To think this colleague could be a SAHM if she wanted to be

[doingthesplitz]

I work part time and a woman I work with is always sighing and saying 'Oh you're sooo lucky you get to stay at home with your children.' Oh, I'd love to be a stay at home mum', 'oh sigh' 'oh woe' etc.

I have every sympathy with mothers who would love to stay at home but can't afford to, and equally no problem with mothers who would go demented at home and prefer to go out to work.

But this woman, constantly moaning about 'having to go to work' is taking the whole family to Florida this Summer, drives an expensive car, arrives in every monring with a takeaway latte in hand, buys her lunch every day at a costly deli down the road, and thinks nothing of spending a hundred quid on a hand bag or a pair of shoes. It's her money, she can do what she likes with it, but I'm fed up of her doing a martyr act and making out I'm much luckier than her. No, I'm not. We will be sharing a house in the country with my sister and her family for our Summer holidays; we drive an old car; I make my own sandwiches for work and have never owned a really expensive bag or pair of shoes. That's why I can afford to work part time.

AIBU to think this woman enjoys coming to work but just wants to make out it's a huge sacrifice to get sympathy and attention?

I agree mrslyman.

I know lots of people who work harder than me, are cleverer than me or make more sensible life choices but they have less .

Arisbottle.

I guess we are all different, I don't believe luck has anything to do with life choices.
To me if you see life in terms of luck it detracts from so many other variables that need decisions, choices, negotiation, compromise etc.

I not saying that hard work, sensible choices etc don't matter. If you just rely on luck you are stuffed.

But luck is a factor, that does not mean I rely on it. It just means that when things work out I don't necessarily think that is because I am more worthy than those who don't share my good fortune.

so in actual fact as things are she couldn't be housewife as she not prepared forgo wage
she has no need to create a wish I was..scenario unless she feel pressure to do so

arisbottle that's not something I thought I'd read on this thread.

Am I really the only one baffled by the OP denying that she started a thread in which she claimed her colleague could become a SAHM if she gave up fancy holidays, lattes and handbags?

Next time point out your old banger, your cheap hols, your home made sandwiches and your minimal wardrobe.

If your colleague is really constantly moaning about having to work and regularly tells you how lucky you are, I can see why you feel irritated/ frustrated. I would have to say something but it is unlikely that she would 'get it' as some people just like to moan.

Of course sensible planning and hard work are important in life but luck certainly plays a part. 'Disastrous' life events are, sadly, not that uncommon. It isn't always possible to predict in advance how a decision will pan out and timing can often make a lot of difference in financial terms. It does sound smug to say that luck has played no part in getting to where you are.

I think she's daydreaming out loud thoughtlessly rather than complaining she's hard done by. How often is it? If it's only a couple of times a week, I'd just grin and bear it. Or kindky ask her to desist if it really gets on your nerves. Personally, I've never had anyone tell me that they would rather be a SAHM than working. Never.

Scraggy

I certainly wouldn't want to offend and nor do I find the comments about luck playing no part in life as smug. Its just a different philosophy on life. Thinking like this has worked for me, other philosophies suit others as well.

Arisbottle.

Why would I think I was more worthy than others because I don't deal in luck, good or bad.
You don't make sense at all. If something went wrong if I made a mistake it would be bad judgement not bad luck. How does that equate to saying I am more worthy?
Why would a decision made from planning, assessing, or a well informed choice necessarily give you good fortune?

Because if your success is all down to your hard work or choices , surely those who are not as successful have not worked as hard or have made feckless choices .

I'm not offended morethan but just because your life has worked out well thus far, it does necessarily follow that you can apply your philosophy to other people's lives nor that your philosophy is necessarily the (sole) reason that you have been successful.

Your philosophy does imply that others who are less successful/ happy, etc have made poor/ foolish choices which is simply not always the case.

OP YANBU at all. My old boss used to tell me every bloody Wednesday (I worked 3 days) to enjoy my 'lovely long weekend' like I was going on effing holiday rather than changing nappies and cooking dinners and picking up toys etc.. I used to have to fight the urge to stab her in the eye. (I smiled through gritted teeth)

I didn't say on pay day, 'enjoy your extra grand a month'

Because you know, I'd made a choice and to dwell on the negative and act like someone else has some unfair advantage is unpleasant.

Arisbottle

I was pretty sure I mentioned both what was considered as bad and good decisions and choices and that I had made bad choices and mistakes. I don't see how i implied anything about success as I believe that success is how you feel as an individual not what you have done with your life or money you have earned, or any other particular measurement.

