To not really want to work anymore?

[caranconnor]

I am 50 and although I have enjoyed working in the past, I would prefer never to work again. I feel I have done enough. It is not an option, I have to work for another 17 years. But anyone else feel like this?

Ah yeh I know! Im annoyed with hypothetical youngsters who honestly believe that anybody over 35 is at a disatvantage.

I agree with @BerwickLad. Plenty of people (including me) have serious health issues from their 50s onwards despite all the healthy diet/exercise etc in the world. You just can’t predict if it’s going to happen you. I know so many previous fit and healthy people with cancer or chronic debilitating back pain.

@SlightlyBonkersQFA tell me about it. No fixed hours, though, and work from home. The work is fuzzy and unboundaried, and I mostly have to decide for myself what I do. Which is a recipe for a sense of constant failure, since even if I worked 70 hours a week (I don’t), there would still be things I hadn’t done that either I or someone else thought I should have.

The former sounds fun for a older person, the latter draining. People in their 50s don’t go into teaching for fun, they do it because they need to work to earn money. They have to make it work.

My parents were done and dusted on the childcare front by the age of 39/40, they had jobs for life with reasonable hours, long holidays and great pensions. Their houses went up year on year by thousands, and in some cases tens of thousands. House and jobs for life, or until you wanted a bigger one that is...

They were not expected to do hours of homework each night with the young, nor were they very interested in spending huge amounts of 'quality family time', it was much more about them and not so much about the children. They had energy and money to stay very fit and enjoy hobbies.
Parents could easily afford to stay at home with young children, and most did. It was a lovely place to live in our towns and cities every in the middle of the week, you could always meet someone to talk to.

Children played out all day every day outside, now the onerous is on us to give our children a happy childhood, rather than children creating their own version. How many of our parents ran themselves ragged doing all the after school activities and all weekends? Very few. No sats, no pressure. Doctors apps when you needed them. Reasonable class sizes. Pensions that were safe and gold plated. Holidays every year. Time to cook, relax and read.

This is not intended to be rose tinted post about the past, but a genuine comparison between my life and that of my mother's. Nor is it a bashing of the boomers post.

Something has gone seriously wrong in the space of one generation (and I don't mean this politically) because this is an issue that goes well beyond party politics.

I'm mid-30s and feel like this! Mental health issues so just getting out of bed, showering and doing the commute can feel like a whole day's work sometimes I'm currently waiting to hear about the outcome of an application for a career break so I can take a year to travel and rest. My aim is to find a 3-day a week job in the next few years, which will mean taking a demotion and having lots less money but feels necessary for my sanity. Also considering not having DCs as I feel so exhausted as it is

onus

I think the thing that went wrong in the space of one generation was Margaret Thatcher

hot That sounds very tough for you, I hope you find the balance you are looking for. I agree about your decision about introducing children, although rewarding, it is very hard work on every front and will definitely make things harder still.

tinkly Yes I felt indestructible once :) Hard to imagine now. The young have to make their own way, but a bit of guidance along the way is never a bad thing.

I'm mid 50s and until a few years ago I hoped to be able to retire at 60 but wasn't too worried if it was 65. Then I hit the menopause and they raised the pension age. Now I am exhausted most of the time, have aches and pains, struggle with things that I used to find easy. My memory is shot to pieces and I don't sleep so well. The thought of working to 67 is unbearable.

I don't hate my job, in fact I quite like it, but I find the corporate admin nitpicky stuff unbearable these days, and there seems to be more and more of it every day. It all gets more of a struggle.

I go to work to earn the money to do the things I enjoy. But I find myself doing those things, (e.g. going out for a meal in an evening or for a weekend away,) far less often because I'm too tired to make the effort. If I retire early, I'll have the time but I won't have the money to do those things. It's a catch-22 situation.

I am contemplating reducing my hours as I think I'd cope better working part time, but that will affect my pension. I'm lucky enough to have an inheritance coming and I'm trying to work out whether this will be enough to retire on. I think I will at least be able to retire at 60. I really feel for those who don't have that option.

