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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU - to feel like telling my best friend to get a bloody job

348 replies

sunshine75 · 08/08/2013 07:20

I don't want to ignite the SAHM debate as this is different and I'll admit that I'm sometimes a little bit jealous of my friend's lifestyle.

However, she's really annoying me. She gave up work 8 years ago and both of her children are now at school (private). She lives in a massive house in a lovely area, has a cleaner, drives an amazing car etc etc - all funded by her husband's fabulous job. All well and good and she says herself that she married well.

But......she has a good degree, used to have a great job and now just floats about having lunch and moaning about how stressful her life is. Yesterday, it was really stressful because she had been allocated sandwiches to make for the community picnic - ffs!! She even considered paying her cleaner extra to make them for her.

I'm very irritated and think that it's fine to give up work for a few years when your children are small but once they get to like 6 and 8 then you should do something other than lunch. Voluntary work even....just as a role model to young girls (she has 2) that there is a reason to get a good education, be independent, have a work ethic.

Mmmmmm - am I just being a jealous cow?

OP posts:

Tiptops · 08/08/2013 10:35

Yabu. As another poster mentioned if she is your best friend you wouldn't feel jealously about her lifestyle.

How is putting her family first and being a SAHM a bad role model? There's thousands of women who would love to do just that but are forced into work by financial need. How lovely for her not to have that worry!

Birdsgottafly · 08/08/2013 10:53

Also why is staying out of the workforce if you don't want to work and can self support your family, wrong, when we are not short of applicants for any job at any level?

If i won the lottery i could quite happily spend my life walking my dogs.

There are weeks that i feel over stretched, yet my life is a million times easier than when i had children to get to childcare etc.

We are all entitled to a moan sometimes, as long as we are not putting others down or comparing making sandwiches to a round the clock carer living in a council flat etc.

There is always going to be someone worse off than us, especially when we look globally, but we should still be able to have a moan to out friends.

As said are you really her friend?

beepoff · 08/08/2013 10:54

My MIL was like this, had plenty of money to pursue hobbies, go on wonderful holidays and lunch with her similarly-lucky friends too. Not sure I'd race to put my children in boarding school but it sounds like a pretty nice life. Now she does the same but with her DH in tow.

She keeps questioning why I have to go back to work after having DS... at which point I remind her I earn more than her son

Ifcatshadthumbs · 08/08/2013 11:02

I'm baffled by the concept that having a job makes you more interesting? There are plenty of dull and tedious jobs out there I'm not sure how going to one 5 days a week is supposed to make you somehow more fascinating.

Boring people are boring regardless of work or not. My SIL made the statement the other day "oh I have to work I need to have a life" personally I think it's rather sad that only a job = having a life.

SaucyJack · 08/08/2013 11:06

Since when has raising children counted as "doing nothing" all day?

I have an eight year old, and she is no less work now than she was at eight months.

HoleyGhost · 08/08/2013 11:10

Not only having a job = having a life
but most jobs bring you into contact with lots of people and lead to personal and professional development

If you don't work it is easier to get in a rut, bored people are boring. Obviously, plenty of interesting people don't work, but find other ways to contribute and develop

confused3331 · 08/08/2013 11:16

I think you are being jealous yes. Some mums can afford to stay at home, they pick kids up at normal time and are there during the hols. My mum couldn't afford to. She went back to work full time when I was 5 months old. She regrets not being able to pick look after me and leaving me to various child care sources, stating that I would have done better at school if she was at home more. I missed her like crazy ! So if your friend can afford not to work then I feel that it's better for kids to have one parent at home.
I am sahm to a 3 and 5 year old as one of them has health probs. I find it difficult, boring and isolating. And I do moan about things that my working friends might find trivial but would like to think that my friends would just realise that I'm ranting and letting off steam. I do plan to go bak to work although i think it to b unlikely that I would be able to get a job in my previous well paid professional career and would have to get something less well paid and more admin but might not be abe to get this type of work as am over qualified. If I had a choice I would have a cleaner and wouldn't bother going back. Re: moaning about sandwich making, she was prob being insensitive but if was allocated to her without her agreement then don't blame her for moaning.

noblegiraffe · 08/08/2013 11:50

How can an 8 year old be as much work as an 8 month old when they are at school all day?

SaucyJack · 08/08/2013 12:01

She's not at school all day tho

She finishes school at 3pm, and if I'm really lucky, she'll have finally finished whinging and bickering at 10.30 to 11pm ish. Plus there's school mornings, weekends and school holidays. Parenting her is stillfull on and exhausting, as it is for many other parents of primary aged kids.

There's nothing neuro atypical about her either. She's just a bumhole.

