Anyone else here struggle with your feelings about ppl who don’t work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My feelings are that I am better than them so I don’t struggle with those feelings

Whatever you need to make you feel better! Honestly, it says how you are insecure that you even have these thoughts.

[Anonymous]

I agree with your therapist and thing the answer lies in your feelings about your own life. Maybe you dislike the rigidity of your work (maybe not the actual work, but having to be at work on a set schedule determined by someone else), and that's why it bothers you to see social media posts from times when you are at work. Or maybe you don't have enough time by yourself, which is why you are particularly triggered by SAHMs with school age kids, since they get to be alone while their kids are at school. Whatever it is, it's all about you and nothing about these other people really.

By the way, I work part time and have school age kids, and sometimes I actually think to myself "Oh, I won't post this photo of my kid now at 11am on a Tuesday because then people will assume I'm not working today or that I just sit around on social media all week." It's because I feel a bit self conscious about being "only" part time when most people I know are full time. I doubt most people would actually think about this (except maybe you) if they saw my post, and if they did, who cares? The question is whether I'm happy in my life or not. And the truth is, I'm feeling a little bored and have been thinking I'd like to see if I can find a way to go full time or at least work more hours, because I think my insecurity is being driven by having too much free time during the week when most people are at work. But that's about me -- it's not the fault of my friends who have full time jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My feelings are that I am better than them so I don’t struggle with those feelings

You sound like an ass though, so maybe work on that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think sometimes it's helpful to realize that what you're experiencing is normal, so I'll say it: involuntary reactions to things is normal. It's part of the human experience. There is nothing wrong with you.

I would find it kind of annoying if my therapist just said "you need to figure out what is triggering you." I hope the gist of what your therapist said was more along the lines of "let's talk next week about what is triggering you so we can see if there is a deeper issue here causing your life to be not as optimal as it could be, and then we can work through it." I think getting help understanding why you feel the way you feel is one big purpose of therapy. In your case I think an Internal Family Systems approach might be good.

But as for why you feel the way you feel the way you feel: maybe you have a strong value of the importance of work, maybe you think fairness is important and it's not fair that you are working so hard and they aren't, maybe you fear you are missing out on something, maybe you think they are making your gender look bad, etc. There could be a lot of reasons. It's helpful to go back to values and fears. But I am one of those SAHMs who has kids in school and I've never been in your shoes, so maybe there is something more obvious I'm missing.

I’m a working Mom and I love how you put this, so I don’t think you’re missing anything. I think you are really empathetic.

OP I am the same. I did work part-time for several years but I was never a SAHM. I think it’s normal but also it’s frustrating because I have good friends who stay home and they provide invaluable support in a multitude of ways to many people, including me. When something comes up in my head like that I feel ashamed of myself. It helps that we have talked about it to some extent. Everyone has a way of personalizing what other people do, but your aversion to the fact that you even think it is the part that makes it okay. We can’t help every thought that enters our minds. Just don’t let it affect how you treat people and remember that having a negative thought doesn’t make you a terrible person.

[Anonymous]

I think everyone needs to pull their own weight in society. And frankly that means not only doing things you enjoy, but things that benefit society, involving some degree of self sacrifice. I will have trouble respecting you if you are not engaged in that effort, much less listen to anything you have to say on social media.

That said, sahp’s with young or special needs kids or who are doing elder care, of course they are working. And the job market can make it tough to accommodate family life with a woh job, so I give most people the benefit of the doubt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have these sort of involuntary mental reactions to - for example - social media posts from friends whose kids are in school full time but they don’t have a job/ anything they do - and they’re just doing nothing. I work crazy bananas hard and always have - and make a pretty decent salary. At one point I stopped working when the kids were little - but got pretty depressed and went back. Am I just jealous of them? I don’t want to be judgmental so why does my brain do this? I’m sure it is hiding a deeper feeling and my therapist has said I need to figure out what is triggering me

You don’t know their deal. My husband has MS. He works now, but none of our friends know how much of a struggle it is. I could easily see him getting to the point of not being able to work. I would hope people wouldn’t judge him for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should definitely seek help (I say this kindly). It is not normal to be triggered by or to ruminate on how others choose to live their lives when it has no material impact on you.

+1. I would assume that some people work WAY less than me, some people work WAY more (like OP probably does), but I honestly never stop and wonder what they're thinking.

