to think that this is boasting and therefore irritating?

[chosenone]

Or am I just envious of my friend? We've been close friends since childhood but are really quite different, she is quite the yummy mummy and and a SAHM I am a bit more of a lefty boho type with quite a busy career! She is always quick to tell us how much her boots, tops, kitchen, holidays etc cost and will even say I might go back to work but we just don't need the money to a roomful of exasperated over worked mums! she has a well off partner but they also have a lot of debt that they seem not to even think about paying off!

Equally she is still a bit of a baby bore even though her DC are 3 and 1 she's happy to regale anyone with tales of her childrens bowel movements, toilet training, artisitc and sporty talents and seems to think and will happily say how very bright they are and oh so forward! the health visitor, doctor etc said so! I know she's happy that she has what she see's as the perfect, house, posessions, partner and 2.4 children but can she not talk about other things?? Particularly when other mums we meet with are struggling financially, and juggle work and family life? She panics if the dishwasher's not working or she can't get DC to pre school cos of the weather so she can have 'me time'!!!

This is a wind up thread surely .
"Barack O Bama" made me laugh tho (to be sure.)

To the OP, your friend is very insecure. She needs to talk about the money they have, the money they spend and how fascinating her children are. Pity her and avoid her if you can't bear her.

Having said that, I find people who talk about their paid work quite dull actually. And paid work and working with their children is the only difference between SAHMs and paid working mothers. When I had paid employment, I never spoke about it in social circumstances.

Perhaps we're all as dull as ditch water.

lilstarry1 I'd love to know more about the gender stereotyping of children's toys - can you start a new thread on this?

Would that be the Barack O Bama from Galway city now?

She just sounds boring - some people can't talk about anything but that directly within their own lives. Before she had kids it was probably the same, she probably changed the subject from Clinton or whoever it was to what she had scored in the sales. I know someone who gives me a weird cold "fishy" look if I broach a more abstract topic and then says, "Anyway, back do DC / my house extension / my joint pain" as if I have said something terribly unseemly and she is doing the decent thing by leading the conversation back to a legitimate topic.
Personally tho I can't bear people who talk a lot about what things cost, it is more boring than anything in the world listen to people go on about the price of things in their houses or cars or whatever. I was so surprised the other day to find that someone close to me has a newish DP who talks and thinks mainly about this. It is boring and rude, I also think, tho that is perhaps old fashioned prudery about talking about money. I just think it has the potential to make people feel small.

She just sounds a bit 'beige' to me. I know some women like this and I think they are just generally very happy to be 'kept' at home and are genuinely interested in things like which kind of bread roll to buy from M&S and haven't much else to talk about apart from their housewifery and kids. And obviously if looking after the DC is your only job you'd want to be successful at it and therefore have extra-bright and forward kids to show for it?
She just has different priorities I think and as i said is what I'd call 'a bit beige' - sort of neutral, a bit dull but generally inoffensive!

I'm intrigued as to why you call her a friend. You clearly can't stand her - does she play any other role in your life besides allowing you to feel superior?
If someone is truly your friend, you take their foibles as part of them, not let them wind you up so much you have to vent on a forum.
(Maybe that's why I can count my 'friends' on the fingers of one hand - if someone annoys me I avoid them.)

How do all you working mums know what us SAHMs talk about? You're not usually there...
What we actually say is 'God, those deathly dull working mothers, all they ever talk about is how tough it is for them, and how nobody understands them, the guilt, blah bah, glass ceilings, the boss gets the hump if you leave at 5 on the dot, the child-minder gets the hump if you don't, having it all is a myth, the guilt, blah blah, quality time, work life balance, my child is more sociable and well balanced for having been in full time day care since he was 3 minutes old, more guilt, blah bloody blah. SAHMs aren't the only ones with a cliched existence and limited conversation!

Don't keep looking for ways to justify your choices and don't expect OP's friend to need to justify hers. It's hardly her fault that she's got more money than you is it?

Some of us are hugely dull and shallow, some are very fulfilled and happy at home despite being highly intelligent and capable in the Real World, and some of us are going out of our minds with boredom, but we genuinely believe that we are doing the best thing possible by staying at home. Either that, or the logistics of going back to work negate any benefits, financial or otherwise.

Personally I get a bit hacked off with those WM's who insist on telling anyone who'll listen how tough it is to be them. They love to think all SAHMs live in a deluded smug little bubble with no understanding of the cut and thrust of the grown-up world. Maybe some of us do, but I just don't care enough that so many WM's want to get their knickers in a twist over my lack of interest in joining their ranks. After all, none of them make it sound very appealing, frankly.

If you don't like your situation change it. And if you honestly can't change it then don't waste your energy getting bitter and twisted over people who appear to have it better than you. Things are not always as they seem.

Years ago, when I had a toddler and a new baby I sat next to a very ambitious successful WM with a small baby in full-time day care at a dinner party. She asked me why I chose not to work, and I told her, (somewhat naively)and without a hint of militance or prejudice, that it didn't really make sense for me to work as I had no particularly riveting career to get back to, and as we were managing fine on one income the hassle involved didn't seem worth it. She smiled sweetly and told me how lovely she imagined it must be to stay at home and bake apple pies all day. (yes really!) She then went on to explain how she wished she could be the 'type' to be content with that, but property prices in her (very chi-chi) part of London were extortionate, and she could never live in the suburbs as she'd go out of her mind with the bland naffness of it all.

From that day on, if anyone ever asks me why I don't work I reply very clearly, and without the need to elaborate: 'The ONLY two reasons; Don't want to, don't need to.'

That was in response to Mrs Shadenfreude (waaaaay back on page 1) BTW

Here here TiggyR!

www.oneeyedparrot.org/obama.html

Oh Lordy, Tiggy, was it not perfectly clear from my posting that it was tongue in cheek?

yes, i feel sorry for her

Mrs S - Oops, no. Where you? Sorry!!! I'm not usually dim at spotting irony and I get a bit exasperated explaining my own posts to people who are, so new territory for me!

Also the whole thing wasn't directed at you, only the bit about what SAHM's talk about, as it's such a popular misconception. I failed to separate my points - got a bit carried away!

Back to the OP, We all know at least one person who's an insufferable smug show-off, and I know it's not nice for anyone to constantly boast about what they have in front of people who are less well off, but I get tired of hearing about all these women who are supposedly flaunting their wealth just to make everyone else feel inadequate. I know loads of very affluent people and only a tiny minority are crass enough to rub other people's noses in it on purpose. It seems if you are poor, or not poor even, but just struggling financially to hold things together you can bang on about it till the cows come home and people will react with empathy and a jolly 'chin-up, that's the spirit,' but anyone who has the audacity to be financially comfortable is required to carefully edit and code their conversation, removing all references to anything that implies affluence, and adopt a permanent state of embarrassed humility lest they are mistaken for 'someone who boasts.'

There are so many threads on MN along these lines. Some people do a very poor job of disguising their jealousy, and these threads almost always say alot more about the people having a moan than they do about the person they are moaning about!

I agree with Tiggy, but mine is in the response to the OP!!

FFS, we all make choices, i chose to be a SAHM, not without severe financial hardship - but i beleive its the right thing for my DD. If that makes me boring - i couldnt give a shit!

Some people do bore on - dont think its relevant whether you work or not or are a parent or not for that matter. I have a lovely friend, very kind and can be fun, but conversation always centres on the diy work she is doing on her house (in great detail) and the office politics in her office (I have never been there and know nobody involved). But I'm not allowed to mention the DC or I am being boring .