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

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:maybe trigger is the wrong word for her to use. But as a therapist myself, I might suggest that your reaction could be an indication that you have an unaddressed longing or that you feel dissatisfied with some aspect of your life, but only you can drill down and identify that feeling and the reasons behind the emotion. Some examples: you feel guilty or wonder if you should be spending more time with your kids, or should have spent more time with them. Or maybe you want to be home and with family more. Or don’t want to be home and feel bad about that. Perhaps you’re exhausted and want to dial back. Maybe you have conflicting values, as in you love financial independence and prioritize career success, but you also value leisure and travel and family time, or whatever. Maybe a family member imprinted on you that you should be a huge career success, or that people who stay home are lazy, and now you have some cognitive dissonance and are annoyed that your perception is changing. I personally work and would not do well staying home, but sometimes I wish I wasn’t ambitious because I’m so tired all the time. There are trade offs to everything. But I’m so grateful that others want to be home and be room parents and volunteer for nonprofits and be Girl Scout leaders or whatever, because that stuff is hard and important and benefits my kids and their education, and I don’t want to do that sort of thing. Also, I’d suck at it. Societies function best when everyone brings different skills and interests and temperaments to the table.

Op - you are clearly an amazing therapist bc YES I feel all of those things!
I wanted to want to stay home with the kids on some level - but then that made me really bored and unhappy and huge existential crisis. Also we had to make sacrifices financially (private school/ international travel and we live in nyc so col expensive) I wasn’t willing to make. So I went back to work and have had a couple jobs I looooved and felt like was making difference - but then felt like bad mother and like failed as mother for not enjoying staying home w them. Now have vv high paying job and better w/l balance (in the sense that wfh whenever I want so see kids all the time) but long long stressful days where I still have 8+h zoom and then more work on top of that, doing something I’m not passionate about
Idk what would make me happy - but I do feel like I ‘owe’ it to my kids to work hard and thus feel bad to give up stressful job that is $$$ for other job that would be more fun.
I guess I am envious of the mentality of being willing to leave dollars on the table for the sake of your own happiness. Like - my brain defaults to if your kids are in school why aren’t you using that time to make even more money? (Almost regardless of how much you already have) or at least do something impactful. Bc you should always be ‘striving’ in some way. Like I was brought up not to value ‘leisure’ as a way of life for even a few hours a day. And I actually can parent pretty effectively even w ft job - it just means zero of my own time. So cognitive dissonance.

NP. So stop judging others to make yourself feel better. Us women are catty AF. You can place all types of fancy labels on it (cognitive dissonance) but what you originally said is basically that you judge women who stay at home. Why wasn’t the post just about YOU and YOUR decisions and YOUR feelings about YOUR decisions. Why feel the need to drag in an entire group of women to talk about when it’s really all about YOU?! I’m so tired of people (not just women) willing to use another group to justify/bolster/validate their image/decisions or just highlight their perceived superiority. GIVE IT A REST. AND BE HONEST!

I dunno, I’m a SAHM to kids who are in school full time and I don’t see OP trying to justify it. Quite the opposite. She’s trying to figure out why she feels that way. If you don’t know why you’re doing something wrong it’s much harder to change course.

Some of these other commenters, though, not so much. They really are going to great lengths to justify dragging others. It‘s pretty sad.

Op - this is why therapy is hard work. Would be a lot easier to just judge (that is what most ppl do) than do the work to a. Acknowledge that it’s coming from my own sh*t and b. Figure out and then deal with whatever that is. It’s tiring and annoying. Just judging everyone is a thousand times easier and why we are politically polarized as country also

Also to posters who are so defensive I would point out that wohms deal with judgement every day! We are used to it by now - it just less commonly historically happens the other way around. I try not to be defensive and think about what it triggers in me when ppl judge and whether in some cases they have a point about some of it

Be honest poster here. I re-read the title of your post and combined with your response here, I get it. You actually are questioning yourself and your feelings. My bad, sorry. How long have tou been in therapy and do you see results?

About 1.5 years but I had bigger more pressing things I was dealing with - now I’m working on this one. My therapist gave me the homework to start thinking about what it triggers so hence the post. I genuinely don’t know - but some of the answers here are helping. Eg the person who is a therapist who said I prob partly feel guilty about not wanting to just take care of kids/ feel like a bad mom. Also the hustle culture I was raised in - plus the fact that I was raised with a ‘lot’ - Nannies, drivers, many vacas, private school - so if I don’t get close to achieving that for my kids it feels like a ‘failure’. But we live in nyc so it’s all insanely $$$$$$$$$$.

Mhmmm. Have you noticed other areas of your life where you have involuntary mental reactions that have you wondering why, or is it just this one thing?

Op - I def am triggered about some political things (gun control is a big one) and that’s actually what made me go into politics (I’m not in politics any more). I loooved it. Maybe I’ll go back but the money was not good. I wasn’t a politician - I worked in messaging/ ads etc
The only other example I can think of is that I hate hate hate it when people travel and tag on social media from the ‘xxx biz class lounge’. I travel biz for work but would never do this. For some reason that makes me crazy. Tho in that case it’s cut and dry and I am judging them hard.
But in these cases I am either in the persuasion business or in the judging mindset. In the Sahp situation it’s not that black and white. It’s something v complicated I feel

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I struggle with my feelings about parents who don't want to spend most of their time with their children when they are infants and toddlers. Not parents who CAN'T, parents who don't want to. I get that some little ones are quite difficult and you might need help with them, but I believe all babies and toddlers deserve to spend most of their time with someone who loves and cherishes them, a parent.

