Hot take: I think we overemphasize 'time moves fast' and underemphasize 'time off'.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm truly curious about how this "messaging" you talk about matters. I hear people say things all day that I don't agree with, so I just...ignore it. Maybe it's a personality trait or something but I just don't get it. The fact that you are living your life stressed out because of some sort of message that someone is sending you is wild to me. Write your own message. Do what works for you. It boggles my mind that people don't live like that.

It's cute you think you are completely immune to socialization.

Ok? I'm not the one tying herself into miserable knots because of some mysterious message about how I'm supposed to live my life.

You do just not about this one specific thing.

Can you tell me the things I do because of a message about how I'm supposed to live my life that make me miserable? Because I would love to know.

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Anonymous wrote:This is a hot take because I totally disagree. I have ES kids and even I am aware of how fast they infancy flew by. 18 years is literally nothing in the scheme of life and I have never regretted spending more time with them over work/phone/TV.

She isn’t asking to spend more time on DCUM. She wants a real break — like a vacation without her kids. I don’t understand why moms martyr themselves and say things like “I haven’t had a vacation for 14 years without my kids.” It is insane to sacrifice yourself entirely on the altar of your children.

What? I haven’t had a vacation ever without my kids. I didn’t realize this is martyrdom, I just like my kids.

I like my kids and I also like having some time (including the occasional vacation) apart from them and am a better parent for it. The two are not mutually exclusive and I feel sad for you that you seem to conflate “liking your kids” with necessitating being joined at the hip.

I also have taken a number of vacations without my spouse, so by your logic I guess I should let him know we’re doomed for divorce.

DP here. Some of us just don't have the option for vacations without our kids. And rather than whining and complaining about it, we just accept it and move on.

You sound like you are wining about it. Just take a day off while they are at school and take a chill pill.

To be fair to some, my vacation and sick accrual aren't that great and instead of slowly building it up from age 2 onwards, I scrambled with 1-2 days of leave max from 2020-2023 due to COVID and restrictive daycare policies and illnesses and whatever else and that was during FT daycare years.
Now FF to school years and my leave is primarily used for sick days for my kid or school closures. This upcoming school year from Aug-June has 28 days off. I am not including school closures when I have holiday pay. Even split between my DH and myself plus a good year with little to no illness, you can assume having to cover at least 30 days. If you get COVID or flu or GI bug or strep or whatever else is going around, then that easily hits 35-40 days. We use winter break camps and spring break camps but it's usually just 3 days each.

Thats for one kid. If you have one in ES and another in daycare, you can easily add another 10 days of sick for the whole year.

There's no just taking a day off and "chilling".

Gurl gets babysitter FFS and take a day and chill…. Or chill on a Saturday and have your h take the kids somewhere for the day.

Yes that happens but let's not act like babysitters dont cost $$$. A full day is close to 200 or more. To go out with friends from 530-1130 plus dinner is a $300 minimum. And of course, I get time to do stuff independently or my DH has the kids for the day but it's not a vacation. A vacation is what she was talking about. Real time off. I even understand what she means about a work trip. I dont have cook or clean or worry about anyone else. Thats what she is referencing. And its not just for a few hours, its usually at least 3 days.

And yes, of course, if you already outsourcing cleaning and other running household tasks this wont really be an issue for you.

Just like vacation with kids are just trips with kids. Its the same shi# in a different location.

Oh you’re one of those, you put a $ on everything.

Go to a friends for the weekend and relax ffs. Do you have friends?

My roommate from college comes 2x a year and I go visit friends all over the country.

She’s putting a number on it bc it costs an amount of money.

I assume you have parents or siblings who watch your kids. Some of us have to decide if we want to drop $300 each time we go out with our spouse.

Not sure what your college roommate visiting has to do with anything

DP and +1 -- I never understand the people who don't seem to get that dropping hundreds of dollars on a sitter even on a semi-regular basis is just not in the budget for most people.

We just finished paying off a car loan that was $400 per month and initially thought we'd be able to use some of it for regular date nights and then we found out our oldest needs orthodontia. The money just disappears. At least in a few years we'll be able to leave kids home alone for a few hours at a time.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is a hot take because I totally disagree. I have ES kids and even I am aware of how fast they infancy flew by. 18 years is literally nothing in the scheme of life and I have never regretted spending more time with them over work/phone/TV.

She isn’t asking to spend more time on DCUM. She wants a real break — like a vacation without her kids. I don’t understand why moms martyr themselves and say things like “I haven’t had a vacation for 14 years without my kids.” It is insane to sacrifice yourself entirely on the altar of your children.

What? I haven’t had a vacation ever without my kids. I didn’t realize this is martyrdom, I just like my kids.

I like my kids and I also like having some time (including the occasional vacation) apart from them and am a better parent for it. The two are not mutually exclusive and I feel sad for you that you seem to conflate “liking your kids” with necessitating being joined at the hip.

I also have taken a number of vacations without my spouse, so by your logic I guess I should let him know we’re doomed for divorce.

DP here. Some of us just don't have the option for vacations without our kids. And rather than whining and complaining about it, we just accept it and move on.

You sound like you are wining about it. Just take a day off while they are at school and take a chill pill.

To be fair to some, my vacation and sick accrual aren't that great and instead of slowly building it up from age 2 onwards, I scrambled with 1-2 days of leave max from 2020-2023 due to COVID and restrictive daycare policies and illnesses and whatever else and that was during FT daycare years.
Now FF to school years and my leave is primarily used for sick days for my kid or school closures. This upcoming school year from Aug-June has 28 days off. I am not including school closures when I have holiday pay. Even split between my DH and myself plus a good year with little to no illness, you can assume having to cover at least 30 days. If you get COVID or flu or GI bug or strep or whatever else is going around, then that easily hits 35-40 days. We use winter break camps and spring break camps but it's usually just 3 days each.

Thats for one kid. If you have one in ES and another in daycare, you can easily add another 10 days of sick for the whole year.

There's no just taking a day off and "chilling".

Gurl gets babysitter FFS and take a day and chill…. Or chill on a Saturday and have your h take the kids somewhere for the day.

Yes that happens but let's not act like babysitters dont cost $$$. A full day is close to 200 or more. To go out with friends from 530-1130 plus dinner is a $300 minimum. And of course, I get time to do stuff independently or my DH has the kids for the day but it's not a vacation. A vacation is what she was talking about. Real time off. I even understand what she means about a work trip. I dont have cook or clean or worry about anyone else. Thats what she is referencing. And its not just for a few hours, its usually at least 3 days.

And yes, of course, if you already outsourcing cleaning and other running household tasks this wont really be an issue for you.

Just like vacation with kids are just trips with kids. Its the same shi# in a different location.

Oh you’re one of those, you put a $ on everything.

Go to a friends for the weekend and relax ffs. Do you have friends?

My roommate from college comes 2x a year and I go visit friends all over the country.

Not everyone has the kind of friends who can travel a lot or who can host them. I don't. The majority of my college friends have kids and limited space -- if I visit them solo I would have to get a hotel so as not to crowd them in their homes and then they can only get so much time away from their kids. We don't have the lifestyles or budgets for us both to take several days away from our families to hit vegas or NYC or something. We have mortgages and childcare budgets and are trying to save for retirement. Stuff like that was possible pre-kids or when we were younger and thinking less about the future but it's just not realistic now in our 40s with youngish kids. Even though we make more money than ever before.