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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:

cantspel · 08/08/2013 18:30

Oh look another thread where one woman thinks it is ok to tell another what she should be doing with her life.

I think i would have prefer to be back in the 1950's where we only had men telling women how to live their lives.

LessMissAbs · 08/08/2013 18:30

Treaguez you are not the sort of person I am talking about. I mean more the type of women who give up work on moving in with a man, before DCs, and who then seem to make a point of being as needy and subservient as possible so they seem more attractive to the man. ie he becomes their entire world, their way of earning a living and their guarantee of future income and prosperity.

And I am afraid I just don't respect that type of woman, or find them very interesting. I find they make poor friends, as you are always second to the needs of the man at all times, if he says jump, they jump. And then you get that other kind who are jealous of any other woman that has higher achievements than them because it puts them in the shade.

Basically, I am not a man, and I am not interested in the sexual appeal of other women, I am interested in how nice a person they are, how good a friend they are and what are the things they have done in their lives. I am not interested in running around after them like their boyfriend or husband does.

I do think not ever having a career or decent education, combined with not ever being good at anything (and you can become good at a lot of things by working hard and persevering) is a bit of a waste of a life.

expatinscotland · 08/08/2013 18:33

Someone's happiness, however, is entirely their lookout and it is the height of nastiness to judge someone else's life as worthless just because they don't live it according to what you might find fulfilling or satisfying. WTF?

wordfactory · 08/08/2013 18:33

lentil I wasn't for a second saying that all women who SAH are discontented.

One thing though that many of my friends agree on is that they now enjoy it less than when their DC were younger. They never intended it to become permenant, but as things stand it has become so.

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years at home is an awfully long time.

TheRealFellatio · 08/08/2013 18:34

YAB completely U.

Unless she whinges endlessly that she is either bored rigid or has no money then whatever else she has going on, a job won't necessarily help it. It might just make her on terribly complicated life a lot more complicated.

You might feel she is wasting her life being a SAHM, but she clearly doesn't, and as long as she is happy and her DH is happy then it's no-one else's concern.

Treaguez · 08/08/2013 18:40

LessMissAbs my point is really that you may not be able to tell what a person is doing, because you've already decided they are a certain type and written them off. I tend to agree that there is a sort of 'wasted your existence' type and not everyone has the same value in society, but I find it hard to get judgemental about that since I find I myself am being judged just because I don't have to find childcare and I don't need to get loud and snippy about how busy I am (even though, periodically, I am up at 6, still working at midnight...).

Anyway this thread has made me sure that I am going to drift away from a particular group of people who I think are very nice and very engaged, but who have not in the past year shown any interest in what I am doing because, I presume, I don't fit the 'put-upon working mother' template.

Remotecontrolduck · 08/08/2013 18:43

YABU, I'd rather she didn't pinch a job from someone who genuinely needs it! There aren't enough to start with, especially ones to fit round childcare!

She could do voluntary work or maybe use a skill she has to start a small business or something, but ultimately I don't agree with women being told their choice to stay at home/work is wrong. They're grown up, they know what the consequences could be if things went wrong relationship wise.

YANBU to be jealous and to want her to get a grip over the sandwiches but YABU definitely for wanting her to get a proper job.

MovingForward0719 · 08/08/2013 18:44

Hi, I'm a SAHM still after 10 years due to unforeseen circumstances. I think it is more boring once the kids are at school. Though if I was rich enough to lunch and gym and outsource all the crap jobs, I think I could find a way to live with it :-) I wouldn't worry about how she lives her life tbh. I couldn't give a flying one whether women work or not, but if I had a quid for every time I've got into a conversation with another woman trying to undermine my choices to justify their own I would be lunching every day lol

LessMissAbs · 08/08/2013 18:44

Treaguez LessMissAbs my point is really that you may not be able to tell what a person is doing, because you've already decided they are a certain type and written them off

No, the ones that annoy me in real life are the ones who I know exactly what they have done with their lives.

Wallison · 08/08/2013 18:47

LessMissAbs, I'm not surprised your friend dumped you - you are right, she really wasn't too busy to meet up with you; she just didn't like spending time with you.

wordfactory · 08/08/2013 18:49

Treag I know some people (both WOHMs and SAHMs) who simply don't see me as having a proper job despite the fact that I'm a writer and I run several successful businesses...

Working from home doesn't cut it .

One SAHM said to me last year when I began a small part time lecturing position 'Ah we're lossing you' ...

LessMissAbs · 08/08/2013 19:02

I don't think she dumped me Wallison, its just that she doesn't really "do" friends any more, as she is too busy for anyone except her own family.

I was one of the last to stop contacting her actually. Theres only so many times you can cancel on people/talk about yourself before they get fed up.

TheRealFellatio · 08/08/2013 19:07

Gosh, I've rattled a few feathers here - I didn't expect such vitriol.

Really? You must be quite new then.

PoppyAmex · 08/08/2013 19:20

Yes, the vast majority of jobs are immensely rewarding, varied and interesting.

I also never met anyone who works who's boring

AnxiousAugusta · 08/08/2013 19:39

God, LessMissAbs, you do sound tiresome. My mum never had a decent education or "career" but she didn't waste her life.

Wallison · 08/08/2013 19:41

[thinks of the scintillating conversations she has had with colleagues, including the guy who thought that freezing his sandwiches for the week and then pulling a random one out each day was akin to playing real Russian Roulette]

OverTheFieldsAndFarAway · 08/08/2013 19:53

Williaminajetfighter, you were correct in stating 50% of marriages end in divorce. You did not mention however, that mothers who work full time are 3 times more likely to end up divorced.

OverTheFieldsAndFarAway · 08/08/2013 19:54

Poppy, I've met many boring women who work.

treacleturkey · 08/08/2013 19:59

I hate it when SAHMs complain about how busy and stressed they are!!

Er, no, you're not!!!

(disclaimer: I was a SAHM for many years and there was nothing to stress me out)

schmee · 08/08/2013 20:26

This confirms my suspicion that if you are financially well off you are not allowed to be negative about anything.

Saffyz · 08/08/2013 20:42

It's perfectly possible to have a full and happy life, without being reliant on "goals and markers of achievement". Just because someone else's life is different to one's own, doesn't make less worthy. Some people live to work, some work to live, some don't need to work and decide how they'll spend their own time. All different, but all valid.

OverTheFieldsAndFarAway · 08/08/2013 20:43

Well said saffyz.

expatinscotland · 08/08/2013 20:44

Exactly, Saffyz!

BlingBang · 08/08/2013 21:24

sometimes i feel as a sahm i should out achieving more, beinginteresting and important and count an all that jazz - sometimes anxious unfullfilled and thn i realise that many, many mums who work feel just the same.

i just need more sahms to play with.

LentilofDoom · 08/08/2013 21:27

Yes, what Saffyz said!

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