Childless "auntie" in pandemic

[katrinbaker]

I am early 30s + isolating alone in the pandemic

All my friends + family are with their young families and many have been sending cutesy updates of their iso, with pictures of their young children, home projects + family baking. We are in constant contact and this also revolves around child updates and daily life. I am not expected to contribute but just coo at the right times.

Aibu to think this is insensitive? I had a nice life before all this happened but obviously much of it is now banned. Holidays, drinks out, dating. I am over it and think it has impacted the single lot disproportionately.

@Glenorma

It’s just a different type of misery I don’t see how it’s a misery basically having an extended holiday and doing all your hobbies all the time. I live for 9pm when I get a couple of hours of that freedom. If I had no kids I’d be doing all sorts of fun stuff. My life was WAY better before kids. If I’d known I wouldn’t be able to send them to childcare I wouldn’t have had them.

Your life before kids wasn’t in the middle of a pandemic. Did you live alone? Imagine getting up in the morning and going to bed without speaking to a single person in the flesh in between. Nobody touching you. Your only conversation being with the person at the checkout. And doing that day in, day out for months on end.

This is nothing like your life before you had your kids. It’s bloody grim for everyone, the only difference is the brand of grimness.

@Glenorma

It’s just a different type of misery I don’t see how it’s a misery basically having an extended holiday and doing all your hobbies all the time. I live for 9pm when I get a couple of hours of that freedom. If I had no kids I’d be doing all sorts of fun stuff. My life was WAY better before kids. If I’d known I wouldn’t be able to send them to childcare I wouldn’t have had them.

This is how it is for me, I'm childfree but if someone is childless then it's not the same. Just as you crave freedom, they crave not having any.

I lived alone for a decade, and because of the nature of my work, would frequently have weeks on end in which I wasn't working. I'm quite a solitary person, without any close family, and would go for long stretches without seeing people. I WAS that person talking too long at the check out (as most of us are nowadays). I WAS that person waking up in the morning and wondering what the point of it all was. I didn't have useful hobbies particularly, or exercise. I didn't talk much on the phone. I was low level depressed a lot of the time.

Now I'm married with a clutch of kids, one with fairly substantial SEN. Last year I was in an essential job which had me on constant calls from 8-7 or more every day, including some weekends, ditto DH. My kids went feral. Homeschooling was a farce. My SEN child is now totally adrift from mainstream schooling. I was in tears a lot of the time. I could have taken the odd fun photo for the grandparents but it would have been a massive lie.

@katrinbaker I really feel for you, as I do for many posters on this thread. Lockdown is hurting us all. It's easy to look at people on the other side of the situation and think it must be better for them. I do know that even at the worst of times recently I have been so very relieved that I'm not going through this alone. I'm sure your friends would understand if you told them you are finding the photos too much. They may be worried about telling you that they're struggling for fear of it sounding like the misery Olympics, but I'm sure you wouldn't mind mutual exchanges of woe if it meant more honesty from them. I don't know anyone who isn't struggling with some aspect of lockdown.

@soughsigh

soughsigh

@stackemhigh my point is that no one is having a good time at the moment and everyone thinks the grass is greener on the other side. We are all in this together and comparing your situation to someone else's is only going to cause you heartache.

But that’s the point, single people are not ‘in it together’ many have no one to be together with.

That’s such a trite cliche.

I don't think they are being insensitive. I think they know full well it is tough to be alone under this Lockdown unable to socialise and they probably want to cheer you up with photos of their children as they are your friends and this is their life...including the children. I don't think anyone is having an easy time at the moment. It's tough for everyone I think but in different ways.

I also think OP needs a little break from social media

At times when we are feeling overwhelmed emotionally anything and everything can be triggering

It’s understandable but unreasonable to assume that it’s to do with your friends. Take a step back to feel better

@Glenorma

It’s just a different type of misery I don’t see how it’s a misery basically having an extended holiday and doing all your hobbies all the time. I live for 9pm when I get a couple of hours of that freedom. If I had no kids I’d be doing all sorts of fun stuff. My life was WAY better before kids. If I’d known I wouldn’t be able to send them to childcare I wouldn’t have had them.

You don’t understand the mental impacts of loneliness and isolation? You can’t understand how it swing another person for months on end might impact someone’s mental health? You can’t see how sitting alone in a house every single day with no one to talk to might be upsetting and damaging.