Scraggy
I wasn't implying anything about other peoples choices, just that I don't see bad and good luck as being reason for life going right or wrong. As I said unless some devastating event happens that is out of a persons control. I believe we control our own life, I'm not judging others as there is nothing to judge here.

I haven't posted so far been busy reading, but can i just add my bit - I can see she is annoying moaning etc, But all of the other posts assume SAHM = poor, WORKING MUMS = luxuries. (very generalised I know)

But not once in all of the above has anyone mentioned working mums who work because they love their jobs...

Sorry it's maybe not 100% relevant to this thread but the moaning, comparisons, bitterness toward other women really isn't of any benefit to anyone at all and all it's teaching young women and girls is that a job is something that you moan about...

We all work either staying at home or in the workplace?

Personally I'd just either nod and agree with this lady or suggest she finds a job she loves.

Would that be bad luck?

Also arabesque this thread is related to women in the workplace, the implicit assumptions many posters seemed to make about work for a woman being a choice implies a natural order of a household with a male breadwinner. It just makes me a bit sad that in 2013 so many women view theirs and other women's income as 'pin money' [Quote}

That might be a valid springboard for a debate, but it is not what this particular thread is about. The OP is fed up of a colleague moaning about having to work full time while actually seeming to spend a lot of her income on the type of things that OP and many other SAHMs cut back on in order to give up work or cut down their hours. She has stated several times that she has no issues with mothers working outside the home and made it quite clear that is not the subject of the thread. But you just keep chipping away with the same argument; one the OP is not interested in debating on this thread. Why don't you start your own thread on this subject.

I didn't say on pay day, 'enjoy your extra grand a month'

Because you know, I'd made a choice and to dwell on the negative and act like someone else has some unfair advantage is unpleasant. [Quote]

Exactly!

You are sooooo NBU.

I gave up work for a few years when dd was younger. It involved making a lot of cutbacks including foreign holidays, getting rid of the second car, only getting essential work done around the house, being frugal about food shopping etc. We didn't mind. We had made this choice.
My SIL, who had a baby the same time, used to breeze in after her latest holiday to tell me about her new kitchen extension and would always get in some remark about how nice it must be to be able to loll around at home with just one child to look after, how stressful it was trying to get her ds to creche every morning, how exhausted she was, how it was 'well for some', how I must have 'loads of time on my hands' and so on. This woman could very very easily have afforded to 'loll around at home' if she wanted. Her husband, DH's brother, freely admitted that they used his salary for mortgage and essentials and her's for 'all the extras'.

Fair enough. She wanted to go to work to earn the money to support her lifestyle. But that was what she was doing. Why try and turn it into a 'martyr' competition? She was working hard outside the home and could therefore afford nicer things than I could. I had given up going out to work and therefore had to do without certain things. Different choices, both equally valid.

This 'luck' thing touches on something I feel really strongly about. I don't believe in good luck. Not at all. I do believe in bad luck, but not good luck. So I don't believe that anyone is 'lucky'. I'll try to explain what I mean - apologies in advance as I can tell I"m about to write a bit of an essay!

I believe in bad luck. For instance when my father was beaten repeatedly by his violent alcoholic father, that was bad luck. When he ran away to escape the abuse, was homeless on city streets as a child in WW2, and then ended up in a children's home where he was abused again that was bad luck. He's over eighty years old and he still has visible scars on his body from his childhood. That's bad luck. But then he worked as an unskilled labourer during the day, went to night school, got his Leavers Cert (which was like A levels) and so on... and became very successful in a professional career. That's not luck. That's got nothing to do with luck. But he's often told how 'lucky' he is - 'oh it's alright for you, I never got the chances you did'. Well, actually he was given two tiny glimmers of a chance in the fact that he's intelligent and has a capacity for hard work that I've never seen in any other human being - that was literally all he had going for him. He's not lucky.

Another example - my friend was nearly killed in a head on collision with a hit and run driver. It was a year before she could walk unaided to the bathroom and her legs and arm are held together with pins. The driver was never caught. She received no compensation and her parents are not well off at all. That's bad luck. She used the year to create a step-by-step plan to change her career, studying constantly, researching and planning. By the time she'd recovered enough to walk to college it was September and she was there for the first day of her MFA course. In the university vacations she did work experience as a photographer's assistant in between doing bar work to pay her fees. Carrying the bags was intensely painful for her because of her injuries. We were at dinner with some other friends recently who didn't know her back then and they were saying how lucky she was to work as a photographer and how awful their lives were because they were trapped in 9-5 jobs that they hated. She's so lovely that she sympathised with them - but she's not lucky at all. It was a lot harder for her to follow her dream than it would be for them to do it.

