Resent that mum never worked/had a job - causing rifts between us

[Waferbiscuit]

My mother married right out of University and since then has been a SAHM/SAHW. She only ever held one job, over the summer, when she was 20 and and has never had a job since.

She has lived a very comfortable life - children at a young age, divorced but remarried quickly so no change in her financial circumstances, moderately successful husband and kids at home until they left when she was 48. Since then she has spent the last 40+ years travelling, pottering and quite frankly stretching out daily chores into the day. She is part of a weird generation of mc women who expected to be cared for and probably never expected to work.

By contrast I have worked FT since leaving University, now a single parent, still working and juggling everything.

The fact that mum has never worked means she's lived in a real bubble, and has very skewed views about public life and the world of work. This causes huge rifts between us and really affects our relationship.

• She has very little concept of what work is like and the pressures of modern work so when I explain that I am stressed she thinks that it's my fault and I need to manage it.
• She doesn't understand that people need to do work outside of 9-5
• She has no real sense of what it's like to have someone instructing you/telling you what to do; she has literally been 'self guided' her entire life
• She thinks it's easy to get a job and promotion so doesn't understand why they aren't forthcoming for me or my siblings.
• She is deeply unproductive so thinks juggling means trying to do the dishes and laundry in the same morning and considers that 'busy-ness' to be on par with mine
• She is very naive about money and assumes everyone is on a relatively good wage. She doesn't understand why I can't go part-time.
• She dresses in organic frocks and proudly doesn't wear makeup or do her hair but her 'hippyness' is a privilege - she doesn't clock that other people actually have to look and dress professionally for work.
• She doesn't help me in any way - financially or with DCs - because she's always too busy doing nothing at all, but she's 'very busy'.

I know I should be grateful that she's not working in a factory to scrape by, but her naiviety means there's an entire aspects of my life she doesn't understand and over the years it's caused real tensions. I partly resent that she doesn't get it and partly resent that she's had such an easy ride that she takes for granted or really considers her due.

Posting just to see if anyone else has the same problem and how they made peace with it.

@ILoveJamaica

ILoveJamaica
‘As for Grandparents not helping with grandchildren, I think some of this is due to people having children later and later these days. My Mum was 23 when she had me, and I had my 2 children aged 27 & 28. So, she was a young Nanna, and could babysit with ease. My sister had children in her 40's. My Mum would babysit, but found it so much harder at 70 than she did in her 50's. I think my sister was annoyed by this, but you have to be realistic. Op's Mum is 80. How old are the Op's children? I don't think it's realistic whatsoever, to ask an 80 year old to look after children. People are allowed their dotage.’

Not always the case. My Mum was 19 when she had me. I had my 1st DC at 20. My Mum’s only now interested in spending time alone with her DGC (a few hours on the weekend, not childcare so we can work), several years later because they are older and more independent.

I was born in the mid 70’s. Different generation to a lot of the posters responding and sharing their lives experiences.

I wouldn’t expect a 70-80yr old parent to look after young children either.

@Gwenhwyfar

Gwenhwyfar
"@ILoveJamaica morning clubs and after school clubs. "

‘Didn't exist a generation ago though, at least not where I come from and neither did day nurseries. There were some child minders and that was it.‘

I attended council run day nurseries in London from mid - late 70’s, as both of my parents worked FT.

My oldest DC is 25. They attended both Breakfast & Afterschool clubs in more than one London primary school from the late mid - late 90’s, so I could work PT and attend University lectures as a single parent.

And I’m only responding to earlier posts in bulk now two days later, as I’ve been busy working and raising kids!

[quote Gwenhwyfar]"@ILoveJamaica morning clubs and after school clubs. "

Didn't exist a generation ago though, at least not where I come from and neither did day nurseries. There were some child minders and that was it.[/quote]
I was at a day nursery in 1982 - along, obviously, with other children. There weren't after school clubs but lots of childminders

@ModerateOven

Just because you attend a book club in your 50s- early 70s and you happen to be middle class, doesn't automatically mean you live a life of unadulterated pleasure

I look after my adult SEN 'child' at home, and joined a book club so I could have somewhere to be myself. I join in conversations, even about holidays because we do get away sometimes as we have occasional respite care. I absolutely never mention my caring responsibilities because I don't want the ensuing sympathy or even kind questioning. I just want to be me for an evening.

A woman I volunteer with in a charity shop, for about the last 5 years, always comes smartly dressed up with make up and talks about her badminton afternoons. She didn't turn up one day and confided in me that it'd been because the carer who looks after her bedridden husband two mornings a week had called off at short notice. She'd never mentioned it for the same reasons as mine.

Nobody knows what goes on in the lives of others.

Yes indeed I thought exactly that when I read the original post about book clubs. My mum joined book clubs and did other hobbies to find new friends, give her a little bit of time away from caring for my dad and just to be able to have some outlet for her educated side which she never had the opportunity to develop having had to leave school at an early age. More assumptions about other people’s lives.

@ModerateOven

I personally plan and would like to be an involved grandparent for our son's children (hopefully he has them when the time comes) if he and his wife need our help with childcare

I'd probably be happy to help out when required. But I think a distinction needs to be drawn between a 40 year old grandmother and an 80 year old one, which is what my mil was when her last grandchild was born. By that point she needed looking after herself.

I don't have grandchildren, but if it happened, I'll be way, way, way over 40. Way, way over. A lot.

I agree.

Age, good health and fitness matter while being a helpful grandparent.

I hope our sons will have his own family with the right girl maximum by the age of 30 so there is more time to be a younger grandparent for longer.

