To think people enjoy moaning about things they could easily change?

[Trippedinmuck]

I've just come home from a "friends" house, we had a discussion that went sort of like this:
"Youre so lucky being a SAHM, I'm sick of working all the hours God sends and not seeing my little girl." she says,
"Work less then" I say,
"I can't afford to work less" she replies,
"I'm sure you could if you gave up a few things"
"Why should I give up anything?"
"Well do you need 2 fortnight holidays abroad a year? Theres £10000 saved. Do you need this 3 bed semi when theres only you and you daughter? Move nearer work and pay less than £800 each month. get a cheaper to run car because you're an office worker and not a farmer, I don't think you need a 4x4, theres another £3k a year saved. do you need the massive sky package? You don't watch sport, theres £100 a month plus saved, do you need to shop with Ocado? surely Tescos is cheaper?"
"Oh no, I don't want to give up holidays, car, house, sky, Ocado etc"
"Then stop moaning"

Lmfao and smfh.

WTF 4x4 is she driving if the insurance for a grown woman is £3600 a year? Does it have nuclear capabilities?

YABU Ocado is very reasonable!

I also agree that your friend needs better friends than you OP.

You are not a LP. You are provided for. You show no understanding of her and smugly criticize her relationship with her child. You don't have to work. Your kids get all they need without your having to so you criticize her for not seeing her kids enough. How would you feel if she laid into you for your choices?

I was out with a couple of old friends last night. Things are tough for me at the moment, partly as result of choices I have made. I could change this or that and solve a problem or two - but that isn't who I am - and it really isn't that simple.

Good friends know that. They listened, didn't judge, we laughed, they talked it through. Good friends.

WTF 4x4 is she driving if the insurance for a grown woman is £3600 a year? Does it have nuclear capabilities?

This, plus the 2 holidays which apparently cost £10000. Wonder where she goes for that amount of money.

It's not that easy to just reduce hours or get another job. I left a permanent part-time job because of bullying and in order to stay in my field I had no choice but to go full-time as a contractor. The money is good, I earn close to £50K a year but I did prefer being able to pick up the kids from school and for them not to go to the childminder but the other alternative was to not work or find a part-time shop or office job that fits around school. I doubt I would get that kind of work anyway as i'd be too over-qualified so the choice then becomes work or not working. It's important to me to keep my financial independence so I chose to carrying on working.

Your friend as a single parent probably doesn't even have the safety net of a partner also working full-time so maybe the choice for her is work or a life on benefits. For me the enhanced money isn't the sole reason for working but I do enjoy the rewards of it.

I don't think the op is bu.

People do love to moan about what are essentially choices.

If you choose to work FT so that you can afford a big house, nice cars and holidays - fine. But don't moan about your working hours to people that made different choices.

Sorry either this is a reverse or another lets bash single mothers who the op thinks doesn't spent time with their kids thread?

Oh OP, do your 'friend' a favour and stop hanging out with her, you clearly hate her.

She's not laying into her for her choices though - she's laying into her for moaning about them, when none of those choices are set in stone and she does have options.

"Work less"

Yes because as a single parent she has that choice doesn't she She doesn't have a man paying for every item she needs to live or the luxury of working less or not at all as it doesn't put food on the table.

Perhaps it's pride, she provides everything for herself and her daughter and that's an amazing example to set.

If she turned the tables and was as nasty back, she could quote Xenias theory where non working wives provide housekeeping and sex in return for the choice to not work.

I'd go for the latter sadonions. The single parent bashing threads are becoming a weekly fixture on mumsnet. Last week it was single parents shouldn't be out socialising, next week It'll be AIBU to be pissed off my tax money is paying for my single parent 'friend' to stay at home with her 3 day old baby..
Yawn.

And I do think it's a bit rich that a SAHM with the luxury of being supported by a partner is telling her WM friend to just 'work less'. Would you give the same advice to your DH if he expressed a desire to see more of your DC??

She isn't just telling her to work less, completely out of the blue - she's responding to what her friend is describing as a problem.

