Feeling defensive, but is she right that I need a reality check here?

[T1002]

Something has been playing on my mind for a few weeks now and I feel I need to put it to mumsnetters for some brutal opinions! So here we go…

Me and DD’s dad had her within a year of meeting. It was not a great time and it took us a while to come to terms with it but we succeeded. She’s now 3.

I have a decent job with decent pay. Dp out earns me by quite a bit and as he has to travel a lot for his job he sends me extra spending money each month in the region of 1k. He also covers nursery costs. I wasn’t willing to give up my home and combine assets until we are married so he rents his home out (but he travels so much he’s only really here with us 3 nights a week).

I am giving background for context.

Anyway, DP is keen to go on trips with us and take annual leave for this so he can spend more time with us. Every 4-8 weeks we do a trip and he’s now booked a trip to Norfolk in a week, during which time he will have to work 3 of the 8 days we are away. I can work remotely so I have taken off 3 days to look after Dd. DP pays for 90% of these trips and I get a few coffees or whatever.

A couple of weeks ago I was explaining to my sister that I feel stressed about having to look after dd alone for 3 days in Norfolk and I wasn’t looking forward to it as I felt DP should have taken off the whole week. I was just having a moan, I feel like most care of dd falls on me. My sister was uncharacteristically direct and said I was being a brat, I needed a reality check, she couldn’t listen to this nonsense… comments like this. She fell out with me and said I needed to look at my life compared to others and stop being so negative.

I am really hurt by these comments and feel it’s incredibly unfair after the way I had dd and the unsettled initial months. It wasn’t the easiest time. Yes I work from home and have flexibility and nursery paid for but it’s still me doing most care outside these hours and realistically nothing can make up for that. Going on trips every few weeks is still sometimes as stressful as being at home as I have to pack and get ready for it. I have only one day a week to do my own thing (when.dp takes dd out on a Saturday) then Sunday is a family day which is nice. But I don’t feel this is free time when I work full time! I feel like I can’t share frustrations with my sister anymore. AIBU?

I remember this OP. IIRC, OP was considering relocating to where her DP lived and wanted him to pay her a monthly amount for the inconvenience of relocating.

People thought the OP was entitled then and I think most seem to agree, she is being entitled and unrealistic now.

OP seems to think her DP owes her for the inconvenience of being pregnant and having a child so soon.

Where the money to ‘spend in themselves’ exactly?
She works. She has a good wage that she spends in herself, her dc like anyone else. Exactly like you do.
She gets some money from the father as it should be.

So Where is that ‘significant sum of money to spend on herself’???

Aren’t you?
You dint get time for yourself EOW?
You dint get CM too?

As for the ‘help from the father’… what is it? Him looking after the child every Saturday. Or is it him taking his partner and child away ‘fur a break’?

Im struggling to see what’s the difference between you and the OP tbh.
Ah yes… she has a good wage and him even more so.
is that the problem?

He's living with them so wouldn't pay CM

When I was single with the girls their dad never had them and not did he pay CM. It's not uncommon

I am a solo parent actually.
EOW that the father has the children, I usually spend working at one of my 3 jobs that I do around my children. So no, time to myself happens once in a blue moon. My annual leave is usually used during school holidays to look after the children. I also spent a couple of years helping my very poorly mum. I didn’t get nursery fees paid, and during those years I worked from home as well as looking after the children with the exception of 1 day that I paid for so I could work. CM is minimal so 1k a month would be a godsend in honesty. But I don’t complain because I’m grateful for what I do have and know as tough as it is some days, things could be worse.
People I know (and who I was talking about in my original comment) don’t have the father looking after their children. They don’t get any CM for whatever reason. They struggle money wise and they certainly don’t get a holiday every couple
of months. Like another poster said, it’s not uncommon.
OP having a good job isn’t my problem at all, I’ll champion any woman making her way in the world, good on her in that sense. And I applaud the DP for providing the additional money for her. That’s not my problem at all.
My point is, OP is unhappy with what many people would give their right arm for! Come on, it’s 3 days looking after your own child. Hardly a lot when you think of what some people have on their plate!

But you’re not doing it all week- your child goes to nursery! That’s what parenting is.

I can understand you’ll find3 days on your own with your dd a lot in one go.Most mothers can find looking after a child easy, some of us don’t.
Maybe plan trips like swimming,
a shopping trip for her,Primark is good for this,soft play etc.Some time watching a Disney film with popcorn and treats like the cinema.
You can do it, you’ve just not had practice.

