how I am. I have no family and my mum died when I was a teen. Before that she struggled to parent due to significant mental health problems. I feel in my adult life like there's always something missing and I think it's that sense of family.

Excellent username 😁