To be pissed off with marrieds who don't work complaining they are tired?!

[sloeginforever]

I know everything is relative and everyone has their own problems...but I am sick of hearing mums of school age children, who have partners, who don't work, complaining they are tired and have so much to do!

I am a single mum, I work full time. I get up at 5:30, deliver three children to different schools about ten miles in total, then drive to work, work a full day, collect same children, go home, cook everyday, clean the house, wash all the clothes.

I've got one friend in particular who is a stay at home mum. She texts me all day moaning about how tired she is, since they went back to school there is just so much to do, and getting it all clean before they get home is soooo hard. She's so stressed by it all. Her husband works, takes the children to school, cooks...

I have absolutely no issues with life choices as a stay at home mum. I'm not jealous and I don't have issues with them not being in full time work or anything. But just stop telling me how hard your bloody life is!!

And don't even start me on the married, childless woman at work who just got a dog and is soooo exhausted.

Rant over.

Haven't you got some work to be doing or something JamesBlonde1, I'm surprised you have time to be on here given how terribly busy you must be with a job etc (giggle).

Unintentional - rubbish. You just showed yourself as being really quite vile and got flamed for it.

Move on.

@sloeginforever self preservation is your friend. I am a single mum with three sons (two are aspergers) I work as a teacher and have a terminal health problem.....
so....
I don't clean everyday
I delve into a wealth of lesson plans and reuse them
If I don't feel like it we have a 'hook and catch it' dinner eg beige on a tray.
I use to do stuff all the time. I realised they didn't want that so have a day of buggar all a week.
Don't beat yourself up nor look through guilded specs at her life.
Have enough shirts so you can wash at the weekend.
Life is to short trust me x she may be a twat, she may be trying to empathise badly.

Yanbu. I have done both, in fact I'm a sahm to small babies now but it is still easier than working with kids no matter what age they are. I'm very privileged to be in the position I'm in but how people can say they are busy is beyond me.

Why don't they all go to their dad? Or is he not all three's dad?

if you're tired, you're tired

You sound incredible, but tiredness is not a competition, and affects everyone in different ways. It can be infuriating, I agree, but their tiredness or way of dealing with things is NOT a comment on your life.

YANBU.

Partly because of course a working single Mum of three is busier and more tired than a SAHM with a husband and kids at school (no disabilities etc).

Partly because as some PPs have said, who texts that to their friends anyway? Ultimately in boring text I would have thought.

YANBU OP.
I am speechless most days of how self absorbed and unaware some of the lazy specimens at school gate are! Bleating on about not fitting the gym in that day when they're talking to someone who is clearly juggling 10 times their chore list!

I feel for you. I really do. Single parents, especially those working full time, should be given a medal!

Here's my Wed.
Up at 5am.
DP away on a course so not here.
Get ready, leave house (and DD (13) alone at 0630 (my train is at 0711) with a 28 min walk to station.
DD will get up (alarmed) at 0715. She'll get ready (make a mess), leave at 08am. Go to school.
I work in Central London, from Kent. Get to office at 08.53.
Leave work at 6pm.
Get train at 6.40pm, damn buses and trains dont coincide.
Get into house at about quarter to 9pm.
That is exhausting.
Luckily DD is older, DP is at home sometimes and we have DMIL.
BUT, those nights I get home at nearly 9pm, with a 13 year old, and a DP on shift looking after people (very, very severe autistic young adults) are truly, truly exhausting.

Thursday

Work from home.......bliss.
It's the commute that does it.

Reppin you are hilarious

Yanbu. My OH works all day and gets home for 5:30, I spend the day looking after a toddler (4 yr old just started school), cleaning and tidying and washing and whatever else and then I go to work from 6pm until 12-1pm and do it all again the next day. I work 11am-11pm at the weekends. Its tiring. I would flip a switch if anyone told me they were tired!

Reppin. As said previously, he's an abusive twat.