That’s what I wondered. OP is taking 3 days annual leave to be with her child while DP works but OP is working remotely for the rest of the time? Is DP
then looking after DC while OP works?! That’s what 3? 4 days?

Hard is being a single parent and earning 1k or less and having no support.

Count your blessings OP.

I am in a very similar set up as also had a child less than a year after meeting and split my time between my home with DS and DP's home so not your conventional family set up. (We are working towards changing this but it's hard with our jobs) I really struggle to make ends meet financially, don't ever get a day off and don't have an extra 1k coming in. So yeah, count your blessings I'd say.

Ah yes, the typical 'first world problem' Mumsnet thread where you're not allowed to feel any stress or negative emotions because you've 'got it so good'.

I think the term I’ve heard used recently is “humble bragging”

But she's your daughter. Surely if nursery staff can manage you'd be okay too. I'd absolutely love 3 days with just one of any of my kids.
Don't go away if you don't want to. But complaining about looking after your own child whilst away does sound so entitled. Having a whole day to yourself every week is so much more than majority of families get. If you have every Saturday to yourself and Sunday is family does your partner get any time to themselves?

What do you think other parents are doing? Looking after your own child for 3 days while on for 8 days is nothing,

It sounds as if a) the reality of parenting doesn’t match your expectation b) you possibly moan a lot to your sister and she’s sick of it c) you’re extra grumpy in this heat (if in the UK).

in short though yes, you are being VV unreasonable.

I can see how this would be hard op. I think you should tell him to take some leave and spend it with his dd at home looking after her the next time, instead of a holiday. If he’s done a couple of days of parenting you can take a day off and go on the outing he organises.

I don’t think you are being a brat. Just because someone sees your lifestyle as ‘good’ doesn’t mean it’s not stressful for you. You’re also allowed to moan. I have a good job, that pays well and is flexible, does that mean I can’t moan because my job could be seen as privileged?

I think your sister is being a brat tbh

This is a wind up, surely. Otherwise, of course you're being unreasonable.

I suspect this thread is a wind-up - because it contains all the usual triggers that set people off ranting on this site. If it's not, the OP hasn't been around for long - because if she had, she'd realise well-off people aren't allowed to moan about anything on here.

Excuse me? How dare you? This is the post of an absolute melt. I resent that my husband doesn’t understand my position. But this is a compromise that we have agreed on. We have reviewed it many times since our eldest was born, and have both concluded that it remains the best option at the present time. That is why I only resent his lack of empathy for the vagaries of being default parent - not him. This is our decision.

Your mistake is to equate making grown-up decisions in which you accept an element of compromise so that you get the best situation you can for the maximum number of people with lacking agency because someone doesn’t do whatever the hell they like. This should not be a mistake that any parent, hell any decent human being, should make.

I don’t see any difference with the OP really. The OP has had to compromise (btw my husband and I each solely own our own home and we have separate finances but jointly pay for children, so don’t see the difference - except I didn’t have to compromise on not being married) on being married. She has accepted that she is default parent. Not seeing any greater or lesser agency there tbh.

What I hoped would change was our situation - but it hasn’t. It is still the case that him working away is best. If you think that is only a compromise for me, then your lack of insight and empathy is even greater than your horrible, judgmental post suggests. I honestly can’t understand what prompted you to use your time to type out that unpleasant attack on a person you’ve never met, who was just trying to give some perspective and support to the OP.

I hope you are ashamed not only of your unpleasantness but of your lack of reading comprehension and ability to make not merely jumps but world record breaking leaps to completely wrong conclusions.

No, most people with a young child do not get time to themselves. Reality check needed

I think we'd have all liked to, though?

Gosh. When my children were young, my do had a very intense job with lots of travel - Singapore, India. London every week (we live in Norfolk ironically). I don’t drive (through choice), we’d moved 500 miles away from our parents for this job. I hardly knew a soul but I had to get on with it, take my kids to two different schools, make their meals, do homework, housework. It’s just the way it was.

You are being unreasonable considering you get a day off a week from parenting Thetes plenty to do in Norfolk. Enjoy having the time with your child, one of mine now lives in Australia, they aren’t ‘ours’ for long.

We call them ‘threenagers’. Three is a tough age. You’ll get through it.

Oh no you had to pack! Dear Lord how will you ever manage with ONE kid. Your sister was spot on. You get on here and complain about vacations when some families haven’t been able to go on vacations for years. You’re just ungrateful.