The culture of competitive "I have it so hard"....

[onelittlefish]

I have just been looking at the WOHM vs SAHM thread. I have also been talking to friends about what they do. It seems as though everyone has it so hard nowadays. In fact, it is not so much that everyone has it so hard - it is that everyone competes for the I have it so much harder than you accolade.

I am bowing out of the competition - I am lazy. My DH takes the children until 8 every morning and I give them to him at 5:30 every evening for their tea - we put them to bed together at 7.

A friend of mine is dying. She's in her early 30s and her child is not yet 2. When I'm feeling sorry for myself (and we've had a tummy bug this week so I had many hours of feeling sorry for myself whilst staring down the loo) I do try to remember that.

keyano - I think your girl wins the competitive misery competition.

However, my friend who has a cleaner and a nanny complained the other week that it was really hard being a SAHM and looking after one child.

Maybe this should be a new competition!

Ooh I love a bit of competitive misery on MN.

I appear to live a charmed life, it has the usual minor irritations but on the whole they are just that, minor. As us most of the bitching on those sorts of threads.

It is hard being me, you can send donations if you like.

MummytoKatie - how awful. My thoughts are with you (and your friend) - I can't imagine how hard it would be to watch a friend and her family suffer. Do you mind me asking what is wrong with her?

I do as little as possible to get by tbh.

Very sensible usual, I find having quite low standards in most things result in quite a happy outlook.

MummytoK so so sad.

The trouble is that people sometimes have the habit of heaping the hardship line onto you...oh, 3 DC's, my goodness, that must be soooo hard, you must be exhausted, bla bla. It is hard work at times (the oldest is 4), but compared to how hard life has been in the past this is pretty ok.

I always thought that 3 DC's aged under 3 was the bench mark for hard, then a thread appeared on discussion of the day about 3 DC's under 5 being super hard, I thought I had it pretty all right (not quite easy, but, you know, not THAT bad) but that thread made me wonder!

Everyone round me tells me how hard it must be for me. If I don't agree I feel like am being competitive. It is hard a lot of the time. But isn't it for everyone?

Partner who doesn't pull their weight?
Job?
Stuck at home?
Money?
No childcare?
Single parent?

And so on. I am happy for my peers who are t trying to run the show single handed, I don't expect a pat on the back, really thought situation normal until women who I thought were in exactly the same situation as me started congratulating me on how well I was doing, when in fact I felt like a total fraud.