AIBU to be upset by an old family friend saying about me: "she does NOTHING and it's a complete waste of her education" (FI I am a SAHM)

[Greythorne]

I was at my best friend's wedding on Saturday. we have known each other since we were 9. Her family is close to my family, we go way back, she asked me to be her matron of honour, all good.

For background, I am a SAHM to two little girls aged 4 and 2, and I used to have a "high-flying" job for a very well-known, trendy company and when most people hear what I used to do, they think, wow, how fab. As did I until I had children and realised that my fab, high-flying job was going to be very difficult (read nigh on impossible) for me to do with kids. NB I say "for me to do" because i know there are colleagues of mine who do the same job as me and have kids very successfully, but we all have our limitations, and I realised I was not going to be able to do both. I am now very happy, staying at home with my girls, doing craft and teaching them to cook and to swim etc. I am also just starting a new business, which is in its very early infancy, but which, fingers crossed, might take off.

So, cut to the wedding receoption. I was in a group of people chatting, when I heard the bride's uncle (who has known me since i was 9, too) asked the bride's mother, "so what does Greythorne do now?"

Her reply: "NOTHING" (almost shouted) followed by, looking at me: "and it's such a complete waste of her education! And when I think of how my generation fought for the liberation of women! It kills me."

I smiled and said nothing. But a little piece of me died inside when I hear women who cannot see a way to support other women's choices.

It has been preying on my mind ever since and my DH is bored with me rabbiting on about SAHMs and feminism being about choices etc.

So, tell me, AIBU to be hurt?

Ealingkate
I did think exactly that! As i mentioned, I have known her since I was 9 and never noticed any overtly feminism in her choices. But, hey ho.

Funny thing is, later on, she was telling me about how pleased she is to be retired now. she was a PE teacher and she said: "you know, for 40 years I never stopped physical work, outside in the freezing cold in winter, outside in the boiling heat of summer, i bloody worked hard and I am so happy to be retired now" without, apparently, realising the irony of her, having hated her job for forty years, she is implying I should have carried on with my job, just because I had been highly educated and owed something for women's liberation, not because I wanted to.

FI, i have always considered myself to be a rather strident confident feminist, so it hurts all the more to be told you're doing NOTHING and you're betraying the sisterhood.

YANBU

I'm in the same situation - or will be when mat leave ends in May and I resign. No one I know can quite believe I'm doing this and I've had quite hurtful comments - more along the lines of 'I can't believe you've turned out to be a good mum when we thought you were such a hard bitten career bitch' which is depressing and really goes to show how much people feel the two can go together.

But not only do I agree with 5dollarshake -education is about more than how much you can subsequently sell yourself to an employer - I also think that I'll need all my skills, experience and knowledge to be a good mother. How could this be anything other than the most important job in the world?

Do you think the later conversation was by way of apology for an ill considered remark she wished she hadn't made?

YANBU I also left very well paid career, great future prospects etc to become SAHM and I have never been so fulfilled and happy in my life! Each to their own and very rude of someone else to suggest otherwise!

I have been asked many times if I am bored and been told "I could never leave work I would be so bored at home" by others - I don't really understand why people think they have the right answer.

YANBU but you "smiled and said nothing"

You muppet! stand up for yourself

I think she's entitled to her opinion as you are yours.

I have been a SAHM for a short while but most of the time I am a FT WOHM with a long hours job.

When I was a SAHM, I was doing nothing with my life, now I am a FT WOHM with a long hours job I am abandoning the children. According to others.

It's just her opinion. Everyone has them. And err that's life. People are annoying buggers a lot of the time.

I can guarantee if you were still in the high flying long hours job, people would be making comments to you about 'when do you see the children' (I get that all the time). or 'I don't know how you manage'.

reggie
it was a wedding reception! did not want to cause a scene!
plus, we live abroad, so this was all taking place in my second language, so it is hard for me to come back with the pithy repliques in my second language

Back in england, and in English, make no mistake, she would have got a charmingly worded but killer retort!

yanbu she made herself sound like an idiot with those comments, its really ignorant. but i do agree with the above comment of why did you just smile and say nothing? you really should have stood up for yourself
but being a sahm is not a waste of an education at all, whats wrong with just educating yourself for the sake of knowledge, rather than for the sake of a job, and your children benefit from having a mother who is educated. i have never really worked and dont have any plans to, bringing up children is as important as working in an office, if not more so. unless you need to work then why not just stay @ home with your dc if you prefer it, perhaps she is jealous

YANBU but some people have a very twisted view of feminism and use it to effectively try to impose some kind of restrictions on the way other women live their lives.

