To notice a new brand of 'cool wives' on mumsnet

[Penhacked]

They are not 'cool wives' in the original sense, I.e. because they let dh go drinking with leggy blondes on a school night and rock into bed hammered at 2am.... but they are so damn competent as mothers that they are fine for dh to go away for a week without notice leaving them with five under 5s, cook dinner every night while simultaneously batheing the children with a baby in a sling breastfeeding etc etc.
Is it just me that has noticed this new trend of 'I can manage it blindfold, stop complaining op and suck it up'??

Also a forces soon-to-be wife and also have to just get on with it. I enjoy it and am proud of myself for making it work when I'm a parent short. It makes me appreciate what single mothers go through too. If that makes me a 'cool wife' then cool wife I am.

I think people are misunderstanding the OP.

The problem isn't women who 'get on with it' because we all do.

The problem is the women who breeze onto a thread where a mother is on her knees and boast about how fabulously independent and wonderful their own relationship is /they are, call the OP a nightmare for expecting help then bugger off without offering any advice.

They are massive twats.

Tootsiepops, it is nothing to do with you being shit. You don't know the reality of their lives. My eldest was hard. He was, and still is, hard work. Never stops talking, won't even be in a separate room to me, let alone play by himself and is now almost 9. He was an absolute angel whenever we were out and about. Regularly had people coming over telling me how cute and lovely and sweet he was for the first few years of his life. Of course he was perfectly well behaved in public, he was getting what he wanted which was attention/interaction/entertainment being provided to him. They didn't see the many times when I was crying in the shower because I was a single parent living on benefits thinking about suicide and just needed one second in the long long day to breathe and have my own thoughts without him being on me. Those few minutes I attempted to spend alone resulted in him kicking the door so hard it had dents in it. But our life would have seemed perfect to outsiders! My current baby is just really easy. It's nothing I've done. He is calm and chilled out and happily sits and plays by himself. I am just lucky.

Totally agree penhacked that sums it up exactly, and runrabbit your comment too.

I actually again DO have to do a lot of it a lot of the time as DH away for weeks at a time at different bits of it and I am a competent person who gets it all done, but I often think it's a fucking nightmare (the domestic side that is, I actually quite like my kids ) and I would never come on here and be so utterly smug. It is for some very hard to have a lovely grown up life and then get catapulted into this new reality where you have to plan grocery shopping with military precision and do 800 washes a week and have banana in hair and sticky fingers on the front of your new top that you thought you might wear for the first time after wearing the same skanky tees on rotation for six months. I can't believe people aren't more supportive of one another, especially women adjusting to having babies and kids! For some people it just does not all come naturally or pleasurably, and there are big shifts in relationships which can be hard! Instead some responders on threads are all WELL I CLEAN UNDER THE SOFA WITH A TOOTHBRUSH DAILY BEFORE TEACHING MY NINE CHILDREN TO SING IN HARMONY or 'let me tell you how I make several types of slow cooker sludge eight months in advance'.

There was I recall very fondly, a great thread on here recently about spending lots on groceries (gasp! The selfish hedonism of it) and when someone just came out and said 'I actually think slow cookers often make things taste pretty shite' I nearly fell off my chair in delighted surprise.

Newsflash: they ran out of medals for being a nice wee woman with a nice wee home.

I dont think you get to tell a grown man what time he can come home just because you are married to him. He is a grown man not a child.

I don't think it's a 'cool wife' thing - more that a lot of woman don't have their DP/Hs around in for the 'dinner/bath/bed' routine, so don't see why someone is angsting about having to do it all by themselves for a week. There are other reasons to object to your other half disappearing off with little notice but "How I can I possibly cope with 2 children all by myself!" always seems a bit

I am lucky that DH's job means he's home for dinner with the DCs most nights, but does go away a lot and I'm always careful not to bitch about it to the woman who's DHs are never in before the DCs go to sleep on a week night (and can't afford help) so have always had to just get on with it.

Mistress but when someone goes on a thread where someone is clearly struggling and brags or comes up with stupid "solutions" is not being a "new brand cool wife"....its just being a cunt. Plain and simple.

