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.

Jesus Christ of course it's fucking tiring. As you age everything starts to wear out so you don't have the stamina you once had. It shouldn't really be a competition of who is more exhausted or worn down. I am 68 and do remember how tiring having babies and working was, I also know that I can't do the shopping like i used to because of mobility issues. Doesn't make me any less understanding of how difficult some people find life.

Double post

It's also true of some parents who don't go out to work, having one child is considered to be a full time job and it really isn't, having a second is world shattering.

I think we can all agree that elderly people are a burden. Especially as they are another part of a sexist society. When women are working full time and many of us have children, we are expected to look after elderly relatives.

My brother has never been asked to look after things for my mother.
He lives nearer to my mother than I do.

I have been asked by relatives to do things for my mother. If i say no, im looked at like im selfish.

I'm a big believer in Parkinson's Law: work expands to fit time allotted for it. And our perception of how busy we are expands with it.

Agree with a PP who talked about WFH. I'm lucky enough to WFH full time now, after a few years of hybrid, and many years at the beginning of my career with full time in office and long commutes. The thought of going back to daily commuting and working in the office is awful, like how would I manage it. Yet I know I would because I did.

And it's not like I notice to a huge extent how much easier and less full on my life is day to day now I WFH...you get used to it so quickly, and fill the time gained with other things (more exercise, commitment to gardening, more housework, new hobbies, whatever). Soon become these new commitments you're feeling frazzled by, even though they felt like lovely extra luxurious "extras" they once were.

I imagine retirement feels much the same, plus with age you have less physical energy and vim.

The thing is we do have sympathy for those still in captivity. I mourned a little for my dc’s lost freedom when they got responsibilities and mortgages, even though it’s what they wanted. I literally don’t know how people manage to hold down f/t jobs, look after the children, look after the house, keep up with life admin, at full pelt…but we did it, so I have to hope that they have the same reserves as we did, when we were younger. It’s a fact that as most people age, their energy levels and capacity to juggle lessens. That’s just biology. And once you’re not in the thick of it any more, maybe it’s quite nice for people to feel that two things in one day is ‘busy’!

My parents both worked long hours in high pressure roles throughout my childhood. They also volunteered, had family commitments and all the other things busy working parents do.

For the first 10 years after they retired they absolutely remembered what it was like and understood what our lives were like. They remained very busy themselves during that time volunteering, doing hobbies, helping with the grandchildren.

After that they just gradually… forgot.

They’ve now been retired for more than 20 years and as they are in their 80s are increasingly unable to cope with any kind of stress.

So one appointment or activity a day is genuinely a busy and stressful week for them now.

But I now find a long day in the office especially tiring when as a young Mum I was office based 5 days a week, with a long commute and then came home to the chaos of small children.

I’m allowed to be tired (as a menopausal woman with adult children) even though I was much, much much busier 10 years ago.

Perhaps we should all just give each other more grace and understanding, whichever stage of life we are at. (and that goes both ways)

My mum is very demanding of specific timings for visits etc where the actual plan is to potter around doing nothing specific. If you tell her you need to catch a train, she understands that. If you tell her you want to beat the traffic and finish work, it's a wild imposition. My dad gently reminds her that the three sets of kids she's trying to meet have kids, other family and jobs to work around.

My MIL more forgets not the busyness of working life, but rather that we're just not that invested in her wider family now that we have our own family and will badger us about committing to those things - even though she is hugely supportive if the issue is one of work etc. (I'm talking about not tying up our calendar with a second cousin once removeds' cats bah mitzvah, not skipping visits to grandparents!).

Sometimes needs must. Whoever judged you is in the wrong.

Surely the reverse is true - the older person remembers what it was like to work 40 hours a week before retirement, so they would have more insight and understanding into the other perspective than the younger person who hasn’t yet experienced the change?

I think many elderly people have a restricted view of the world. They dont do much and they dont leave the house a lot. They are able to see that you are visiting them. They are not able to see that you have children, work, other responsibilites etc

Yes. My DF, commenting on my weight and that I should diet/exercise when I’m working full time, looking after a house, pets, doing diy, shopping, cleaning, cooking etc. When he’s been retired for decades and is waited on hand and foot by my mum (both retired).