In the end this has turned into such a sad thread. So many women simply dismissing or disbelieving the lived experiences of others because they aren’t the same as their own.

@GinnyWren

What did your Mum do after leaving school early?

[quote Lana07]@GinnyWren

What did your Mum do after leaving school early?[/quote]
She worked as a secretary.

@GinnyWren

I see. I've heard it was a popular path for girls/women then.

[quote Lana07]**@GinnyWren

I see. I've heard it was a popular path for girls/women then.[/quote]
@Lana07 - bless you Lana07 my mum was exceptionally intelligent, begged her parents to let her stay on at grammar school to get her School Certificate then had to leave to get a job. She trained to be a secretary at night school which was pretty much the only option open to her to step up to. She hated it.

[quote RosesAndHellebores]@PlanDeRaccordement your mother's story is horrendous but doesn't match the experiences of MIL. MIL was born in 1936 and went to teacher training college (wanted to go to uni but her parents couldn't afford it). She married FIL in 1960, had to give up teaching before she showed with DH b1961. DH youngest sister was born in 1967 and MIL was working P/T as a teacher by 1972, full-time by 1976 and was a Deputy Head by 1980, retiring in 1996.[/quote]
Ok? What do you mean by “doesn’t match”?
Things were different in different families, countries and cultures.
Not every woman from then will have had an identical lived experience or even the same opportunities.
Have to add in fact that we are not white and racism was worse back then too.

My mum is the same.

I think it is so annoying when she literally doesn’t understand when I’m stressed at work. She has nothing to say, she doesn’t understand how hard it can be sometimes but also how rewarding it is as well.

She has never been in a position to pay for anything…whenever I go home, I end up taking her out and paying for it all. If I don’t then we just sit around in her rundown house twiddling our thumbs.

It is the most frustrating thing to witness. She is fit and healthy, looks great and takes pride in her appearance and is intelligent. Could easily get a job but has always chosen not to and then complains about the quality of her life being so poor.

I have sent her various jobs to apply for (with my help), if anything to give her a purpose now her children have all left home but she doesn’t want to know. It’s sad.

"Doesn't match" meaning very dissimilar. MIL was white working class and not privileged enough to contemplate university which she is bitter about to this day. However being originally poor didn't hold her back particularly later. It just did nothing very early on and she remains unhappy about that.

It is interesting that my mother was from a relatively wealthy family and would have had no interest in going to university and certainly didn't particularly think I should go in 1978.

@GinnyWren

Did your Mum stay working as a secretary or changed the job?

It's such a shame girls were nobody then and couldn't decide for themselves.

My Mum's goal number 1 was to make sure I graduate if I wanted and I did. I am very grateful to her for her support. She was a cook + was working on a farm. She worked very hard physically all her life.

What was wrong with being a secretary. That's how I started. It was good money in the very early 80s and gave a view of many sectors if you temped a bit as I did at the beginning. If you could type and wrote shorthand at that time you were unlikely ever to be out of work.

What was wrong with being a secretary

Can you imagine men's choices being so limited?

@ILoveJamaica

What was wrong with being a secretary

Can you imagine men's choices being so limited?

Also the very strong dynamic of being the little woman assisting the Big Important Man with his Big Important Work. Down to the possessive “speak to MY secretary” terminology. Not really mitigated as much as they might think by any amount of “Oh Margaret you’re such a treasure what WOULD I do without you?”

Could easily get a job but has always chosen not to and then complains about the quality of her life being so poor

I very much doubt that a woman old enough to have adult children with no work history, training or skills could easily get a job.

I don't think this is anything to do with MIL working or not; I think its a fairly common human characteristic!

Look at the threads on MN about GPs and face to face appointments. Half the posters think its great that they don't have to take half a day off work, because it can be done over the phone in 10 minutes; while the other half complain about how hard it is to get through at 8 am; and DM at 84 needs to be seen, because she is being fobbed off with paracetamol or whatever.....?

The threads about working parents v SAHPs....?

Many people just cannot imagine other people's lives, outside their own little bubble, and think how things seem from an opposite point of view - the MP going on about how they can't live on £82,000 pa, an hour after the Tories cut UC by £20; Boris staying in a £25,000 per week villa after the Tories wreaked the holiday plans for so many people this summer, with ever changing red/amber/green lists, testing requirements, etc.....

@RosesAndHellebores

'What was wrong with being a secretary?'

It's great you loved your job as a secretary but imagine you only had very limited choices of jobs and you hated them all because they were not what you truly are and they were not your life mission.

It's the fact that there were so few jobs opportunities for women those days in 40s, 50 & 60s.

Those days you also couldn't get proper education easily to be skilled in those areas you liked and potentially have a good career/income.

You were FORCED to work straight after school if you wanted it or not.

You were labelled 'not capable' too early & too soon.

Our neighbour got PhD at 48 y.o. and proved all those Stupid teachers wrong who labelled him that. He is 65 now and retired.

but imagine you only had very limited choices of jobs and you hated them all because they were not what you truly are and they were not your life mission.

You mean like 99% of the workforce? I don’t know many people who even have a “life mission”, let alone achieve it simultaneously with earning a living.

@Blossomtoes

but imagine you only had very limited choices of jobs and you hated them all because they were not what you truly are and they were not your life mission.

You mean like 99% of the workforce? I don’t know many people who even have a “life mission”, let alone achieve it simultaneously with earning a living.

You can’t seriously be saying that now and back then were the same in relation to the opportunities for women?? Someone needs to look at women’s history...

You can’t seriously be saying that now and back then were the same in relation to the opportunities for women?? Someone needs to look at women’s history...

Where did I say that? I said most people’s jobs aren’t particularly meaningful.