To envy my sister's freedom?

[soloholidayenvy]

My sister is a few years younger than me (both late 30s), and has no children (by choice). She earns really good money and has decided to book a spontaneous last minute solo holiday this weekend. I'm a mum of 2 and I couldn't contemplate doing that. I mean we have lovely family holidays obviously but I just got a pang of envy when she told me she'd booked a solo trip! Am I strange for feeling this? Anyone else get what I mean?

Mums can have solo holidays. I have been having them since my DD was seven months old and got off the breast. DH looked after her for the weekend. And I returned the favour.
You don't have to do family holidays until they are 18.Assuming you have a co-parent.

@user39501790

How about the effects of other people's decisions. Are those a result of our own choices too.

If a man chooses to break my flat's door down, SA me and stab me to death, by your logic, it's purely the result of my choice to rent this property/not go out that night/be home alone. Fuck all to do with his choice to commit a crime?

What about random chance.

What about the limitations of poverty.

What about the limitations of locality or it's laws. You say if you get pregnant, termination is one choice. There are still plenty of places where it is not.

What about being born with a physical disability. You appear to make minor exceptions for the mentally disadvantaged but not the physically impaired.

What about plain old human interaction. One can't go around choosing for everyone else who is involved in our lives.

You are essentially victim blaming every, mentally well, human being who ever had something shitty happen in their lives.

Why is it bleak for you?

I'm childfree by choice and love my life. I never have a moment of 'that looks like fun' looking at parents/kids because to me, it doesn't look fun.

But that doesn't mean you're not having fun, we just have different ways of enjoying life.

I enjoy hiking all over the world, but to lots of people that would be their idea of hell!

Parents can travel all over the world if they have a decent partner and of course money. I have.

I can look at people with kids and think ‘they’re having fun’ and smile, but that doesn’t mean I think it would be fun for me.

I’m not sure why that’s bleak for you though. You might look at me playing with my cat or eating lunch out solo & think that wouldn’t be fun for you - it doesn’t change the fact that I’m enjoying it.

Yes very good points! It's easy sometimes to focus on the not so fun bits (hence the bleakness comment),

I think the family holiday is a bit of a sacred cow on MN. You don't have to have a family holiday all the time. You can go off on a solo

being a mum is everything to me

Focus on that. Because that means that you can’t, by definition, jet off on your own on a spontaneous last minute trip. You need to plan childcare, even if that’s just agreeing logistics with their dad. But everything in life comes with its own pros and cons. Your sister’s choices give her certain “pros” and this freedom is one of them. But focus on the “pros” of your own life and own choices and try not to dwell too much on the downside.

You can’t always choose the life you want. I didn’t choose to be unable to have children. What I did choose though was to make the best of it and use the freedom. now like the lifeI have as much as if I had chosen it, IYSWIM.

I think a bit of envy is a totally normal thing, and it’s what keeps the world turning!

My best friend is child free. I absolutely am envious of her frequent and expensive holidays! But that’s fine, we just have different lives, it doesn’t mean I want to swap to hers.

I think this is naive

We have some control over our destiny, but many of our choices are shaped by circumstances outwith our control

If you choose to get married and have children, you know that you are choosing a life that may put you in a position of being a single mother - it's a risk because men leave, men die unexpectedly. But the underlying choice to have children puts you on that path. If you don't want to take that risk, don't have children.

This! The amount of posts on here from single Mums whining about their ex’s dropping the kids off early and not getting enough of their precious child free time, maybe they should have taken more consideration into whether they actually wanted children in the first place because this will always be a risk.

Completely normal to feel a bit jealous. But whilst she’s child free by choice I’m sure she has moments when she’s jealous of your family set up too

Agreed. Think someone needs to do a little reading about structures and agency. Or, you know, just engage their critical thinking skills for a few seconds.

Every mentally well adult has the life they choose. 100s and 100s of decisions over years have led you to where you are today. So your situation is your choice. If you have serious envy, then that may mean you've made a series of stacked up bad decisions that have led to a place you don't want to be in

This is such a horrible mentality that’s basically designed to excuse you from having any compassion for anyone ever.

It’s also so demonstrably inaccurate that it’s laughable.

No, I don’t understand at all.

Jealousy is not an emotion I have ever felt.
I do know that’s probably not the norm.
Maybe it’s a mindset but my DD is the same, we were having a discussion about it the other day.

Of course. Having children sounds dreadful and neverending to me! I'd worry about them constantly and not be able to cope with the guilt of bringing them into all these global crises. It's liberating to know that I'm not leaving anyone behind when I die. I do have a partner, though, so maybe I'd feel more lonely or scared without him.

I have a DD with young children, and a DD who is choosing to be child free. So this kind of thing really worries me.

They've always got on well, but I'm already seeing resentment creep in when the DD with children talks about her sister and partner 'having a good life' and going off for weekends/having lie ins.

It really does worry me that their relationship could break down over the different choices they've made.

Don’t blame your childfree DD if this happens. She’s not responsible for her sister’s choices. And she probably does not resent your DD for her choices at all.

Absolutely. I often felt when I was happily childfree that a minority of other people (not actual friends, but people casually encountered at someone’s barbecue or something) resented the hell out of my ‘easy’ life, as though they hadn’t had the same choice themselves and chosen differently.

Then, when I had DS at 40, the same type of person appeared to resent the ‘easy life’ of having only one child, and I was not infrequently in the bizarre situation of having a total stranger hector me about how ‘an only is a lonely’ and I needed to have another child immediately because otherwise I was being ‘selfish’.

It was hard not to come away with the impression that a certain type of person doesn’t like to see others exercise a choice that makes their lives look, at least from a certain angle, ‘easier’, freer and more prosperous.

I mean, I’m entirely upfront about the fact that I chose to have one child because I wasn’t prepared to make the various compromises that would have been needed for more. I don’t resent people who chose to remain childfree, or people with four children.

I am not resentful of the childfree. Especially now my DC are grown and there is nothing more fun than going to the theatre with my DD.

I'm not. If anything I'd be critical of the one with children. She made her choice, she has gorgeous children who she and we all adore, and they have a loving and involved auntie. It seems unfair of her to resent her sisters lifestyle.

We discussed this upthread. And she might. But she equally might not.

I can be pleased that my brother & SIL have a happy family setup while not envying them in the slightest.

Totally normal I think.

I love my life with kids and wouldn’t change it - but in the same way that if I had steak for every meal, I’d probably love a night of sushi, I’d bloody love a week on my own!

I certainly never envied anyone with children when I was childfree and planning to remain so.

It does seem to be a not uncommon delusion among a certain type of parent, though. Some people really seem to have a strong need to feel that others envy them, for any reason. You see it on threads here all the time, when someone complains a colleague isn’t polite or a group isn’t including them, and there’s often a cry of ‘They’re just jealous!’ with absolutely zero grounds for thinking so.