If I had the time and mental capacity to think about my diet and exercise then great! Send me a meal planner, shopper, cleaner, chef, someone to wash and put away my clothes and send me free money so I don’t have to work! 🙄 ffs

Their lives are fine! Golf trips, sewing clubs, seeing friends and family regularly. They just moan about being “exhausted”

The difference when you have young children is that you never ever get a break. People forget that - or they had a stream of babysitters, family members helping but many people do not have that luxury.

Whatever your job and activity, you have the freedom to go straight to bed when you come home, and stay in bed on your day off. You have not that choice when you have kids.

That's why having kids is tiredness on another level. You can't guarantee a full night sleep either.

So of course it's tiring.

i can imagine how the sewing club can be exhausting 😂

Try to laugh about it, they're not going to get better 😂😂

I work. How would I watch TV in the day like my auntie who switches it on at 7am in the morning?

Mortgages were much higher in the late 80s/early 90s, relative to wages. Unemployment also v high. Of course, parents worked full time, often in several jobs. These people are now retiring. Each generation thinks they are the most hard done by. You’re not.

You know what I find irritating op is this constant narrative that older or retired women have no experience of real life and therefore. deserve to be belittled.

When I worked ft supporting my family we had a dress code, there was no working from home, hardly any crèches or nurseries, or wrap around care at school, there was rampant misogyny in the office and significant wage disparities between men and women. So I do think I do know a bit about real life actually and juggling children, work and home.

And wait and see how you feel as your energy drops off a cliff once you are past sixty. Many of us in this age group were told that HRT was dangerous and it’s now too late to start it. That’s not the case for everyone but it is for many.

Our parents brought us up with a degree of benign neglect yet we were expected to provide our dc with stellar educations, numerous extra curricular activities, interesting travel opportunities, nutritious whole foods, and to protect every aspect of their emotional wellbeing like a lioness.

Many of us have missed out on generous pensions such as those enjoyed by our older siblings and have had to go on working longer than ever before.

And many of us are still running large homes to which our adult children return home intermittently after university, between jobs, while seeking work, after relationship break ups.

And just when we think we are through the extended child-rearing period of our lives; we are then expected to provide childcare for tiny babies and pre-school toddlers or pre- or after-school care for older children during term time and especially in the holidays.

And you wonder why we are tired?

"I think we can all agree that elderly people are a burden" is a bit of a reach.

my dad drives me insane with this, he wanders in my house around 40 minutes before school ends to see my son, my husband is trying to work and he just sits there, doesn't make conversation himself. Does he actually think I don't have a million things to do in the tiny amount of time between me finishing work and doing the school run!
He also wanders in as tea is going on the table and we have 12 minutes to eat it and get to sports club.
Not one thing is ever done to help, it's always around his schedule. I wish I could pretend not to be in but we have big glass doors!

He does one thing a day like going down to watch bowls or go to asda cafe. If I suggest anything else he can't understand how he can fit it in.

Speaking of gardens, his is unbelievable, he actually has a shed in his garden you can't see for thorn bushes, 15 years of letting it grow and he had the audacity to say can me and my husband do it and he'll buy us fish and chips, yeah fuck off dad! Sorry rant over.

Do you just expect people to die so you are not inconvenienced ?

Speaking as someone who has been retired for fifteen year, I really don't understand that sort of mentality.

I have absolutely no idea what my neighbours get up to nor am I interested in finding out.

I haven't forgotten what it was like to get up at 6.15 in the morning to get to work and the relentlessness of looking after my three children on my own and trying to keep the house going all at the same time.

But I had a lot more energy then and I definitely get tired more quickly now, which is only to be expected. I am though, really lucky that I'm in very good health and still very active in my late 70s.

However, a great many people become quite sedentary after retirement, their world becomes smaller and they can begin to focus on petty things, like watching what their neighbours are up to and, because they're not doing a lot get tired more easily.

i like to keep busy and join things and I find that the retired people I meet tend to continue to be active and engaged in the world because they're getting out there and still learning and getting involved.

Would also add a lot of them are very busy with caring for grandchildren as well and that can be incredibly exhausting when you're older.

People can work and still claim their pension. You don't have to be retired to get your pension.

Can't believe I am explaining this.

"Within the current sexist socety".

Women are expected to care for elderly parents. Men are not expected.

I have been treated with cruelty and nastiness for daring to go to work, instead of looking after my elderly mother.

My brother was not asked to look after my mother at any stage of his life.

Yes because posting on here is the same as watching TV for 3 hours. Ho hum.