Sometimes the bad luck that hits people is so devastating that they can't get out from under it. I do believe in that - it's not someone's fault if they are hit by bad luck, it's not someone's fault if they're trapped. However, I don't believe that anyone has something good in their life because they were lucky. They made a choice, they did some work, they did something differently - and for all we know they did it in the teeth of bad luck rather than in the absence of it. A SAHM who has gone through her budget and given up things that she used to think of as necessities in order to stay with her kids - maybe even giving up things like eating lunch herself and switching the heating on during the day in winter - she isn't 'lucky' - she made a plan. A working mum who loves her job and has her childcare sorted out isn't 'lucky' either - she chose her career, worked hard at it, and sorting out childcare doesn't happen by magic.

To say that people are lucky downgrades the sacrifices, the choices, the extra work - and overlooks the fact that they might have actually been extremely unlucky in their life and overcome it. It doesn't negate the 'bad luck' of other people who might not be able to escape, but to say that they're 'lucky' downgrades what those people have achieved.

So apologies for the essay but I stand by my belief that 'you're so lucky' is one of the most inane things one person can say to another, and that the OPs colleague is intensely irritating. (As was mine!)

.

I hadn't thought about luck in those tems before but I think what you say is very true. There are very very few people who have the life they want with some work to make it that way. Maybe a few children of the stinking rich who do nothing but they are few and far between.

OP YANBU - I think I would have pointed out her choices by now especially as you know she has the option to work PT and it isn't some pipe dream

I might have a tiny bit of sympathy for her if she was working to preserve a career but a. From the little you have said, it isn't a career job. That is the impression I get - apologies if that is wrong, and b. even if it a career job, PT is still an option in your workplace and could potentially be the best of both worlds - you get to keep the career ticking over, even if it isn't moving forward and you get to go home early and spend more time with your children.

Sorry - without some work.....that should say.

Aw thanks for the applause BigBoobiedBertha

Do you know, I don't even think children of the stinking rich are particularly lucky... I've met a few who are crippled by self-pity - 'Oh, it was so hard for me at Eton, I was miserable there.', 'Oh Dad worked all the time, he had such high expectations, I just started taking drugs to cope with my family background, it was so tough'. Even the ones driving a Ferrari bought with Daddy's money are capable of saying 'you're so lucky' to someone else, feeling that they're the one who got the sticky end of life's lollipop for some reason. It's an attitude.

Whereas my dad never tells anyone else that they're 'lucky'. If I achieve something he says 'well done, our kid, you worked for that so no bugger can take it off you.' And as my dad says, you might live in a house with ten bathrooms but you've still only got one arse - so being stinking rich is of limited use really. Once you've got enough money that you're not starving then having more isn't going to make you any happier or less envious of others.

The perception that others are 'lucky' is tied up with that whole 'if only I had more, I'd feel better' mentality - the idea that if only we were as 'lucky' as someone else we'd be happy. Whether we're envying their money, their working arrangements, their marriage, their figure - or whatever. But you don't get rid of envy by having the biggest yacht in the harbour, giving up work, having liposuction and marrying Brad Pitt - it's not when you own everything that you stop wanting more. It's an inside job - learning not to want for anything, to enjoy your own life without comparing it to anyone else's and to concentrate just on your own work - 'what can I do today to move my own life a tiny step closer to the life I want to have?' - write a list, then do the work - without reference to what others have or don't have.

Ooh, I'm really on my soapbox on this thread

I am sure you are right about the poor little rich kids but I was sort of pre-empting the criticism of your theory that everybody has to put in effort to get a life they are happy with. Somebody will know someone somewhere who has the perfect life by virtue of birth, you can count on it, which will apparently negate your entire point. It doesn't, of course and you are right, they will still have bad luck. Some people are glass half empty people and will always find something to moan about.

I agree becs and I think it's very unfair to imply or say that the OP was being smug for saying she wasn't any 'luckier' than her colleague, she was just making sacrifices in a different area and her colleague should recognise this and stop banging on about her own sacrifices.

I agree with her. If someone was working part time and still able to afford luxuries I might thing 'oh, lucky her', but I certainly wouldn't harp on about it.