Busy as a mark of superiority
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Anonymous
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Ah, the Mommy Martyr Olympics has many events, and “OMG I’m Sooooo Much Busier Than You Are” is just one.
Roll your eyes at them, OP. They’re ridiculous. |
Anonymous
This. If they added up the time they spend mindlessly scrolling on their phones, they’d have enough time to read or watch a TV show. |
Anonymous
| OP - I get what you are talking about. My DD is 10 now. I can only think of 1 working mom who ever played the I'm-THE-busiest-mom-ever game. It's usually a stay at home mom thing, but only the fragile ego, narcisstic ones. I've also noticed the I-work-so-much-harder-than-you-despite-being-unemployed moms also tend to get defensive and snippy about lots of other things. At this point, when I hear this speak from those ladies, I run. Red flag red flag take cover! I want mom buddies who lift me up, not seek to step on me. |
Anonymous
Way to go! I’m a SAHM and have never claimed to be busy to anyone, even when I was taking my DC for the therapies for a lifelong SN. Instead, I’ve gotten to field many, many comments about how busy other moms are, comments about how “they wish” they could look up recipes and cook from scratch or exercise, immediately after directly asking me what I’m making for dinner or that I look good, am I working out? Must be nice! I’ve smiled past a lot of nasty, so I know your type. It’s fun being “unemployed,” I guess every person in any form of childcare is about to be mega-screwed when they try to file in a week. You don’t actually know what other people are going through and I’m so goddamned sick of the SAHM bashing, as much as I’m sick of the overall mom bashing and competitiveness. It’s so shitty. I have never made that kind of comment, here or offline. Why do it? You really think you’re someone who lifts people up. But you aren’t. |
Anonymous
People don’t even have enough attention span for TV nowadays |
Anonymous
| And then there are those who are always bragging about how many social events they have, outside of activities. They are annoying too. I stopped trying to get together with them. I much prefer hanging out with transplants like myself, who don’t have 1874373 relatives and BFFs from high school/college around here |
Anonymous
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I don’t like TV most of the time (there are exceptions) and am lost when people talk about TV shows, which I find a dull topic. But that is not my point. My point is that others would somehow think I thought myself high and mighty because I don’t watch TV. Nope. Just don’t like it. People get weird about their TV watching or have guilt around it.
As for the being busy, I view it as being out of control or using it as a way to avoid things one doesn’t want to do. I MAKE TIME for what’s important. That person doesn’t think TV is important so they don’t watch it. They are doing SOMETHING with their time. Maybe they want you to think they are teaching Arabic to little Johnny or showing him how to paint like Monet? I don’t know. Maybe this person really spends a lot of time getting pedicures and picking out new curtains. Maybe that have adult ADD. There are lots of reasons people are “busy,” and most of the reasons do not have to do with being busy. |
Anonymous
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I’m a mom who would not be able to talk about much in the way of TV or books. And not because I’m a martyr for busyness. I have hours of free time daily.
1) When my kid was an infant/toddler, I didn’t have the attention span to read novels. While I am back to reading, I often don’t read the book of the month or Oprah book or whatever and other people are not interested in talking about a book they haven’t or won’t read. 2) When the pandemic hit, I rewatched old series for comfort—Golden Girls, Cheers, Roseanne. Stuff like that. I didn’t have the capacity for new TV. 3) Too much TV agitates me, especially action or noisy shows. My kid watches TV in the afternoon, and I want nothing more than to turn it off and have something quiet to do when he’s in bed. 4) DH and I watch something together on Saturday nights, but usually way after it’s been out for a while and others have moved on to something else. 5) I have terrible memory for detail, so even if I finished a show or book I loved, I’d be the one saying, “the guy who wrote it was at Breadloaf I think? Or maybe won a Pushcart a while back? The guy with the glasses?” Just not a fun conversation to have. So my default is, “oh, I’m so not up on books and TV!” Believe me, it’s not because I think I’m too busy or too highbrow. |
Anonymous
| Do not underestimate how many messes two kids make and need to clean up all day long when they are not in daycare. I could never get stuff like laundry and cooking done when I had two small kids home with me all day. It was very physically demanding and tiring keeping them safe and preventing them from ripping books, climbing furniture, whacking each other over the head or dumping out like 15 puzzles. I wasn’t busy in the sense of going a million places or needing to accomplish specific things. But lots of chores needed to wait until they went to bed. |
Anonymous
Why do people on here blather on about their boring lives when it has nothing to do with the OP? The OP’s friends specifically said they are too busy for TV and books. No relation to whatever dull situation you’ve got going on. |
Anonymous
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Outside of the parenting, this carries over into the workplace. The "I'm so busy" people are sometimes not the busiest, but like to hear themselves say it. I think it's a societal issue that unless we're so busy we can't breathe we don't feel like we're doing enough. We don't value downtime, so hence we always have to say we're busy.
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Anonymous
My kids been to OT, PT, BT, ST, neuropsych, surgeries, . . . we've had 27 appointments in one month. With me working fulltime. Look, I get that kids with SN are energy zapping. You definitely get sympathy points there. But I'm not the nasty aggressor here. |
Anonymous
+1. Some people have lots of time, but some people don't. It's almost as if we're all raising different children with different household dynamics... 
But seriously, modern intensive parenting is probably a factor here. It's might also be part of the reason why this convo with friends bothered you so much OP, that you started two threads on it. We all need to relax and shed the guilt, but for many of us, doing so is not so intuitive. |
Anonymous
| I call this brag complaining and it’s usually done by people who aren’t the type of people I like to hang out with. |
Anonymous
| OP— if your friends are busy and you’re not, have you offered to help them? Sometimes kindness is better than judgment. |