To think there's no such thing as a "soft life"?

[TheBestThingthatAlmostHappened]

Working is hard- regardless of if you are slogging away in a minimum wage job and still struggling to make ends meet, or under pressure in a high-stress, high pay role.

Surviving off benefits is hard.

Living off a partner and the stress and judgement that comes with that is hard.

Even being born into money is hard if you believe the stories coming out of those families.

AIBU to think that the current generation of young women being told to seek a "soft life" are being lied to and no such thing exists?

Clearly it's a small club as most people think I am being unreasonable to think the soft life doesn't exist, and therefore the soft life does, indeed, exist, and we are all idiots to think that it takes hard work and perseverance to succeed in life. I imagine that these people might be best placed to describe in detail how their soft life works.

I'm not deriding them, I'm worried for them. Being dependent on someone else with nothing to fall back on is such a vulnerable place to be and yet it's being sold as a good life plan.

Often there are no perfect solutions in life. This becomes especially apparent when children arrive. They bring with them a shed-load of continuous, relentless, unpaid work and responsibility which still, despite everything, tends to fall disproportionately on women.

This leaves many women with unpalatable choices. Work full-time, spend a huge chunk of income on childcare, get home exhausted to evenings spent doing childcare and household chores and then have to get up with babies/small children several times through the night. But you preserve your career progression and your pension. Work part-time, lose some of these, and end up doing everything at home because you're the one working less. But still all your time is spent working or doing childcare. Or don't work, but then you're financially dependent and it can be difficult to get back to work when the kids are a bit older and more independent so there's the danger of being left feeling undervalued and superfluous and having the financial rug pulled from under you if your relationship fails. Show me the option that doesn't screw female parents over in some way. And it's fine to say that no woman should depend financially on a man, but again children and the demands they create often throw a spanner in the works and make it exponentionally harder to remain independent and leave if things go wrong.

I have a highish paying job that funds my soft life. Working in hospitality and then working looking after disabled children means I see most office laptop jobs as “soft” though.

I agree to a extent, but also, rejecting that pressure, for example refusing to strive for a promotion or a pay rise, drawing boundaries around your time and saying no to opportunities which bring with them added stress, is also hard and brings challenges.

And if you say "no" to doing what is needed to afford the basics, on the basis that it's an unreasonable ask, what then? If you can't afford housing because you've said no to the capitalist grind, you might be right, but you're still homeless and that's not easy.

I'd imagine that most people 'living on benefits' are severely disabled & housebound so I certainly don't envy them. If that isn't the case, who on earth is living on benefits?

It sounds like it's just the latest trend, then (though I haven't seen it personally). It won't last long, not the first and won't be the last, and sounds less potentially damaging than some of the other nonsense spouted on the Internet.

Times are hard for a lot of people, but I also think many today feel harder done by than they actually are, if they could but look back and realise how difficult life was in the not so distant past. We've lost hold of some things along the way, like a strong sense of community, but there are so many aspects of my life that are much 'softer' than what my grandparents or great-grandparents experienced, expected, or even hoped for.

It's human nature for most of us to want to find an easy life, but reality usually kicks some sense into us sooner or later, if we didn't have family, teachers, or mentors to guide us along the way.

The media says thousands of healthy people are happily frolicking about on benefits and no intention of getting off them. We know that's not the case but by the end of primary school quite a few children have absorbed that idea and instead of the intended objective to disparage benefits claimants, they've thought it sounds like a brilliant idea and why bother with boring maths lessons. Anyone who actually tries is going to quickly find that it's not like that at all but by that point if you've fucked up your education and have no plans.

Insisting that life has to be a slog and a grind seems like shooting yourself in the foot a bit. You only get one life and it's up to you to make it as enjoyable as you can, on your terms, with the hand you're dealt, accepting that there are going to be moments when it's really hard.

I have a nice life, and it's nice because I made decisions that led me to it. My job can be hard and stressful but it's ultimately something I'm passionate about. I have it because I didn't stop until I got my foot in the door of the industry (and went through many broke years until that happened). I worked out earlier what level of affluence would make me happy - and more importantly what level of affluence would require too much of a sacrifice - and have attained it. My family were toxic, so I cut them off. I found my chosen family of amazing friends because I actively sought out people like me.

You only get the life you want if you take some control over it. I find the number of people who are passengers in huge life decisions quite amazing.

I accept there's a lot of privilege and luck involved in that, but I wasn't dealt a good hand as a child at all. I actually think that made me more focused in getting the exact life I wanted, with no pressure from other people.

Telling kids to work their arses off at school so they can have an interesting career, would - in time - equate to a soft life. Soft life being a comfortable, contented existence in which you have choices.

Although this only really works for those who are able. Some people are always going to be working in a warehouse whether they try hard at school or not.