So I struggle with how I feel about that since the trend I see is for more and more parents to devalue this aspect of parenthood and having children.

Op - but there is ‘want to’ and ‘want to’
Eg - I ‘wanted to’ stay home with my kids when they were young. I felt so bad that I couldn’t - and a failure. Then I tried when they were like 4 and 2 and I was so so depressed. I felt like I lost my whole identity. I felt like I was actually a worse mother than when I had a true reason for doing something other than taking care of their every need all day. I wanted to be the person that wanted to be that person. I’m always caught between one and the other - I think a lot of women feel conflicted in this way

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I struggle with my feelings about parents who don't want to spend most of their time with their children when they are infants and toddlers. Not parents who CAN'T, parents who don't want to. I get that some little ones are quite difficult and you might need help with them, but I believe all babies and toddlers deserve to spend most of their time with someone who loves and cherishes them, a parent.

So I struggle with how I feel about that since the trend I see is for more and more parents to devalue this aspect of parenthood and having children.

Op - but there is ‘want to’ and ‘want to’
Eg - I ‘wanted to’ stay home with my kids when they were young. I felt so bad that I couldn’t - and a failure. Then I tried when they were like 4 and 2 and I was so so depressed. I felt like I lost my whole identity. I felt like I was actually a worse mother than when I had a true reason for doing something other than taking care of their every need all day. I wanted to be the person that wanted to be that person. I’m always caught between one and the other - I think a lot of women feel conflicted in this way

I agree that this is an issue for some parents and I sympathize. I feel badly for parents who can't tolerate being the primary caregiver for their children and I feel badly for the children too. I don't know the answer to that for them, I guess it's you just do the best you can with what you have to work with. However, my feeling is that this is pretty important and so parents and potential parents ought to be encouraged to really think it through and perhaps try hard, not to just assume (or convince themselves) that very young children are just as well off in daycare as they would be with a parent as primary caregiver. I know many parents disagree with my take on this but I still struggle with my feelings about it a lot.

[Anonymous]

OP, it is ok for you to feel whatever you feel. You don't have to struggle with it. Accept it.

I was born to be a mom and enjoy every second of raising my kids. The baby years were a delight, the toddler years, ES, MS, HS years, college years...every stage has been amazing. I would give myself an A++ as a mom. Am I a good mom or was it easy to be a good mom to my kids because of who they are.

Similarly, my DH says that I am the best thing that has happened to him and I am the reason that he has a great life. Again, does it mean that I am a good wife material or that DH and I are uniquely suited to each other and I am lucky to be married to him? Maybe, I would have been a flop if I had married someone else.

I was very good at my career and was given promotions for being exceptional performer several times. I always wanted to work because I thought that being a SAHM would be a waste of my education. However, once I had kids, I no longer cared for identifying with what I did at work. When I transitioned to being a SAHM from a WOHM, I had no envy for those who worked, I did not care for the money they had, I did not care about the accolades they got. My happiness and pleasure was primarily in my mother and wife role. I felt grateful that I could use my college education to guide and educate my kids, to run the household the way that I wanted to, to be the person who shapes my familylife.

OP, You should embrace the joy you get from your career, from your family life, from your hobbies and causes. Why do you need to compare with anyone? They are living the life that best suits them and you are living the life that best suits you. If there is something that makes you unhappy, then change it. The power is in you to live the life that you want. You should not think that you have to be with your kids 24/7, if that is not what you feel good about. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to spend all your time with your kids if that is not your tea.

[Anonymous]

I wish I would stop working to stay home but something in me won't allow it. I am jealous I can't pull the trigger! Our society is too obsessed with work. It's ingrained in us.

[Anonymous]

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

Same. There is always someone working more, or less; making more, or less; worth more, or less…The list could go on and on.

[Anonymous]

Like the op, I also work crazy bananas hard.

While I really don’t think about others who don’t have to work, I admit that I get upset when my mother says how busy or stressed out my sister is…since she hasn’t worked since she got pregnant, had a PT nanny plus a housekeeper while she was a SAHM, and still complains even though one kid is in college and the other is in HS.

If you don’t work, there’s no way you are anywhere near as busy as someone who works. Period.

[Anonymous]

Op, you sound very "American" in a lot of cultures. They value stay-at-home moms more. Not everyone values making loads of money.

[Anonymous]

No - how sad for you. Hope you feel better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, you sound very "American" in a lot of cultures. They value stay-at-home moms more. Not everyone values making loads of money.

Yes and clearly we all make loads of money.

[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

MYOB

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, you sound very "American" in a lot of cultures. They value stay-at-home moms more. Not everyone values making loads of money.

Yes and clearly we all make loads of money.

When you compare it to the rest of the world, yes, Americans do make a lot of money. They spend it on big cars and other stupid things.