Meh. I've never got the need to fuss about looking after my own children on my own.

Horses for courses innit.

On the subject of women who cope, there's one near me who used to transport four children and herself using one bicycle.

Baby in a sling on her chest.
Small child strapped into a carrier seat thing over the rear wheel.
Trailer buggy with side-by-side seats containing two oldest children towed behind.

The thing is, why shouldn't women be able to moan when they are feeling shit?

Why does there always have to be at least one twat to come on and tell them how crap they are because that person may have it harder?

I rather support a moany poster than listen to a smug one.

I get what you mean OP. It's not the fact that they're getting on with it that's annoying, it's the strutting into threads started by mothers who are struggling and basically posting "well I manage perfectly! So should you!" Without taking into account that everyone's circumstances are different and people find different things stressful.

Never mind the idea that just because single mothers and the armed forces wives manage alone then other fathers should be allowed to shirk their responsibilities without complaint from their partners....

I would rather

Maybe sling is the wrong word, but some sort of chest harness.

Odd post.
An attempted dig at people who are taking things in their stride.
Odd.
Is it jealousy?

That was me - dh worked abroad and I had 3 under 3. I'd frequently fly with all of them to meet him. Took no. 4 to NY at 5 weeks, other 3 in tow, and spent the days alone with 4 children while he worked - evenings out. Took the 3 oldest to Paris when ds was 10 weeks and others 1 and 3, dh working as ever. Had a ball. It's just what people do - never even gave it a thought.

You just do what you need to - yes, I organised parties, cooked from scratch etc but I had no choice. I didn't love it but was determined to have fun and make the most of our lives. My mum was too ill for too many years to offer anything other than moral support (and lived too far away). Our life is still a bit unorthodox, but my children are very independent and have inherited our love of travel. I don't really "get" parents who don't do stuff without their partners, but that's their choice.

Single parents/disabled parents/parents with disabled children/lots of other people have it so much harder than me and people like me.

Hats off to the 4 children bicycle woman. That is impressive.

Been so since the poster who was going skiing on the day her twins were born with them strapped to her breasts.

only a mild exaggeration

It's not a "cool wife" thing though is it?
It's women not moaning about being at home all day whilst their DH is out at work and then cooking his dinner whilst he baths the baby.

If you were aware that this was a TAAT then you should have been able to correctly interpret this OP in your first post (mentioning it being a TAAT) and you should also probably remember that it wasn't a case of cooking his dinner while he baths the baby, it was after she had put baby to bed and he was sat dicking around on the computer instead of starting anything cooking, then expecting his dinner cooked by her regardless of what time that meant she finished her 'duties' for the day.

arethereanyleftatall

Do you think that because you can take things in your stride it gives you the right to tell women who are struggling to suck it up and get on with it?

Because that's what the OP is talking about.

I'm not sure why people are twisting it.

I haven't noticed anything about cool wives, although I have seen the odd bit of smuggery and snootiness on here. Not much though.

On the "coping without DH" thing, I find life much easier when my DH is away (which he is a lot)- not because I am so brill but because he is hardly here when he is here. So mornings I do everything to get the kids out of the door and to school, while DH has a long bath and a shave (so I have to wait to access the bathroom) then gets a lift to the station with me. Then he doesn't get home until after the kids are in bed. Hopeless.

I have a neighbour like tootsie's lift nemesis.

She's got three kids, I saw her last week, she had the youngest (around 6 months old) on her knee, bouncing him whilst she was WEEDING the garden with a trowel. And the garden isn't just a garden, it's a huge vegetable patch that is full of fruit and veg.

Every time I see her she's smiling and radiant, the baby is in a sling (probably EBF), toddler is on a bike and the four year old is in a pretty dress or whatever and they all look clean, tidy and organised. No doubt having just eaten homemade vegetable soup made from all the abundant produce from the garden.

How?? How?!

YANBU

The cool wives thing is simply another way for women to be vicious to each other.

her face

I don't think you get to tell a grown man what time he should come home, just because you are married to him

Fair point. But should a guy be allowed to tell a grown woman what time she should be home just because he's married to her?