Eugh
I hate myself for feeling like this.
It goes against everything I stand for and yet here I am feeling shit about the very situation that I tell others not to feel bad about!
Both my DC have lovely friends. Every single friend lives in a much bigger, grander house than ours.
We live in a tiny semi, 3 bedrooms but the 3rd bedroom is only 9ft x 6ft with the stair box in it so feels even smaller as its got that big dead space in it.
DC are so lucky that they both have lovely kind friends, and that they both receive regular invites round to their houses.
And I make sure to always invite their friends to ours. I facilitate a lot of play dates and sleepovers and always make sure to give them a nice time.
But now my DC and their friends are getting older (9 and 12) I'm starting to feel awkward and uncomfortable about how tiny our house is, in relation to all of theirs.
Our whole house is very, very small.
Kitchen is 7ft x 10 ft. Can't get a table in there. We have no hallway, front door leads straight in to lounge. Tiny garden.
But we live in such a lovely area, it's a village on the edge of an AONB, the schools are lovely and there is a really lovely community here. Basically, we decided this was the area we wanted to bring our DC up in, but we could only buy a tiny house because the house prices here are sky high due to the area. Ours are the smallest houses in the village. At the time, before DC were even born, when we were planning to start a family, we went for location over size, and I stand by it because the location and village itself is providing my DC with a wonderful childhood.
We bought one of the smallest houses in the village. Everyone else that lives in the row of houses the same as ours are retired people. No famies other than us. Our houses are amongst the smallest in the village. We are living in a village of serious wealth. Grand houses. Listed houses. Massively extended houses. Detached houses. Houses with expanses of woods as their back gardens. Even the semis have all been converted to have loft extensions and enormous rear extensions and double story side extensions and have gigantic gardens.
And every single one of their friends lives in these houses.
DC must notice the difference. Of course they must. They don't usually say anything, but last night DD said very coyly that all her friends have gigantic bedrooms compared to hers (she has the weeny box room, only enough room for her bed and 1 single cupboard). She wants a vanity dressing table which all her friends have, but there simply isn't room in her bedroom. It's not a lot to ask for, and I could afford the vanity table, but there's no room.
DS comes home from friends houses and talks about the quad bike he went on in their garden woods, or the pool he swam in in their garden, or the grounds he ran around in at the back of their house, or huge converted loft with ensuite that's been built especially for his friend, fields for gardens, double fronted houses. DD is telling me all about how her best friend is "having her house made twice as big by the builders".
I know anyway, as I'm friends with all the parents.
When DC friends come round, I stand there dying of embarrassment when the mums or dads come round to collect their kids. It's so embarrassing, knowing how huge their homes are. You could pick up the footprint of my whole house and put it in to just their kitchens.
There's no hope of is moving to a bigger house. We do not have the funds. Our mortgage interest rate has doubled this year after our fixed term ended, and we are kicking frantically beneath the surface just to stay afloat financially. Borrowing more money to move or extend is out of the question.
We get invited as a family to other people's garden parties, Sunday lunches, BBQs, fireworks in the garden on bonfire night, etc., where people invite multiple famies round together, and it's lovely for us to be invited, but we can't ever return the invites because we do not have the space, and I do mean literally. I'm feeling very self conscious that they must all be noting that we never invite anyone to ours, and I feel bad about that,cas they're all so friendly and lovely to us.
DH and I both have shitty public service jobs that have had a pay freeze for over a decade.
All these friends parents work in IT, or banking, or they are medical Consultants.
Nobody else has the shit low paying nose to the grindstone professional jobs that we've got stuck with.
We can't retrain, too old (50s), and can't afford the drop in salary to retrain anyway.
What comes in every month goe's straight back out. We budget hard. But COL crisis has hit us hard meaning we've no hope of stepping up the ladder.
No inheritance, parents in social housing with no savings.
I just feel so shit about not being able to provide better and bigger for my DC.
I've tried so hard to better our circumstances for my DC as I came from a single mum with severe MH problems who was on benefits all through my childhood and we lived on the breadline and I had to deal with a lot of neglect.
But my hard work isn't enough. And when DD said last night "I love my bedroom mummy and im not saying I want a bedroom as big as all my friends have but I wish it was bigger so I could have a little vanity dressing table, I'd love that so much...." it stung. Because she can't have one. And I can't provide a bigger room for her.
BTW my DC both have SEN, and both of them are the most lovely, kind, non assuming, calm, happy, gentle, positive, fun, affectionate and truly loving children. I'm absolutely blessed to have them and I support them emotionallyand mentally and practically as hard as I can, I really work hard at being a good mum.
Our home is calm, safe, happy, decorated nicely, I've put my all into making a tiny space nice.
But I'm feeling utterly shit about myself for not providing better for them, compared to all tbeir friends.
And I don't know what to do with these feelings bubbling around inside of my mind and in my chest.