to think some retired people forget how busy working life is?

[HazelMember]

My elderly uncle lives on the same road as me, so I visit regularly, do shopping for him and help with bits of care (he also has carers). He’s always telling me to stop rushing around, sit down and have a good tea and chat session for a couple of hours. I’d love to but I work, have DC and a household of my own to run.

My DM always argues with me when I say I’m busy and says retired people are just as busy as working people. Some might be, I agree.

One of my other elderly neighbours recently said she’s “just as busy as me” because she has two appointments next week: the doctor and the hairdresser.

AIBU to feel like some retired people forget what full-time work + parenting + life admin actually involves?

Note I said SOME not all.

I work in an area where work comes in peaks and troughs - I've noticed that when people are low on work they assume everyone else is too and have all the time in the world for their non-urgent busywork tasks...apparently oblivious to the fact that the other person is silently rolling their eyes and desperate to get on. So maybe it's just human nature.

Your elderly neighbour reminds me of something my late grandmother said:

”My legs are very strong from getting up and down off the sofa several times a day.”

I do miss her, but towards the end she really wasn’t connected to the realities of work, exercise, and the rest…

That's fair enough. I think we just think differently. To me the busyness of others only concerns me if it's the fact they're directly meant to be doing something and they're not, and that means I feel I have to do it. Otherwise I'm kind of oblivious.

I also think everyone's idea of 'busy' is different. That's probably what I was trying to convey.

'Retired people' covers a wide age and capability spectrum. I found when my parents reached their 80s, their world really seemed to shrink and small tasks would be seen by them as filling the day. So, for example, they'd say "Oh, we can't do that on Wednesday because we've got to go to the chemist to pick up a prescription'. That's one version of being busy.

The other version is typical of younger retired people, but also of some older ones who retain full capacity and mobility, where they do fill their days with lots of tasks and events - social events, DIY projects, volunteering, day trips and holidays.

I think what both types sometimes forget is the lack of choice you have about working and the routine of it. The fact that you could pick any random day in the future that is part of your normal working pattern and broadly speaking you know what you will be doing on that day - you will be at work unless you have the misfortune to be made redundant or sacked or ill in the meantime.

edited for typo

Nail on head OP. My mum treats a hair appointment as if it’s the equivalent of a full-time working week. She doesn’t work and has always had a cleaner, yet she can’t understand why I don’t have time to chat on the phone. (I have full-time work, commute, DC, pets, household and life admin, with DH who works long hours. Also zero family nearby so zero help; plus zero money to afford the things that might help life be a bit less busy eg cleaner, takeaways, ready meals, food delivery as can only afford Aldi.) MIL (who has never worked in her life) is the same, always wanting to chat on the phone, I just have no time. Then they tell me, “you’re too busy and stressed, make sure you’re getting regular me-time” 😳 Me-time, as if I have time for that!!! MIL is the same to DH.

Meanwhile they all do fuck-all all day, but pretend to be “so busy” and stressed!

I agree with this.

I have read lots of threads by women who are SAHPs or work PT (some just housewives) and claim they can’t work as they wouldn’t be able to do the cleaning and cooking.

I have lost count how many times my grandma used to kick off because we wouldn’t jump to help her - she assumed only seeing her twice a week meant we didn’t care about her and wanted her to starve.

I think people absolutely do forget how busy life can be when you work FT and have kids.

Yes this. My dad gets stroppy and accuses me of 'ghosting him'.

A. he lives in Australia and there is a time difference of 11 hours
B. i also have a disabled child and another younger child the former of which needs alot of medical appointments

I also have a retired friend who generally speaking is not great with boundaries.

She thinks the fact I work full time means I clearly want to spend every Sunday in the pub with her and gets remarkably shitty when I say i need to spend time with my children and my husband and occasionally even do things like iron clothes and watch tv.

AIBU to feel like some retired people forget what full-time work + parenting + life admin actually involves?

Most of them didn't do that much parenting either. Those of us who were kids in the 70s and 80s know our parents didn't spend anywhere near as much time with us as we do with our kids - you were expected to play by yourself (preferably out of the house to give them peace and quiet) and there was no question of them straining themselves to entertain you if you were bored. Studies show the average stay at home mother in the 70s spent less time actively engaged with their children than a full time working mother today.

Plus life admin was easier when the women tender to stop working after having kids, which was easily affordable on standard wages thanks to low housing costs.