Blimey, by the end of primary school my kids knew that having to live off meagre benefits would be the absolute pits!

Sadly, having worked in some deprived areas, I have seen many children as young as 8 or 9 already saying that they plan to live off benefits when they are older and therefore don't have to participate in lessons. Not quite the same as the soft girl life but another way in which by the time the reality of what they've chosen catches up it's hard to make a u-turn.

Yes, but that's the thing, you had to put in years of effort to get there. There is always going to be difficulty along the way at some stage and avoiding it when you are young means it's going to be harder still when you're older.

I probably have a relatively easy life, although I don't find it easy really! Day to day life as a parent is still pretty stressful. We made choices to make daily life easier but it took DHs high income to have those choices. I was sahm for a few years and retrained so I could get a job around school hours. There was a place at the end of my street and I called in a few times while training 'looking for advice' but really setting up a relationship. When youngest started school I approached them and they gave me two short shifts a week. Then someone left and I just slotted in. I love my work, i feel deeply satisfied more than previous careers. I am home to collect kids and when youngest starts secondary I'll have an hour to myself everyday. if i forget something or have a delivery i pop home for 5 mins. Someone recently told me i was lucky the way it all worked out, true but it was carefully orchestrated. Dhs work is going well, we have a summer and winter holiday and 2 or 3 weekend breaks a year. We have two cars and a nice but modest house in a really nice area. So my choices came from luck and my luck came from my choices.

One element I don't get is the vulnerability if DH leaves me. Maybe he will, sure there is a risk but I also trust him. If he does, I'll work FT and we will downsize in this area, all the nice lifestyle stuff will go but we'll be absolutely fine. Chances are he won't and I'm prepared to take that risk. Hedging against it would involve a much more stressful life, a commute, childcare and all that goes with it, the stress of a career progression job. In terms of risk, it's just as likely I'd be made redundant or the industry or economy collapses. If he left now I'd still be able to say i had 7 years of a low stress easier life which benefitted all of us so it still would be the right decision and I'd have no regrets.

In which case you’ve obviously lived a fairly charmed life. What about being trapped in servitude or extreme poverty, or by serious health conditions or in a cycle of abuse? There are worse things than being supported by a DP and being able to spend your days waggling a credit card around in whole foods.

There was a thread on here a few weeks ago posted by someone who’s daughter had decided she wasn’t going to go to university (think she was 15/16) but was planning to live on benefits. The poster was struggling to tell her daughter it wasn’t meant to be a life choice and also said she’d picked it up from social media. I guess that’s the soft life you’re referring to.

Yes, I remember that thread, that's definitely one version of how it can play out.

I channel hopped at lunchtime and stopped on the Loose Women thing. Sally from Corrie was on and they showed a clip from 40 years ago.
They went on to illness and being off work.
Janet S-P said she was gagging to get back to work after her knee op... and went back after 3 weeks.
I felt it was a bit blind to those who do more physical jobs who might be dreading returning to work after operations.

OK, maybe it was slightly hyperbole, I can imagine worse situations, but it would definitely make me feel claustrophic and scared, knowing that the end of your relationship would mean financial destitution. Sadly, I know many women trapped in marriages where they are very unhappy and are exhausted by keeping up with doing all the childcare and housework. They can't get a job, they can't leave, they can't gain qualifications. It's not soft.

Alternatively you could have said I was taking the easy road in my 20s, indulging myself by pursuing my passion with no guarantee of a stable future rather than martyring myself for money in a sensible but soul-crushing job. My mother certainly said that. And you know what - in a sense she was right. I may have been broke but I had a lot of fun in my 20s by simply doing what I wanted to do, in my career and in my personal life. Like I said, you have to take happiness from life when it's there to be taken.

Oh you're talking about a silly social media trend though.

It's stupid and they're stupid for thinking that's an easy life. Doesn't mean that there isn't a version of a soft, easy life out there for people.

I’m encouraging and role modelling my two girls to work hard and strive to create their own income from their hard work. However, can’t say I feel sorry for women who don’t write go out to work and live off their husbands amazing salary

Yep. I do sometimes sit at work wonder if maybe I'd have quite liked to have married for money, sadly, love was the only thing on offer to me at the time, so back to the grind stone with me 😂

I was brought up being told it’s a hard life and unfair life and not to expect hand outs etc.

But life is what you make it. I strive for a softer life, I love the slow living movement because it suits me rather than hustle culture.

Am I ignorant to the struggle? No. But I chose to focus on gratitude and blessings no matter how small.

There is a lot of nonsense spread about on social media. The 'soft life' idea is one of them by the sound of it. It is a shame that young impressionable people have access to this stuff, but it doesn't look as if it will change any time soon.