[Anonymous]

I was a SAHM before our three children went to school and now I work very part-time (3 hours per day). I don’t judge non-working mothers, I think they might get bored at times, but they generally help a lot at school which helps everyone. I feel the worst for full-time working mothers, because it seems hard to coordinate after school care. I didn’t want to that stress so I chose part-time. If you love your job who cares what others are doing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A little bit. I had a SAHM mom and we don't get along great so I'm sure that's part of it. I am not a huge die-hard feminist but sometimes have a hard time shaking the knee-jerk reaction that SAHMs are falling for a gender stereotyped trap. I don't feel that way about SAHDs.

I think a lot of people who fall very strongly on either side of the divide (SAHM is SO Much better or WOHM mom is SO much better) feel that way because they don't get along with their mom who was some extreme (e.g., you had an extremely pushy suffocating SAHM or you had an absolutely absent checked out WOHM who hired multiple nannies). But it often says more about their mom's personality than their decision to work or not work. I know for a long time I thought my mom was suffocating and pushy and superficial because she was a SAHM but after getting to know her siblings better I realize...she was always that way and would have been that way no matter what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was a SAHM before our three children went to school and now I work very part-time (3 hours per day). I don’t judge non-working mothers, I think they might get bored at times, but they generally help a lot at school which helps everyone. I feel the worst for full-time working mothers, because it seems hard to coordinate after school care. I didn’t want to that stress so I chose part-time. If you love your job who cares what others are doing?

Isn't this you being judgy, though? "I feel the worst?"

[Anonymous]

Nope. Im a working mom but thats best for me and my family. Others have a different path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was a SAHM before our three children went to school and now I work very part-time (3 hours per day). I don’t judge non-working mothers, I think they might get bored at times, but they generally help a lot at school which helps everyone. I feel the worst for full-time working mothers, because it seems hard to coordinate after school care. I didn’t want to that stress so I chose part-time. If you love your job who cares what others are doing?

Plenty of working moms do a lot for school. All of the events our PTA is doing this year are being coordinated by working parents who have enough seniority and flexibility to take the time they need to support their kids' school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a SAHM before our three children went to school and now I work very part-time (3 hours per day). I don’t judge non-working mothers, I think they might get bored at times, but they generally help a lot at school which helps everyone. I feel the worst for full-time working mothers, because it seems hard to coordinate after school care. I didn’t want to that stress so I chose part-time. If you love your job who cares what others are doing?

Isn't this you being judgy, though? "I feel the worst?"

That’s not a judgment about them, it’s a feeling. I wouldn’t want to make that choice, but I don’t care about others making it since I like my choice. I assume they prefer theirs or they would not have made it.

[Anonymous]

I find that people who are secure with their choices don't waste time or energy being concerned about other's choices when it has no effect on them. So no, I don't have any feelings whatsoever about whether other people choose to work when it has nothing to do with me or my family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone needs to pull their own weight in society. And frankly that means not only doing things you enjoy, but things that benefit society, involving some degree of self sacrifice. I will have trouble respecting you if you are not engaged in that effort, much less listen to anything you have to say on social media.

That said, sahp’s with young or special needs kids or who are doing elder care, of course they are working. And the job market can make it tough to accommodate family life with a woh job, so I give most people the benefit of the doubt.

I feel like you're almost there, but are missing some stuff.

You acknowledge that some SAHPs are doing valuable work in the form of taking care of young or special needs kids, or elder care. Ok. What about SAHPs who have school age kids but spend their days running the household, cleaning, managing the family budget, staying on top of kid's activities, cooking and grocery shopping, etc. Are those activities not "pulling your own weight"? If these SAHPs went to work, the couple would have to split all those activities during non-work hours, which could be stressful and take time away from the family. Does that not have value?

And let's examine people who work for money during the day. If some SAHPs are pulling their weight more than others. aren't some working people pulling their weight more than others, too? Some people just sit on computers, barely working, scrolling social media and getting annoyed by the SAHPs in their feed posting about bento box lunches, gossip with coworkers, and not much else. Some of these people don't even do this in an office where they are forced to interact with people -- they just do it from home. Are they "pulling their weight in society"? Are they pulling more or less weight than the SAHP with two school age kids who is doing 90% of the household work while their partner works outside the home?

And more importantly, is it your role to judge? Are you ready to line up what you do every day against everyone else and hear the verdict on how much value you produce for society? And when you line it up, make sure to include how much time you spend on DCUM at 9:30am on a weekday because none of us on this thread are really "pulling our weight" today, are we?

Signed,
A lazy office worker who used to pull my weight a lot more back when I was a full time SAHM, and who now spends a lot more time scrolling the internet than I ever did when I was running a household by myself