I think they've never really worked that hard so genuinely see going to a couple of doctors appointments and having their hair done as having a busy week. They are not lying, just coming at it from a different perspective than a working person in the 2020s

Yep. I have this with my father.
Used to get stroppy if I wouldn’t “nip” to here there and everywhere for him during working hours when I was WFH.
“Just tell your boss you’re going to blah blah blah for your dad”
No the absolute fuck I will not be doing that, or “nipping” anywhere because a) I’m replaceable as are most of us in the workplace these days and b) not your skivvy. Boomer.

When you have worked for 50 years your don't forget, trust me.

I wrote this message to my friend last week, describing a morning with my dad and step mum:
"Working from home at my dads today. A day in the life of a 70 year old couple is so funny. Nothing happens and everything happens. Dad has been to the barber AND the Coop. One dog ate the other dog's breakfast. Outrage. A very confusing letter from the bank with an indecipherable PIN. Some boxes had to be moved to the attic. There's some soup in the freezer, but perhaps not enough for three?!! I feel hysterical."

DM tells me she is "so busy" cleaning the house and DF is "so busy" tidying the garden "it's a full time job". And "she wonders how she ever had time to go to work". I pointed out thst her standards were different and she didn't have immaculate skirting boards when she worked.

A couple from church were telling me how they had to spend 5 hours in the garden that day. I told them I don't garden because I don't have time. They acted like gardening was an essential task that was so important. It was hilarious.

The PP who said about family members telling them to slow down and take some me time really struck a nerve with me. I get this from MIL. It is an attempt to be nice, but it just makes you feel bad like you're somehow at fault for being busy with work.

I think this is the problem with my parents. They didn't work for that long!

The issue we had with DHs parents is their disbelief that you had to book holiday and couldn’t just be off whenever you felt like it. That you could just ‘ring in sick’ and pop up and see them, DH tried to explain things like the Bradford factor to them.

I can't wait to retire me. I'm going to get up early and drive around really slow in the morning traffic at the busiest time.

My mum used to annoy me by calling during the working day.

She's dead now and I would give the world for just one of her calls. A two minute chat about her bunions and how she planned to watch Bargain Hunt later. That would be lovely and pretty much more important in the long run than anything I ever did at work.

Yeah this gets to me too.

My retired mum potters in her garden and has a lunch with friends once a week. Perhaps a dentist or dr every now and then.

she claimed recently she was equally as busy as me (three kids aged 5 and under, one school drop off, one nursery drop off. One toddler potty training, one baby weaning, one lot of phonics every night). Laundry for 5 inc 3 messy kids, constant toy tidying etc. if I don’t reply to her messages within an hour she thinks I’ve died. I’ve said it’s because I’m manic busy. She realises when she visits how busy I am and then goes home and promptly forgets how busy my life is and is astounded I don’t reply to her messages immediately or haven’t watched the news in the last 10 mins

This thread started off with a reasonable premise but it's starting to make me feel really sad with all the spiteful and angry ageism.

So are you saying that the many people who behave like this didn't work properly/at all; or that they are selfish and simply don't care?

Retired people are not as busy as working people and definitely not working parents…

I would know, I recently stopped working to do a degree and I have so much time even though I now sort out all of the house chores and meals, all the admin, volunteer at a food bank, am organising an entire house renovation and see my friends and do hours and hours of uni work a day. The week stretches out with so much glorious time!

I'd go do my blood test before 9am for work but I know there will be loads of retired people already waiting and I'll just be waiting frustrated. So I'm leaving at lunch on Fri as it's less likely to impact work time. So they're clearly very very busy squeezing stuff in.😏

This is a large part of the problem, though. It isn't that people don't care or don't want to spend time with their elderly parents and other loved ones at all; it's that they simply don't have the capacity to be at their beck and call - and they are often made to feel guilty for holding down a job to pay their bills and bringing up children.

I don't know your line of work, but a great many people aren't actively preferring to be working rather than spend time with their elderly family members; it's just that they cannot afford to lose their jobs by deciding that "Mum is more important than whatever work task I'm doing right now" when their boss very decidedly doesn't agree. Flip it around: how would you feel if they had a very important hospital important or a touch and go ambulance call-out - but the medical staff decided that chatting to their elderly parents instead of doing their job was much more important?

I am a retired SAHM and am busier than I ever was when I was working. Two hours of school runs every day, support for my elderly parent (1.5 hour round trip), being involved with several groups and the dog, house and garden, entertaining and having regular guests staying over. But I do know a few people who don't have busy lives from my perspective but think they do!

Someone always tries to do the guilt trip on these threads. Always.

I don't think it's just retired people though, it's also people who don't work. I have a cousin who's never really worked and has teenage kids. One of her kids was astonished that we typically get home from work at about 6.30pn and leave at 7.30am and that we weren't around to just do nothing.