You're so lucky!

[Kitchenspade]

In need of a rant! I'm fed up of hearing this from my mum. You're so lucky! I'm really not! Yes I have 4 wonderful children, a husband and we have our own businesses. We are no where near wealthy but we are 'lucky' enough to rent a lovely house.

But she uses this term in nearly every sodding message and every time I see her! Yes I am lucky but I also work bloody hard! There wasn't luck really just bloody hard work from the age of 15!

We work 6 to 7 days a week each and life is hard. She is unemployed, lives in her ex husbands house and pays rediculpusly low rent and her kids are all grown. 2 live with her. She's never worked a day in her life.

I'm just fed up with her making out we are up greatful!

Sorry just needed a rant and to know I'm not just a greedy sour puss!

Agree with all of this too

One of my two children died so you are lucky to have four living children but there are lots of what's I'm lucky too.

Yes that sounds even more annoying as you would assume your mum would know firstly how hard you have worked and secondly how much you have overcome along the way! That's irritating op. I would have to say something.

My brother has been helped all the way through his life and is basically now a man in his 50s who cannot fully adult as he knows my parents will pick up the pieces. My dad is constantly moaning about this to me so one day recently I said 'well you know dad, I never had the option of having the safety net so I just had to get on with supporting myself and figuring things out myself as I knew no one was coming to help me.' I could see he was digesting what I said.

Maybe you just need to say you would call it more hard work than luck and that you need to work to keep a roof over your head, then let your mum work it out herself. And then each time say 'it's more hard work than luck....' ad infinitum! Until it stops!!

I think you missed my other posts. Yes I have been lucky. But that's not all is it? I've never ever told someone they are lucky. I think it's a bizarre thing to tell someone. Especially when it's every time you talk. @Miq

Every time she says/writes it just reply that it’s not luck, it’s hard work.

This would drive me mad too. That said I don't agree its all down to hard work, there's always a luck element.

What i particularly hate is when people use this in time of bad luck, like it invalidates the person who needs support. For example someone who is permanently disabled after an accident is told they are lucky to be alive, someone getting a mastectomy is told they are lucky to catch it early etc

To me, getting a promotion is due to hard work, recognition of your skill and effort, etc.

Some may comment that you were lucky to get promoted… sure, I guess in a way that is true. Lucky that you were in the right place at the right time, lucky that the panel selected you out of all the applicants… but luck would be worth 5-10%, the remaining 90-95% is all down to individual choices, agency, efforts.

Winning tattslotto is lucky - 99% luck, 1% individual choice/effort.

What I’m trying to say is that yes, all people are lucky (to some extent) with the lives they lead (even people in truly heartbreaking situations probably seem lucky to someone else). Saying how lucky someone is works if they win tattslotto, as it is majority luck and doesn’t disregard their efforts. Saying how lucky someone is when luck is only a small percentage of the achievement comes across like you don’t recognize, or are deliberately trying to downplay, the larger role of the effort, hard work, etc. of the individual.

OP, it sucks that your mum is choosing to focus on the small percentage luck instead of acknowledging the larger role percentage of effort.

You can be hard working and lucky at the same time. Plenty of people work hard, make good life decisions but life just throws shit at them. It doesn't diminish your hard work and effort you put into maintaining your good life to acknowledge luck also plays a role in it.

I work very hard, but also had a lot of factors in my life to enable me to work hard (supportive parents, good health, good mental health) etc

So have you told her this? 'Mum I'm not lucky. I work very hard and it's not easy. Just where does luck come into it'? Then see what her response is.

@Missionimprobable
I am always amazed at the Mumsnetters who think that they shouldn't work like everyone else. I worked full time until I was sixty five. I still work part time in my seventies and do childcare on the other three days. The retirement age has gone up. There will be plenty of women 'knocking' seventy and still working full time in a few years.
Most people don't have the luxury of thinking that working full time in your late fifties is being hard done by. Most are grateful for their good continuing good health.

@mondaytosunday ofcourse i have. Her answer is that I'm wrong.

I mean I could argue my child hood was really bad luck!

I get this too. I have a thriving business, comfortable, healthy DCs etc. I work my arse off. I choose to work hard because I want stability, not chaos. Single mum so only have myself to fall back on. I get ‘it’s alright for you’ from my own siblings too. How so? Because I don’t sit around watching TV in the evenings?

Then you just say thanks I do feel lucky, but I do also work hard for it. Simple

I get told I’m lucky because dh does the clothes washing. I’m quite wtf at that. We both work full time, he does clothes and I do food. I’m not lucky, I married a like-minded man who loves me and we communicate well.

i am however lucky we are both fairly healthy with only minor blips. My job, I’ve worked hard for and I’ve had a mix of luck and been unlucky too. Life is about choices all the time so to a degree we make our own luck outside of what we can’t control. Totally see why it annoys you as it feels dismissive of your achievements.