I did that Orangeblossom 3 years ago at 48 and the first job almost killed me. I left at Easter. I worked at least 60hr weeks, and had no clue what I was doing most of the time. The children looked at me in the way that a pack of hungry hyenas look at a knackered old bison.
For all the benefits of being a mature teacher, IMO you really need the energy and sharp mind of youth. My PGCE year was fab though, although hard work. A holiday in comparison with NQT year.
Have come back to a nice non threatening office job, but my particular skill is not future proof, so I'll need to think of something else for the next 2o years of my working life.

My Parents retired at 56 (DM) and 59(DF). They were teachers and had good pensions.
I am now 59 and thinking of ways to reduce my hours, but DP said to me only this evening "You can't retire!"
I wanted to say Fuck off, but actually said, "Well I shall"
My DM died at 66. I want some free time and quality of life before it happens to me.

Me! I'm 47 with a 4 year old. Exhausted all the time. Work 30 hours with zero time to myself. If I didn't work I'd spend time at home drinking tea, cleaning the floors every single day and taking the dog on 1-2 hour long walks

My parents retired in their mid-fifties. That seems totally unattainable for me - both had decent salaries but didn't bring in megabucks.

They're now early sixties and have a great life - exercise, volunteering, yoga, baking - both are happy as anything and still young and healthy enough to enjoy their retirement.

I don't think I'll ever experience that

@Considermesometimes I doubt very much that your mother was looking at working full time until she was 70. My own mother certainly didn't. She never worked full time past the age of 22 onwards which is when she got married. The generation above us don't gey it. I was explaining the other day how I'm having to put 20% of my wages into my pension while paying off a mortgage to my father. Now, my father is not a stupid man, but he said "do you have a works pension on top of that?"

No. No, I fucking don't. Nobody does. The world isn't like that any more. The doubtless very good advice my father could have given me is useless. Just as the advice I could give my kids is useless. It's actually really hard to plan because what would have been a reasonable plan say 50 years ago won't cut it now. Unless you're proper rich. They're always ok. But if you're in the position that you will only ever have a finite amount of money passing through your hands and no guarantees its hard to call.

I'm almost 55, and at least when I make my next birthday, I can get at my little tiny pension pot from a former job. Frankly I am going to take the lot out to get me and DS through the winter: no point in leaving it as it is not going to get any bigger. Also, there is an inheritance that hopefully won't get swallowed up by care home fees (though you never know.) And I have a plan for the future - a business I am working towards.
In my 20s and 30s I did work I loved (well, mostly), and then the coming of the internet slowly but surely killed off most of the industry I worked in (magazine publishing.) I scrabbled around for other stuff to do; right old mix of jobs but all had to fit round single parenthood and none paid very well.

I feel this way and I’m not even 30 yet. I know it’s because I don’t do a job I love.

I retired Dec 2014. Now work retail p/t. Just been offered a job in a doctors p/t plus I exam invigilate at two different schools. Recently gave up volunteering at a theatre in London. Just love "doing things" and being paid is even better

Well said, @BerwickLad

My lovely mum, who is 23 years older than me worked as a secretary for her entire working life until she was 60 and my dad as an overall-wearing engineer until he was 65, Neither worked in well paid jobs, and live in SE. Both had good work pensions, but worth very little at the moment with low interest on their savings. They get by by renting out their rooms to students.

@coldfeetallthetime having said that advice is basically useless to those coming after us, I would nevertheless 🤣 advise you to pack as much money as you can into a pension now. The pensions you lot have now are way different from those that we had where you could lose everything. With compound interest, the best investment most people can make in their future is a pension. If you get a payrise and can manage without the cash, shove it in your pension. If you get left a bit in someone's will, shove it in your pension. The more money you have coming in in later years, the better.

Because believe me if you're finding it hard to work now you're only going to find it even harder 20 years down the line when half of your torso has been surgically removed and your knees are fucked. For example. You don't know what tiredness is until you have a knackered body and 20 years more work to do with it. And when you do get there, you'll be wanting a cushion.

The OP has disappeared and this has become one long moan from women who don't want to work and don't enjoy work. Really depressing.

Well you don’t have to read it Hellsbells