to think some retired people completely forget what it’s like to be working full time?

[cupofcup]

I know retirement is not always easy and older people can have health issues, caring responsibilities etc. But I do think some people genuinely forget what it is like to juggle work, commuting, childcare, housework and just basic life admin all at once.

My DM is retired and will often say how busy she is because she has shopping on Tuesday and a doctor’s appointment on Friday. That is apparently an exhausting week. She is in good health and active. Meanwhile most working people are fitting those things around 40+ hour working weeks.

My retired neighbour constantly comments on how awful another neighbour’s garden looks and how she should tidy it up. The neighbour she is talking about is a working mum with young children who leaves the house at 7am every day. My retired neighbour has a gardener.

Obviously NOT ALL retired people are like this at all. Some are incredibly understanding and helpful. But others seem to completely lose perspective on how relentless working life can be, especially with children.

I'm 68 soon. I've suddenly - in the past few months - started to feel really weary and it doesn't take much to make me feel like that. It's a new feeling (despite suffering from chronic, recurrent insomnia for decades), because I used to feel energetic no matter how little sleep or how much I had done from day to day.

Ageing is a shock to the system, OP.

I mean I’m relatively young and friends my age from uni still have primary aged or teenage kids.

but I’m sufficiently disabled that I’m medically retired and actually for me going out and doing the shopping is exhausting to the point I need a nap afterwards.

yes, I remember being able bodied and busy. But equally my life now is also true and I do get tired just from doing a supermarket shop or driving a short distance.

Of course I am but then I am judged for some of the decisions I make because I am short on time.

I think energy changes when older (obvs I may be wrong). All the things that could do when younger / middle aged just aren’t possible. So for someone who is retired maybe one appointment a day is tiring. Also, there could be fact some people who retire miss the chaos of former life and want to seem busy so say, yes am busy etc.

Like I said:

Nobody knows how anybody will feel at any stage of life. I have a retired friend who runs marathons and DM who will only walk for 10 minutes because she finds doing more boring (she is capable of walking more).

Yes, to an extent, but I do think some people are just very low energy, and a couple of things that would take someone else an hour or two to polish off in the context of the average week will, for the low-energy person, mentally occupy several days and loom over the entire week. Regardless of age.

I used to have a friend who was exactly my age, late 40s, in good health, and had exactly the same job as me at the same level of seniority. We were both married with children -- though he had one more than I did. He would huff and puff all week about something 'extra' in his week, like taking his children to buy shoes or a parents' evening at school, and appeared to think his Saturday was unusually crammed if he had to take the children to their swimming lesson as well as put away the grocery delivery.

I wouldn't describe myself as particularly high-energy, but he would be absolutely aghast at a weekend that featured normal stuff like having people over for dinner and hosting a few kids on a playdate with DS, or babysitting for a friend and going for a local hillwalk, as well as grocery shopping etc. That for him was several weeks worth of activity.

What does it matter to you OP. I’m guessing retired people have trod the same road as you and they’ve earnt their retirement.

Judged? By who?

I'm 67 and retired...and my days are busy...but if I have been busy for a couple of hours I think " fuck it" , I'm reading for the rest of the day.
I've earned it!
I'm living my best life and dont care if it pisses off younger folk.

I remember thinking how on earth did I do everything before I retired. It just seems impossible in retrospect. And no I don't think I'm really busy now, but it is lovely not to be.

Completely agree. An elderly relative said she has a ‘hell of a week’ ahead and will be rushed off her feet as she has a vaccination appointment on one day and a gardener coming round to trim the hedges on another.

Another retired relative rings me up at random times during the workday for a chat, oblivious to the fact it’s working hours.

I think the reality of working life is something easily forgotten once you retire.

Oh totally understand.

My bugbear is that I volunteer in community groups. I also work 45-50hrs a week and have 3 kids. The retired folk on the same committees are so pushy trying to get me to run more events (I already do several) Even when I say a polite no they push back and make snippy comments ‘if you want something done ask a busy person’

I’m totally mentally exhausted, physically drained, leave me alone and run your own book sale!

Do you understand the point of this forum?

My Dad suddenly started ringing me in working hours after he retired. I panicked at first, thinking it was an emergency, and it would be him wanting to know what we wanted for Christmas!

I'm looking forward to being retired in 10 years and forgetting all about what it's like to be working full time. Why wouldn't you?

I won't be having a 2nd round of doing childcare either.

Suck it up. We are circling the drain…

My dad is like this. Frightfully busy as he has to make a phone call. Suggesting you do X en route to M&S is “complicated”. But he is 85 and on balance, doing pretty well. He struggles to understand how we for everything in…. Which is just life.

Yes I absolutely agree and what makes it worse is that many of that generation also didn’t ever juggle all this with 2x Ft working parents so they have absolutely no understanding at all. Plus the cost of living stuff - that we all feel like we’re running so fast on a treadmill only to go backwards every year.

I got told to stop rushing around so much and watch TV by my retired auntie. She tells me about all the interesting things she watches and doesn't understand why I have not watched the series she regularly recommends.

Err because I don't have time to sit in front of the TV for 3 hours everyday with working and DC?

Our NDN makes up paranoid stories about people on the street. One is a drug dealer, another is creating porn and the 90 year old is a secret raging alcoholic who is a drunk driver... Her evidence for the latter is the fact his dog is called Whiskey.

"What other people think of me is none of my concern"

Repeat ^ as a mantra until you really believe this OP - its liberating.

🤣🤣

It is not pissing off younger folk. Do what you want but it is getting boring have to re-explain to SOME retired folk that I simply do not have the time to do the things they think I should be doing.

If it’s really sudden it could be a vitamin deficiency rather than just ageing. It’s worth seeing the GP to check.

Well, I'm not the OP, but I've just had a conversation with my mother that I have very frequently, where she keeps putting off a plan that was her idea and which will take up maybe a couple of hours in total because I mention something that I'll be doing in a week's time which she seems to think somehow blanks out an entire week. This time it was 'Well, we can't do that this week' on Sunday evening, about something that would take about two hours, because I was going to be going away overnight the next Saturday night. It's as though she thinks I need to have a week in which I have literally no other engagements to take a trip to a local garden centre.