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.

I can sympathize with what you are saying to a degree.

However, I am baffled that you think going through a divorce several decades ago would have been easy? There was far more stigma for starters. And my divorce probably looked easy to everyone (including my children) except for a few close friends and my sister who know just what I went through. Even without stigma, even with meeting someone new and great shortly (and unexpectedly) afterwards, I can assure you it was hugely traumatic.

And another (trivial perhaps) point.... Why do you feel you have to wear make up? I am in a very senior professional role and never wear make up. I'll start wearing it when the men do .

[quote HadEnoughofOtherThreads]@Pumperthepumper
‘Oh stop it, ‘against the wishes of her DP’ - did she get herself pregnant?’

They had an agreement that they would not have anymore DC after having twins (3 DC at this stage) and that she would get a PT job when the youngest was in school but she lied about being on the contraception that they had agreed on, as she wanted to have more babies and did not want to work. I know this as this is what she said![/quote]
Why didn’t he get a vasectomy and insist on condoms? Or abstinence? For someone who definitely didn’t want more children, he sure was very passive in them magically appearing.

When did washing machines & microwaves become the norm? my mum & aunt are early 70s & we had these things growing up

They existed but not everyone could afford them. My family certainly couldn't.

“I think they were massively deprived. Women in the civil service were forced to give up work when they married, in the 50s. Good jobs were reserved for men. Opportunities were almost zero for rewarding work for women. My mum was stuck in a narrow, unsatisfying world and was not even educated properly. Many of that age have no or inadequate state pensions. Nobody’s life on this earth is easy, even if it looks like it from the outside.”

This. My mum was an SAHM in the 70s when my sister and I were younger. It was generally assumed that she and all her friends would give up their jobs when they had children. Depression was absolutely rampant amongst her and her friends.

Being an SAHP is fabulous if it’s a choice and the right choice for the person making it but for a great many people it isn’t. It’s also rather artificial because in earlier times people would be living in extended families where the childcare was more shared. It isn’t natural for the whole childcare burden to fall on one person even if they are an SAHP.

Like a lot of her friends, my mum did a degree as a mature student and then trained and worked as a teacher. Overall, I think she felt a lot better about things then.

I have an elderly aunt who did work her whole life, but didn't have children. She often tells me how hard it was to work and do her housework...her mum used to come over even when she was married to help with her chores

She didn’t earn the money and doesn’t deserve it, but you (who also didn’t earn the money) do deserve to have it?

@BoredZelda That's not what I said or implied. I never said I deserved it. I just thought one would be a bit more generous with money that one inherited by surprise from a great uncle than money one worked to accrue themselves. It doesn't matter anyway - it's a footnote to the main thread topic.

Now we're being judged (by some) simply for being born into a time when things weren't as they are now.

But, so many people are here telling you things weren’t like that for you, you were just being a princess and expecting to be looked after, whilst also saying you absolutely could have gone back to work because two people they knew did. Can’t you see things weren’t as you think they were?

@ChargingBuck

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

What does she say when you point out that you manage to juggle the dishes & laundry AND fit in a 40 hour working week?

OP's mum is eighty, she may well find doing dishes and laundry in one morning to be a real struggle physically. Come on, that's a totally legitimate thing to find tough at that age!

I understand what you mean, she has no concept, but I would not resent her for it.
My mother worked 7 days a week and died at 59, id have been pleased for her if she didn't have to work and had her life to do as she wanted. X

I just thought one would be a bit more generous with money that one inherited by surprise from a great uncle than money one worked to accrue themselves. It doesn't matter anyway - it's a footnote to the main thread topic.

Perhaps she is generous, just not to you. But if she’s hoarding it, it will be your inheritance so why are you bothered? You can have the money you didn’t earn then.

Will you do it differently with your kids, do you think? Spend your retirement doing childcare and handing money out to your grown up children?

Yup I would hope I would be in a position to do something or help in some way.

@Waferbiscuit

Will you do it differently with your kids, do you think? Spend your retirement doing childcare and handing money out to your grown up children?

Yup I would hope I would be in a position to do something or help in some way.

You’ll spend your retirement looking after your grandchildren ie unpaid work? After a long career?

Perhaps she is generous, just not to you. But if she’s hoarding it, it will be your inheritance so why are you bothered? You can have the money you didn’t earn then.

Oh fgs @BoredZelda I really am not that bothered, was just making the point that she doesn't help or offer support because her world view is limited to other people in her position. If I was that bothered my post title would have read 'Mum is sitting on loads of cash she didn't earn and won't give me a penny.' :)

Those of you that are too young to remember it, perhaps need to watch "Butterflies" with Wendy Craig in it, from the 1970s.

It is a very bitter sweet look at how utterly boring and frustrating many women found the life of being a 'housewife' and how unfulfilled they felt with life - along with the guilt that they should be grateful for having a husband who provided well and that their children and home should be 'enough' for them.