There was a jaw-dropping moment on another thread recently where someone said she was a feminist and it was better that she had a son before a daughter because if she had had a daughter first she would not be able to ask the daughter to help out fetching things for the baby as that would "reinforce gender roles".

As soon as someone uses feminism as a way to tell other people how to live, or to restrict young children developing nurturing and caring skills then you know they are badly on the wrong track!

And your education, life experience wisdom etc. won't be channeled into giving your LOs the best possible start in life??

Does your brain atrophy to porridge because you have been out of the workplace for a few years??

Are you now a totally unemployable individual for the rest of your life??

She is just jealous because you used your intelligence to make a choice that suited you!

YANBU - very stupid thing to say.

I was the first of my family to go to university and my grandparents, parents and pretty much all my relatives told me that there was no point going to Uni because I would only end up having kids and staying at home so it was a waste of time.

Turns out that's exactly what I have ended up doing but I still object to them having tried to make my choice for me.

This is the kind of comment which speaks volumes about how a person feels about their own choices and how their life turned out, veiled as an attack on someone else. That comment was actually all about her - pity her, poor cow.

YANBU - she was utterly bloody rude and out of order.

I can't bear that people think staying at home to bring up your children constitutes "doing nothing" with your life.

I have 2 degrees, worked since I was 15 in various Saturday/holiday jobs and when I had DS at the age of 40, I continued to work in my self-employed role from when he was about 6w old. I have only been a "doing nothing" SAHM since we emigrated - but to be told that I have "wasted my education" would make me see red, I have to say. Since being in this country, I have had a textbook that I co-edited published - hardly a waste of my education, now, is it?

greystone, can see why you didnt bite back in this instance.

Ignore her, I think her generation did have to fight to have a choice, so perhaps as others have said she is a little envious.

Thankfully you had a choice and you made the right one for you.

You should have told her you were liberating another woman from looking after your kids. And that manners cost nothing.

Your dds are still so young, so for that and other reasons I certainly don't agree with your family friend.

Having said that, there are some women I know who do leave me thinking "what a waste". Their choice of course, but it seems a shame.

And it can be very hard to return to work - in some fields being out for 5 years would indeed leave you unemployable and having to start again from scratch.

Definitely one to file under "Hackneyed ways of making women feel bad."

If you were "doing something with your degree, etc." you'd be a Bad Mother.

If you aren't, you're a waste of education.

And you can be like me, doing work in the evening, and the odd hours ... . The perfect solution? No. My mother tells me I'm "destroying the children's lives" because I'm not f/t parenting, and ... another female family member tells me I'm a failure, and if she were looking for an employee, I'm exactly the sort of woman whose CV she'd throw in the bin.

You just go straight on and do what makes you happy. Your life. One and only life, etc., etc.

For some people a mother's place is always in the wrong.

yanbu.
She's a bit of an eejit to take your choices as personal affront

I've never had a high-flying career, am mostly a SAHM (child mind part-time to facilitate the staying at home!) but consider myself a 'success' anyway, and so do my parents who are proud of me.
I'm a strong woman, married to a lovely man, doing a decent job of bringing up 3 daughters. Best of all, I am my own boss :)

I get the "you could have done so much more" comments from my family as I work part time in an office and share the childcare with shift worker DH (because raising happy, secure children is meaningless in society, isn't it?)

Agree with animula we are always in the wrong...

YANBU.

I don't think it was that rude though, I think she was deliberately stirring the pot and looking for a response which she didn't get! She probably wanted the OP to say something back. Anyone who looks you in the eye while making a mischievous comment clearly wants a bit of a to do!

It is annoying when people comment like that though, I give you that.

YANBU. She clearly doesn't know that much about feminism if she doesn't know it's about choice, not being compelled or expected to do something.

YANBU - it's makes me very sad to hear that your friend said that.

Many women (like me) go to uni and have careers but we also choose to be SAHMs.

Good luck with your new venture.

Surely it didn't come as a shock that many people think like that?

Don't worry about it.

If you were still in your career, some bright spark, and certainly many a poster on MN would be very eager to tell you that leaving your baby, to be brought up by someone else, thus missing out on all those precious moments when you could be doing the most important job in the world, makes you a bad Mum.

Tis twattery, both ways.

Dont you think though, that the more bonkers/rude/outrageous the comment, the easier it is to dismiss?

What she said was so out of order I would have laughed in her face.

I find the it harder to cope with the subtle, you sometimes dont realise you have been dissed till you are taking your eyemake up off 3 hours later.
DOH!