HoleyGhost · 08/08/2013 12:04

I think you have forgotten what it is like to have an 8 mth old baby.

Helpyourself · 08/08/2013 12:07

Sounds like me before I did 2+ years voluntary work, then got a job. I hope I had the tact not to moan about my lot though.

Feminine · 08/08/2013 12:15

"she's just a bumhole"

Is that what you meant to type saucy?

SaucyJack · 08/08/2013 12:21

Nope, HoleyGhost, but thanks for trying to belittle me.

She just has extremely high maintenance personality. Always has, always will. It's not particularly unusual for some children to be harder work than others, regardless of age.

SaucyJack · 08/08/2013 12:21

Feminine

What I actually meant to type was arsehole. But I thought that might sound rude.

VoiceOfRaisin · 08/08/2013 12:31

Near unanimous views here :-)

YANBU to feel jealous (although you may find she is also jealous of you in a few years time when she has few career options and no real purpose and you have a career).

YABVU to judge her lifestyle choices when they have no impact on you. She is funding herself and not seeking taxpayer help: her DH is presumably paying lots of tax, they are not burdening the state education service and she is not taking up a job needed by others.

I would find making sandwiches for the community a bit of a pain, tbh, wouldn't you?

HoleyGhost · 08/08/2013 12:33

Saucyjack - with that attitude it is unsurprising you find your dd to be hard work. Shame on you.

Doubtfuldaphne · 08/08/2013 12:39

My mum didnt work and we had a cleaner but she was a fantastic role model to us and showed me how to be a caring mum and taught me the standards I have today.
As long as the children are in a happy home it's fine!
She has however got very sucked in to this 'lunching' lifestyle and she isn't very down to earth. THAT would get on my nerves as she's obviously lost perspective of what's normal for most.
Not much you can say or do about it as that's her life.

stopgap · 08/08/2013 12:43

Coming from a working-class background, where everybody had a 9-5 job, and, "working all the overtime god sends" was seen as a badge of honour, it took me a while to get used to meeting people for whom working in the conventional way was not a necessity, either because of wealthy husbands or families. Neither is "the right way" to live. Some are just more fortunate than others, and provided no-one is getting hurt, I don't see how it's any of our business how many hours people work.

Feminine · 08/08/2013 12:47

Oh right saucy that makes sense.

You know bumhole actually sounded more don't know why?

WorraLiberty · 08/08/2013 12:50

YABU and jealous

I so would have paid the cleaner to make the sandwiches.

DrinaDancesInParis · 08/08/2013 12:52

YABU, although I can completely understand your frustration at her "stressful day".

No way would I work if I could afford not to! There is so much more to life and not working does not have to equal "boring".

morethanpotatoprints · 08/08/2013 12:54

I think YANBU to think she needs a focus/ purpose to her life, this can be found in many ways though not necessarily work.
Does she have any hobbies? I am one of those people that stopgap mentions "working in the conventional way is not a necessity" for me. However, I do have a purpose, goals, ambitions, and lots of things to focus on. As for being stressed, obviously people have different comfort zones and not everybody is capable or willing to step outside of it. Yes I would do the sandwiches, but would stress depending on how fine they were expected to be. I wouldn't think twice about talking in front of hundreds/ thousands of people. We are all different.

MrsMelons · 08/08/2013 12:56

My parents weren't rich at all but my mum was a SAHM until we were about 14,, my dad had a reasonable job so financially they were ok. She then worked full time.

I think she was a great example to me and my brother, she wasn't dull at all and we had a lovely upbringing. There is nothing wrong with being a SAHM/housewife if that is what you wish to do.

I would be envious TBH but not in a nasty way, we have 2 DCs at private school and it would be a struggle/huge sacrifices if I did not work at all however I find all the rushing around and covering school hols difficult so it would be great to not have to be committed to the hours I do at work.

I must say I would find it difficult to not do anything as I love to be busy, when I was on ML/career break I did voluntary work for 5 years as I loved it but I know lots of people who don't do something like that and I can't see anything wrong with that.

What really gets me is that you are suggesting its a bad thing for her DDs to see her looking after her family and bring up her children. It doesn't make you brain dead - just makes you a mum/wife. Its not for everyone of course but definitely not a bad thing.

MrsMelons · 08/08/2013 13:01

BTW when I wasn't working I would never offer to make the sandwiches for a community thing, I would always offer to take crisps or pre cooked sausage rolls - definitely paying the cleaner is teh right thing to do !

PassTheTwiglets · 08/08/2013 13:05

So she is 'just' a housewife and she isn't setting a good example to her children because she isn't working outside the home. Okaaaaay...

I am a SAHM and I'm damn proud that my DCs see that being at home with them is more important to me than going out to work.

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