It wasn't for many. It might bring a bit of empathy for older women who perhaps didn't find life as easy and wonderful as you might think.

I agree with posters saying the issue isn't the life she had, but rather the fact she doesn't seem sympathetic to the pressures in your life, or willing to listen when you explain why things are different for you.

My mum was infuriated by her mother pretty much constantly - and my granny worked all of her life; she was still doing a day a week well into her 80s and months before she died. She'd been the main breadwinner for much of her marriage as my grandpa retired early, and she never understood why my mum didn't 'do more' with her life. So my mum always seems to have felt guilty about not having had a 'career'.

And, in turn, I sometimes feel a bit resentful that when my mum had young children, there was no financial need for her to work. My mum tries to understand (which makes all the difference!), but, like yours, she can completely fail to grasp the realities of the current job market.

For me it's really interesting comparing my mum's relationship with my granny, to mine with my mum. We all had different life experiences - my granny working full time when there wasn't a lot of acceptance of that, my mum being a full time SAHM, and me working bits of full time and bits of part time. The thing that matters is willingness to listen.

Would it be possible to talk to your mum about her relationship with her own mum? Sometimes I find that helps me put things in perspective for my mum.

@Pumperthepumper

I'd like to hope that I am in a position to help my DCs financially and provide hands on help when I can.

@Waferbiscuit

Will you do it differently with your kids, do you think? Spend your retirement doing childcare and handing money out to your grown up children?

Yup I would hope I would be in a position to do something or help in some way.

But that's your choice, just as her not doing childcare and handing out money is her choice.

Dear god. The ageism and sexism of some of these posts. What a luxury to have grown up in a post feminist world.

‘Women’s Lib’ was the work of this generation (slightly older maybe) and in response to the men’s world / patriarchy / sexism / lack of opportunity that the 50s were blighted by.

Often women could not get a job without their husband’s permission. Nor bank account. Men were conditioned to expect their wives to stop any paid work on marriage and often forbade them.

Domestic violence was seen as a ‘domestic’, commonplace, and not addressed by the authorities unless resulting in extreme injury.

Let’s not be so complacent about what this generation achieved in getting feminism started, even if the OP’s Mum was not directly involved.

OP, it IS tough being a single working Mum. Very tough. But women in the 50s, 60s and 70s often had their babies taken off then if they had no man to support them.

Be proud of what you are achieving, and don’t waste time being would up by your Mun.

Oh fgs @BoredZelda I really am not that bothered, was just making the point that she doesn't help or offer support because her world view is limited to other people in her position. If I was that bothered my post title would have read 'Mum is sitting on loads of cash she didn't earn and won't give me a penny.'

You’ve mentioned her lack of financial support a few times. Strange to do that if you’re not bothered.

I think your assumption that you understand your mothers life while she doesn’t understand yours at all is laughably blinkered.

[quote Waferbiscuit]@Pumperthepumper

I'd like to hope that I am in a position to help my DCs financially and provide hands on help when I can.[/quote]
And if they accuse you of not doing enough?

I think the issue is shd just hasn't had the same experience as you. She has no idea what life is like for you because she's never lived it. She can only imagine and pull from her own (limited) life experience. So in her head, her opinions are correct and factual. But they are just her opinion.

Not quite the same, but my family have lived in the same small village for all their lives. I lived in the city at one point in my life for over a decade. My dad can't understand the crime levels and issues I had to deal with and when I asked for advice (multiple attempted thefts of our vehicles and aggressive youths) they gave the strangest suggestions as they just couldn't comprehend the problem. Because they live in a tiny place where nothing ever happens.

It's perspective and life experiences plus different personalities. The only way she will see your side is if she lived it. It takes a more mature and open mind to listen to someone's experiences and believe and understand them exactly as they are telling it. It sounds like your mum just isn't quite there.

I do think it's a bit off that she doesn't assist with childcare. If I'm not working and have grandchildren I'd definitely help out if needed.

When did washing machines & microwaves become the norm? my mum & aunt are early 70s & we had these things growing up

They existed but not everyone could afford them. My family certainly couldn't.

Hence why I asked when they became the norm? I grew up in the 80s/90s & they seemed normal to me then. Some people can't afford them now but that doesn't mean it's not normal to have a microwave.

’Women’s Lib’ was the work of this generation (slightly older maybe) and in response to the men’s world / patriarchy / sexism / lack of opportunity that the 50s were blighted by.

This is a really good point. And more specifically, it was the white MC women people are calling princesses who were the forefront of the movement in the 50s. Let’s not write them off as useless and uncaring when these were the women who paved the way for what we have today.

Many working women are quite happy to admit they would go to pieces if they stayed at home and had no childcare. It's not the easy option.

OP, unless you are going to say that your mother was lazy and unloving in her parenting, I'm afraid I find you incredibly entitled. Your attitude towards the person who provided so many different services for you over a period of many years, only to be judged as lazy and unproductive now, is very disappointing.