Evil - get your shopping delivered. And don't do the washing every night. Why are you making your life harder than it is?! Why do women come on here and complain about how difficult their lives are when they can make changes to make their lives easier.

sienna333

Interesting. I left a thread about my childless friend who works 25 hours a week and was saying she felt stressed as she had only had 5 days off. Everyone jumped on me for it but I was only saying what a lot of people have said here.

Sienna actually, everyone rightly pointed out that your friend is entitled to 25 days off each year, and she has only taken 5 days by September! You didn't answer anyone asking why she hasn't taken the annual leave she was entitled to.

Poster on the first page complaining about "cats and trying to fit in the gym"

Ha!

My heart bleeds.

I was at that too. It was Wolfiefan and I think she still doesn't get it.

Was that the same poster who claimed that a puppy was harder work than a baby ...? 😀

Some of you are really missing the point here!

OP doesn't begrudge her friend the right to feel tired. She just thinks it's insensitive for someone whose life is demonstrably less demanding than her own to moan to her about it. In that regard, she is quite correct.

I'm married and have a supportive husband who does his share around the house. Inevitably once our baby arrives I will be knackered but I do have the self awareness to realise any single parents I know will be far more over stretched than me and they therefore won't be the correct person to talk to about I when I need to offload!

It's not about it being a "competition", it's about tact and sensitivity and choosing your audience. In the same way, I wouldn't moan about my massive mortgage payments to a friend who I knew was bummed out about not being able to get on the property ladder because on her salary she couldn't borrow enough to buy anything in greater London.

Being a parent with a supportive partner who co-parents with you is inevitably going to be easier than doing it all on your own. Fitting all the housework in around a full time job is inevitably going to be harder than being able to get it done whilst you're at home and the kids are at school. It would be absurd to think otherwise. That's not rubbishing anyone else's lifestyles, it's just maths.

Obviously if the parent in question, or their children, have health problems then that's different, but OP has already made clear that's not the case with her friend.

As for the person whose name I thankfully forget who suggested that maybe OP's friend has it easier than her because she has better judgement when it comes to picking men, and that OP maybe shouldn't have had three kids with a rubbish partner - wow. Spectacular lack of empathy there. Maybe he wasn't always a shit? Sometimes people change.

@sloeginforever - ignore the snarky posts. You're doing fab, and you're entitled to feel disgruntled about your friend's tactlessness. Hope things get easier for you long term! Xxx

@TheVoiceOfTreason, I quite agree, she is definitely not a good friend, she's very self-absorbed. That's why I thought it might be an idea to text her back saying what her day is like. If she doesn't take the hint, it might be time to pull back a bit from the friendship.

Voice of treason - I completely disagree, every one has different endurance levels - does that mean no-one is allowed to complain about anything because there will always be someone worse off. Listing how long and arduous ones day is just sounds martyrish to me. We all make choices in life. Take responsibility.

Lethaldrizzle of course there's always somebody worse off, but we can still employ a degree of sensitivity about someone's personal circumstances. I gave an example upthread of a family member complaining about the humiliation of needing a walking stick temporarily. The person on the receiving end of the complaint was my sister, whose husband had MS and had recently been told he'd be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

TheVoiceOfTreason Some of you are really missing the point here!

Well it wouldn't be Mumsnet if everyone got the point, god forbid we should show kindness and empathy.

the op is lacking kindness and empathy for her friend!

No she isn't, she would like the same empathy in return for her situation. That's not too much to ask imo.

@lethaldrizzle - (loving your user name btw! 😀) my point was it's about picking and choosing who you have the moans too. When I'm a sleep deprived new mum, I'm blatantly going to need to moan at some point. However, when my husband has spent Saturday afternoon looking after our baby so I can have an epic nap, I know a single parent who is doing it all on their own would be the wrong person for me to offload onto. That's the point (see also - the mortgage example I gave above).

It's not about OP's friend having no right to feel tired (although I do think OP's friend doesn't realise how good she's got it and potentially needs a bit of a reality check! Sorry to be harsh), but I do think its tactless of her to choose the OP as the recipient of her woe is me texts. But that's not to say OP's friend doesn't genuinely feel tired, I just think it shows a lack of self awareness on her part about her audience.

Just my opinion though 😊