You don’t believe the thousands of academic studies about mential health and loneliness? You think, for example, charities should abandon their attempts to address loneliness in our elderly population, cause sure it must be lovely for the older dears, they can watch telly?

I have a dh and 2 dc...dh has been wfh for nearly a year now. I'm an introvert and would probably sell a kidney at this point for a day alone

However, I know I wouldn't actually want to be alone entirely for a long period like this. I know I would get very low very quickly.

I totally sympathise with the loneliness the OP and others in this scenario feel - it was just that she stated she had it worse than anyone else that got people’s backs up.

I briefly lived alone in my twenties...I bloody hated it and that was in normal times when I'd go to an office five days a week and go out in the evenings. Now I look back and wish I'd appreciated living alone more...was hard at the time though

@pepsicolagirl I feel like we would be friends in real life...

We are all in this pandemic together

We are have different things going on in our lives now & pre Covid

Life goes on

A lot of the time, children aren't great company. In any event, spending time with children is totally different from spending time with adults.

The OP's post isn't clear on whether she (i) envies her friends who have children, or (ii) doesn't really want children (at least, not at the moment) but misses adult company.

If it's really adult company that the OP craves (going out, restaurants, holidays, meeting with friends etc.), having children is more likely to put an end to that then help the situation. I have lost touch with a number of friends since having children because (understandably) little children are fairly annoying and uninteresting to anyone who's not their parent.

Not living with another adult is a separate issue from the children. That must be really tough in lockdown when there are very few opportunities to socialise with other adults outside the home.

You don’t understand the mental impacts of loneliness and isolation?
When the alternative is going out and having fun with friends, then I can see how loneliness is damaging. But when the alternative is being stuck with kids and bored sick because you can’t even so much as watch the telly to pass the time, then it’s obvious that those who are alone have the better situation. Being alone is way better than being with kids, because with kids you’re still lonely but you can’t even entertain yourself.

Surely what most people want in life is a healthy medium and some variety. Neither the single and isolated nor the stuck with kids and overwhelmed have this so why make it a bloody misery competition.

Exactly. Some posts here have made me wonder why some people bothered to have kids, though.

Can you not understand that some of us would kill to be in your shoes @Glenorma?

Everyone has their own issues.

It sounds like you need to talk to your gp about your mental health right now.

Same here OP but I've also spent quite a long time looking after my sibling's kids and babysitting in the past- it's hard work and exhausting!!

I would love to have babies in the future but really all the cute photos are from the sort of 5 minutes of calm in any given day!

In terms of friends and relatives only telling you about their lives and not listening to you- well that's obviously rude but they might be very busy I guess.

Some posts here have made me wonder why some people bothered to have kids, though
DC aren’t supposed to be here driving me insane though. That’s what childcare is for. Covid has thrust me into a lot of relentless parenting that I didn’t sign up for. I’m supposed to be at work right now enjoying my life.

It sounds like you need to talk to your gp about your mental health right now.
My GP hasn’t done non-emergency appointments for nearly a year. People with cancer aren’t even getting treatment, never mind healthy people who are just sick of their lives.

@VinylDetective that's harsh. We had kids to raise kids. I love my kids. I did not however envisage I would be a single parent raising them during a pandemic, thro lockdown while home schooling . Just because we express how difficult this is does not mean we shouldn't have had them. It means we are human dealing with a very extreme situation, in my case parenting on my own without a support bubble. Yes I'm entitled to say this is hard,;it dosent mean I love my kids less.

Put your feet up with a glass of wine and take photos to send to them...will make them green with envy

THIS!!

@VinylDetective

Exactly. Some posts here have made me wonder why some people bothered to have kids, though.

No one had kids thinking "well in 2020/21 the world will suffer a pandemic which necessitates months of social distancing, school closures and isolation. I will pop a few kids out now to ensure I will experience the joys of trying to homeschool them, deal with any sadness or fear or anxiety they are experiencing, keep the house running, do a full time job to a standard that means I am not going to lose it and thus lose our income", did they?

That sort of comment is on a level with the "oh you went back to work and put your child in CHILDCARE? Why did you even bother having them if you are going to pay someone else to raise them?" bollocks.