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?

Thanks yoda

Pardon?

@Minimili

What about if you have a career you love and plan to travel but then your dad dies, your mum has an illness that leaves her disabled and then gets cancer with no one to care for her? You might choose to look after your mum because you love her but the choice wasn’t influenced by any decisions you made.

It's still a choice to care. It's still a decision. You may feel there are no moral alternatives but there are alternatives so it's your decision.

Then what if you work hard in that career and save money and still plan to travel after your parents died but get made redundant and then the world goes into lockdown and you end up living off savings and struggle to find another job you love because it was a niche position and you end up in debt?

Choices - making career choices that lead to a niche position in the first place (obviously restricting future choices) choosing to stick to the niche position; not being willing to retrain or diversify; not being willing to take other jobs; not trying hard enough to get an alternate jobs; insisting on holding out for 'another job you love' as opposed to choosing to prioritise income or any job as a stop gap; not having a good enough CV or good enough qualifications or good enough references.

What if you have a happy marriage with someone from another country who ends up having to return to his family because his parents are dying but it’s not a country safe for you to travel to and live in.

A clear choice to marry someone from another country and a dangerous country. This is always going to be high risk for clash of culture, values, future problems of elderly parents being far away. Worse if it is an unsafe county. Choose to marry someone else.

What if you end up alone in your late thirties when you always wanted children and assumed it was on the cards for both of you then find out you have early menopause?

Choice of a partner who was more interested in children than in you. There are other choices such as adoption, surrogacy. Finding another partner who wants that or a partner who has children already. They might not be your own biological children but if you want children in your life and that is important to you, you can make choices that prioritise that above all else.

What if you have a great career, a happy marriage and you end up having an accident that leaves you paralysed and your husband leaves you, you end up out of work and left to survive on benefits with your adult children caring for you?

Goes back to the choice of a partner. Bad moral values - a good man would not have left. Obviously a random accident can happen to anyone but many, many accidents are a result of deliberate decisions to take a risk of a serious accident - working in dangerous jobs, horse riding, skiing, riding a motorbike, even choosing to get on a plane you are running a risk. Choice to not take out income protection insurance to maintain income.

All those scenarios are ones that have happened to me and close friends. I don’t see how “stacked up bad decisions” led us to any of it.

Look a bit harder. It is always decisions that lead you there to a particular situation overall. Of course horrible things happen to people every day many of which they have no control over - but a lot of what gets you there are choices you need to take responsibility for. Even if that is making a bad choice of partner, or not looking propertly before you cross the road.

I actually think you are lucky for living a life where you haven’t had the chance to understand this yet. I hope your life continues in this way but have some compassion for those who haven’t had the same opportunities.

Don't be so patronising. Ironically, I am in exactly one of the situations you describe because I am a full time carer having given up everything. I am mature enough to accept my present situation is my own choice and to take responsibility for it. I could have walked away and put my relative in a home or left them to other relatives to deal with. Or abandoned them to the state and social services. I didn't but that was my own choice.

That was my point. Shit happens but how you deal with it, what leads you to where you are is a result of your own choices every single day.

This mentality of 'oh you are victim blaming' is just another way of saying 'I have no responsibility for my life choices or where I am today.' This is actually rarely true. It certainly isn't when you are talking about the OP's post of a single woman v a married with children woman. Choices.

People dying, people becoming ill, people getting murdered or attached are all things we have no control over but that doesn't mean your hard core, drilled down basic situation you are in today - location, job or no job, maried or single - is not a result of your own choices.

Yea I'm sorry I don't either...

I just find your response to be so lacking in nuance. It is great to take as much autonomy as we can over our lives. This does not mean we should ignore the role society, our upbringing, our communities, our genetics has on us. Choices are not made in a vacuum and not everyone can make every choice. Also different people making the same choice will be perceived in different ways e.g. a woman leaving her children vs a man or a black woman asserting herself vs a white woman. We come in a range of intelligences with a range of attractiveness and as we know race, disability, brain structure (ND etc) all plays into how we perceive the world.

It is not only the choice but a combination of the choice, situation, timing etc etc

@didmymakeupsonice

I don't want to derail the thread so hope OP doesn't mind me replying to you.

It's not only childless/childfree women, it's also single mothers.

Single income - but the same cost of living as a dual income household, especially one of life's biggest expenses - housing, makes things hard financially. And if childless there's low priority for social housing. Yes single men are also affected but it seems, according to studies, it's worse (on average) for single women - with or without children.

Exclusive data shared with i by the Women’s Budget Group (WBG), an independent think tank which campaigns for a more equal economy, has found there is now not one area in England which could be considered affordable for a single woman to rent or buy a home.
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/mortgage-scandal-no-one-wants-to-talk-about-3147143

Single women, particularly in old age, are at highest risk of poverty
https://eige.europa.eu/publications-resources/toolkits-guides/gender-equality-index-2021-report/single-women-particularly-old-age-are-highest-risk-poverty

The article below is about Australia but it's relevant for the UK too

Caring duties for elderly parents (and sometimes siblings) disproportionately falls on single, childless daughters

The study focused on the economic security of single, older women and shattered the myth that women without children have uninterrupted careers and therefore healthy retirement savings
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/dec/03/i-fret-about-the-years-that-lie-ahead-the-unique-caring-burden-of-single-childless-daughters

Same here! Child free by choice, I’ve NEVER envied anyone with children EVER!!!

