for thinking friends without kids shouldnt be allowed to use the word exhausted?

[guineagents]

just got this thought from a response I read in another post and TOTALLY agreed with!

My DP says I am unreasonable for finding it nigh on impossible to bite my tongue when friends without kids go on about how "exhausted" they are!

Yes they work hard. Yes they have different priorities. And yes it was me who chose to have kids.. but exhausted?? Come on!

They sleep til 11. They get to read papers all the way through. They "potter" about and have pub lunches and quiet adult drinks to "relax" after a hard week

Jealous? Me? {wink}

Niandra your post was very thoughtfully worded... and you are right, I actually mean 'responsibility free' rather than 'childfree' - you phrased it much more eloquently than I!

Eurostar assuming the jealousy-of-neighbors things is aimed at me ? Of course, my life is umpteen times enriched by my children! Of course, I wouldn't swap with them in a million years! But I think I'm entitled (or, rather, I entitle myself...) to the odd moments of green-eyed envy of people who have entire WEEKENDS of time to ENJOY themselves with no cost or consideration of others?

(Or, even, to type a quick two paragraphs response to a MN posting - the above took me 7 minutes to write as I had to re-latch the baby, burp her and put her down. Now, my neighbors don't exactly have that problem )

"you lot really are totally humourless"

I expect they just feel a bit tired totally exhausted.

I've worked 61 hours straight, gone to sleep while in the bath after that, and then worked another 48 hours, 12 hours after stopping from the first work period, but could get to bed for 12 hours (after a 2+ hour train journey and then another hour on the bus to get home) but have it 'easy' by comparison with many posters.

Just wondering how my Mum coped when she had my three sisters around 60 years ago (when she had me, she could call on them to help her, but later was plunged into carrying us all when my Dad died).

I don't remember her complaining that much, and she rarely needed to raise her voice, either, so perhaps some of the problems for today's parents are the expectations thrown at them via their children seeing adverts, and comparing a bit with their peers, now that foreign holidays, MP3 players, mobile phones, and a PC or TV in a bedroom seem all the more commonplace.

I'm not making any criticism of parenting skills - just commenting that in this rather materialist society, where the 'haves' sometimes mock the 'have nots' it simply adds to pressure on families, and that nagging question about 'when can I have an X-Box' (or laptop, or some other item) comes just that bit too often... Longer working hours, to fund the treats (nearly said 'essentials'!) make being tired so much more common.

Know it is too 'fairy tale' but didn't they always have time for relaxing on the Waltons, and Darling Buds of May. Not like today's busy parents, getting to work 'just in time', expected to have children do dance, or horse riding, or music lessons, or judo, or whatever (I don't remember ever having any after school activities, no scouts or anything).

My god, NetworkGuy what do you do?! (Or is the clue in your MN moniker?)

Wanted to add the following to my earlier posting: I think most people easily conflate 'children' with 'responsibilities' because, for most of us, it really is our first brush with the relentlessness of any 24/7 responsibility (I know it was for me). For others, who have been caring for ageing parents, working god-awful corporate jobs, volunteering plus working - well, they are already clued into that particular type of exhaustion.

I think it's really interesting, though - and possibly we are the first generation in the first society to experience this? - that so many of us can, for so long, lead lives that are completely self-centric... not sure it's totally a good thing that we (most of us) need to have children to put our own selfish lives in perspective?

Oh, but I am rambling now....

Both jobs just as exhausting - before kids, worked 15-16 hour days, rarely got a full day off at the weekends, had to pop on a plane and fly half way across the world about 3 times a month so severely jet-lagged trhe whole time. Plus a whole myriad of other personal things eating into sleep time(otherwise depression sets in if all you ever do is work), helping look after family etc etc etc.

No need for me to explain how having a child is also exhausting - think most posters here get that! I did manage to sneak in the odd daytime snooze when on ML though!

YANBU

That and when childless friends say 'I never get any time to myself!' and one friend saying to me once 'you're so lucky to be part-time I could never afford it' - her disposable income at the time was about 10x mine

Being a grown up is tiring, you're paying bills, working, worrying, juggling.

And then you die.

FightingDwarf - thinking of you - emotional exhaustion is the worst kind. Hope your 4 yo is doing OK.

They sleep til 11. They get to read papers all the way through. They "potter" about and have pub lunches and quiet adult drinks to "relax" after a hard week.

These type of people might be exhausted, but what you describe is them rejuvenating and relaxing, which as a parent you rarely get to do because it never stops.
Obviously not everyone without children gets a chance to do the above, be it long hours, shifts or carers, so bitof a generalisation.
I don't think you are being unreasonable, I know what you mean.

am original poster and would like to say the post was meant to be a bit humorous and tongue in cheek and bit shocked by some peoples personal comments!- but am new to mumsnet so am getting used to it.

Can anyone please explain what the YABU, YANBU things mean that keep coming up. Am totally perplexed!!

you are being unreasonable
you are not being unreasonable
!!!

I was always way more exhausted before I had kids then after. I used to be out clubbing and drinking nearly every night and staying up all night and then working full time.

I personally think that is way harder than working now and only having to look after my child. I actually have considerably more sleep now than I have since I was 16 and that was even with a child who woke up half a dozen times a night from 0 - 2 lol! I suppose it depends on your lifestyle before kids

YABU. I feel less tired overall with a four month old who doesn't sleep through, than I did when I was working.

I'm sleepier now, for sure, thanks to the sleep deprivation. But that horrible feeling of stressed out exhaustion has just disappeared.