Besides, if she can afford 10k holidays and expensive cars then she isn't working all hours just to keep their heads above water, so she could work less (probably in a different job though)hours. She's choosing not to, which is entirely her prerogative but if I was the OP, I might find it irritating to hear her complain about her choices.

The OP has chosen to be a sahm and presumably isn't whinging to her friend about the lack of money/career progression.

I'm thinking that this "friendship" needs to be gently put to sleep.

Agree about the single parent bashing. Depressing.

Tell you what, OP, when you find yourself in the situation where you are literally the only person who has to provide for as in finance, run and maintain a home, and at the same time parent, care for and nurture your children, and you then realise that it's a circle that literally cannot be squared because there is just one of you, you can come back and dispense your nasty, goady, judgey pearls of wisdom about people who are on a sharp end that at the moment you have clearly no chance of comprehending. Until then, just you hug yourself about what a superior mother you are but do us all a favour and keep your mouth shut about the tough choices that single parents just take for granted that they have to make all day, every day. It's always going to be a fudge. It's always going to be a compromise. Something is always going to get lost in the mix. We know that, and it's hard enough to live with that all the time without some smug wanker who has no idea about what we do coming along and telling us that 'it would be alright if you just were more like me'.

The OP is criticising the "friend's" choices though - the really bitchy comments on the My Little Pony gifts - wow!

And almost every aibu could be answered with "Well change things then".

DP being an arse over loading the dishwasher - LTB - problem solved
Boss a *** just get another job
Neighbours noisy - simple - just move.
MiL a cow - just tell her to STFU or leave her son and problem solved.
Too fat - STFU and just eat less

We all moan - friends listen, sympathise or give strong, constructive advice. Friends have told me when I have needed to be told - but I have always been supported..
.

cruikshank - well said.

I have a MIL and a friend like this. Not about money, but always going on about things that are wrong in their lives. They have the power to change these things but they choose not to. I gave up offering sympathy and advice when I realised they're not actually interested in doing anything to make their lives happier but just like moaning and feeling sorry for themselves.

Thanks, BlueJug. The MLP comment is bizarre - I mean, I kind of have an idea about what my friends' kids are into toy-wise etc so that I can get them birthday etc gifts that they like, but I would never presume to know better than the parents re what their interests are.

Well it's the MLP and the work less comment that made me go is it a single mother bashing thread.

For all the Op knows the daughter could have asked for MLP just too embarressed to tell Op or her child for fear of getting teased. But the implication is see she doesn't spend enough time with her child she doesn't even know what she likes.
The work less - is it really that easy to just work less?! Really? Maybe she doesn't want to struggle to provide for her kid, maybe she's in an industry and that even at the lowest end of the scale you work long hours, maybe there aren't any openings for part time work? Maybe working part time would put her in a situation that would make her in a situation where she was scraping through. Especially when the comment in reply to how do you support being a sahm is I have a partner he works. Yes well that's nice this "friend" doesn't have that luxury.

To me it's very similar to the recent "single mothers dump kids on their exs thread" which started with an they just get pissed when they could be with their kids, when every one turned round and went erm no it's access time it well and truely turned in to a bashing thread. In fact it was picked up by another poster who was adiment that no single mother would be able to afford a night out every week, well here's one that prehaps would without being on benefits because she works bloody hard by the sound of it.

People love making a drama out of everything, she may be a moaner but you are just as bad OP for posting about it on here

Well that's true, buttonmoon you don't like her moaning but your doing exactly that yourself!

Agh posted too soon that wasn't aimed at buttonmoon but at the OP

Hahahaha onions that's ok!!

I'm not sure this is a single parent issue. I read it as a 'moany friend unwilling to do anything different' issue.

I have a friend (2 parent family), who talks about being busy all the time and says she couldn't afford to give up work. It's not true - she is busy because she chooses to be and she could afford to give up work or go pt if she really wanted, but the truth is she couldn't keep the same lifestyle.

There are some people for whom there really isn't any choice (or not one which wouldnt involve too much sacrifice). Not certain that OPs friend is one of them. There's not really enough info to say for certain.