Goes back to the choice of a partner. Bad moral values - a good man would not have left.

Seriously?? Maybe a "good man" wouldn't have left but bad ones do - or have to be removed.

And no, women can't predict what a partner will turn out like. Abusive men and/or deadbeat dads (who sod off and don't pay child support), etc don't wear a t-shirt declaring what they are. By the time it becomes apparent it's too late.

Then what if you work hard in that career and save money and still plan to travel after your parents died but get made redundant and then the world goes into lockdown and you end up living off savings and struggle to find another job you love because it was a niche position and you end up in debt?
Choices - making career choices that lead to a niche position in the first place

Loads of careers aren't niche yet people still get made redundant. Also some careers might be niche now but weren't several decades ago when someone chose it. Most people don't have crystal balls to see into the future.

not being willing to retrain or diversify; not being willing to take other jobs; not trying hard enough to get an alternate jobs; insisting on holding out for 'another job you love' as opposed to choosing to prioritise income or any job as a stop gap; not having a good enough CV or good enough qualifications or good enough references.

It's well known and backed up by studies that very often it's not the jobseeker who's unwilling to get a different job but employers unwilling to hire someone with experience in a different role.

Also re qualifications and/or a candidate "thinking a job is below them", it's employers deeming people "overqualified" or "too old" (that happens as young as 40 or 50). And references nowadays are usually simple confirmations of dates worked with the company.

@user39501790
You mentioned income protection insurance in case illness prevents working. Lots of people can't afford it. Cost of living is high. You'll probably say everyone should get higher paid jobs (as if it's so easy) but then who does the many lower paid jobs?

Also what about people who've been ill or disabled since childhood?

What about if you have a career you love and plan to travel but then your dad dies, your mum has an illness that leaves her disabled and then gets cancer with no one to care for her? You might choose to look after your mum because you love her but the choice wasn’t influenced by any decisions you made.
It's still a choice to care. It's still a decision. You may feel there are no moral alternatives but there are alternatives so it's your decision.

Not exactly a real choice (unless lacking any morals - or some exceptions like an abusive childhood etc). What choice is there? Leaving your elderly or disabled loved one to be neglected and die?

Precisely why we didn't have kids. Both make very good money and we pretty much go where we want, when we want and spend what we want without ever having to worry if we afford it. I suppose for some people it goes both ways, people with kids envy those without BC of their money and freedom and those without envy those with kids for something, I don't quite know what BC I don't envy people with kids but you see what I'm saying

Btw I'm sorry @soloholidayenvy

I didn't mean to derail your thread.

I hope, if you want a solo or childfree holiday, you feel confident enough to try it at some point.

I know it's hard leaving your children - I felt the same when I first did it (for a three day work event) but they were fine with my DH.

Maybe if you want to, try a short break like a weekend away. Perhaps with your sister if you want to connect more with her. Or maybe with a mum friend who's also doing a first break away from the kids, so would understand how you feel.

Yeah I don't envy the life of those with children either. That's why I don't have them......my friends have had lots (average 3 each), and by and large they are engaging, engaged and smart kids, well brought up and a credit to their parents. And I'm really pleased about that because all those friends really wanted families. Me? Motherhood looked like a physical horror show followed by years of utter drudgery offset by just enough heartwarming moments that you don't leave them on a hillside. So I didn't do it. I just don't have whatever outlook or personality makes that look fun. Lord knows I hated crafting etc even when I was a child 😀
I would just comment though, even as a fairly high earner, that all the "endless holidays" comments get slightly wearing. I have a demanding job. And a mortgage. And elderly parents. I'm not swanning off on holiday twice a month. I probably do get to the pub more though 😀

Same, I can't think of one thing I would be envious of.

Doubtful

Being a childfree cat lady is as good as it gets as far as I’m concerned.

Perfectly normal to feel this. My sis goes off on nice camping trips with her dog, whereas mine was chaos and stress when I took the kids! But grass is always greener... would you really be without them if you had the choice? :)

(Still perfectly fine to want everyone to sod off and for some lovely alone time tho)

Well so just saying single women are financially poor as opposed to any other group is incorrect then. That was my point.

@didmymakeupsonice I quoted above from one of the articles I linked.

It literally says Single women, particularly in old age, are at highest risk of poverty

Envy is normal , just don’t let it affect your relationship and see it as a sign that you need a bit more time to yourself.

Your sister is probably envious of you and at times looks at your babies and wonders what if.

ill admit thats partly why i prefer being single, to do x,y,z, as and when

Envy is normal but I highly doubt her sister wonders what if. I have yet to meet a single child free person who is envious of those with kids, what exactly is there to be envious of? I'm genuinely asking, not trying to be mean, but I haven't really seen a lot of posts here, if any, about the upsides of having kids.

I dont think anyone is envious of me. However if you never see any posts about the upsides of kids, it's because people mostly post their problems on the Internet.

I love my husband and see many upsides in our marriage. But why would I post that? Serves no purpose and would be seen as smug, especially on MN. Same goes for kids.

And as I said earlier, I go away lots on solo trips so I don't have that to envy.

I’ll tell you where you’ll see lots of posts about how great it is to have kids and how lonely we’ll be without them in our old age. On the Mumsnetters without children board.

True.

Because it seems that it’s very important for some parents to get that point across over there.

I am sure that is the case though I don't usually go in there.