Annoying parents said to me when I was pregnant "you don't know what tiredness is, you don't know what hard work is" etc etc. I insisted that my job was tiring/hard work, and I didn't think having a baby would be more so, to which they'd laugh annoyingly drily and say "just you wait".

Well I did wait. And I was right. Maybe I've just got an awful job.

It comes and goes and there's different types of exhaustion.

Having a newborn baby seemed totally exhausting at the time, but looking back I find that I did actually carry on working (was proof reading on the maternity ward) and wrote what is probably my best piece of research when dd was 4 months old. So I was exhausted on one level, but clearly not on all levels.

When I worked in a heavy manual job otoh I used to come in and collapse on the settee every day and would be groaning with pain as I dragged by aching body out of bed the next morning- I did no writing, because I feel asleep. But then again, there was no emotional exhaustion: emotionally, I was fine.

Then there was the stress of writing my PhD. And then the post-traumatic exhaustion after years of dealing with the misdiagnosis of dd's disability. That is where I am now- but it would be hard to claim I am being physically exhausted by looking after two pre-teens/teens and doing a part-time, demanding but very pleasant job.

My SIL otoh has none of the emotional stresses, but works extremely long hours (including) in a stressful job where she does not feel appreciated. She is probably, on balance, more tired than me.

Obviously YABU

Its all relative, I have a friend who posted an update on her FB that was along the lines of "Anyone who isn't pregnant in this heat should shut up moaning about being too hot"

She got lots of replies from other mothers to be about how she was right and they were the only people allowed to be hot in this weather. My reply to her was "Try having constant hot flushes due to a fake menopause brought about by the start of IVF treatment!"

She didn't reply. Was she right? Was I? I don't know. Was it a little bit of jealousy and bitterness on my part because she is moaning about the very thing I am trying to achieve??

Probably But its all relative. Lol

YABU. Very. But funny as well.

I don't really remember feeling exhausted by my children, although I did not return to FT until they were in their teens, so perhaps I was a very lazy mother! I remember feeling more exhausted before they were born, with FT and PT jobs and a more active social life.

I feel knackered a lot of the time now, but I think that is due to the advancing years. That must be why, when I have a day off, I spend most of it here.

before i had my children i used to think i was exhausted, but now i really mean it. But i guess it depends on someone's situation, you might not be a parent but still a carer of someone else, family member, of friend. I used to come home from work and lie on my bed thinking i had it hard but now i never really have chance to stop i look back and i laugh at how lazy i was!
But i have friends without children who do alot too, some go to work and college and the gym and all sorts so i am bit on the fence with this one

YANBU - I had no concept of the proper meaning of tired until I had children (I have the kind that don't sleep for the first 24 months and cry a lot).

I knew what hungover meant or knackered from clubbing all night was but I had never experienced the bone aching exhaustion of early pregnancy or 2 years of sleepless nights.

I have worked hard and helped look after a very sick relative but nothing compared to early days with two young children.

Yes I do think 'hah just you wait' when my sleeping in til 11 reading the paper all day on a Sunday childless neighbour tells me she is exhausted'!

Parenting is very tiring. My sister now has 2 boys and she is exhaused. She used to be tired working full time b 4 kids, but now she know what being a SAHM is like. I can slightly chuckle bout it now as mine are 22, 19 and my 9 yr old DS is still at home. . . .E A S Y !!!!! and he goes to dads most weekends so i get time off and all day to do as i please when he is at school . . .bliss !! Having 3 kids at home was bloody hard work !!!!

Plus, , , my DP comes home from work and plonks himself down on the bed for a nap. . .!!! exhausted !!. . .I ofen think , "If you were my DS's real Dad you wouldnt be able to do that as a father", you would have had to bath him or whatever . . no sleep for you till bedtime. !! lol

14hourstillbedtime - yes, clue in the name...

It was during the early life of a radio station where all the music and news (interview) clips, etc, were stored on a server. Some damn fool bright spark, a director of the station and full of himself presenter, decided they needed more storage, which meant ripping out the existing kit and replacing it with some new stuff costing 20K+ and it had to be done before they ran out of disk space (their own fault for deciding to store 4 decades worth of music on the server) and while keeping everything running.

They did not like my bill, and claimed it far too high, so I had to take them to court. We settled out of court at 80% which saved me a day trying to look comfortable in shirt and tie (have not worn a tie in almost 30 years).

There are different type of exhaustion (and I agree its not competitive)

Before, when I was a student and when I worked, I could quite often feel mentally exhausted, though rarely physically.

Now I have 3 children I'm fairly often physically exhausted but rarely mentally exhausted..

I actually almosy collapsed at the weekend just gone with exhaustion because I ahd combined the 2 - I do voluntary work which peaks 4 times a year for a big event that I help run, and on Saturday I was both mentally and physically exhausted and almost landed up in hospital.

YABU. In my first proper job I worked until midnight every weeknight and got up at 5 every weekday to start all over again, just to survive my workload. For 11 weeks straight, every weekday. Plus working 16 hours on the weekend.

I was definitely exhausted, and I'm about to find out whether having a baby is better or worse (due on Sat!) -- but I can't imagine ANYTHING being more exhausting that that first job.

Wow beanlet what sort of job was that, hope you were paid by the hour!

I must admit saying, when I first had DS 1,'I didn't know what tired was 'til I had him!' I really meant it, There is nothing like the feeling when you have unbroken sleep, that unsteady, drunk disorientated feeling, happily it has gone!! I agree with you OP.