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[quote=Anonymous]When I was a SAHM of a baby, I remember sometimes feeling like I was supposed to say how busy and exhausted I was to "prove" that I was working hard or something. I made a conscious choice to not do this, but it was hard because sometimes I'd hang out with friends who worked and they'd be talking about their jobs and it all sound very professional and important and it's hard to say "hmm, yes well we did start going to a music class in the park once a week, so now I have to be somewhere at a specific time I guess." There are of course hard things about being a SAHM to a baby, but they are often things like loneliness or feeling like you don't get enough adult conversation.

I think sometimes women have a hard to talking to each other about our lives if we have different issues. I know it's partly a competitive thing but I also think it's often just a failure of imagination. Like it's hard for married women to talk to single women sometimes without acting rude or superior, or dismissive of what's going on in a single woman's life. And vice versa! There is just often this imperative that you all have the same challenges at the same time so you can all complain about the same stuff. But wouldn't that be boring?

It's okay for your SAHM friends to complain about not feeling like they have the time or headspace to watch TV. And it's also fine for you to watch TV and not have that issue, and to complain about something like always having to handle all the house stuff and mealtimes with your kid because of your DH"s hours. It's always ok to complain a bit about the hard things in your life to your friends -- that's one of the things friends are for! But you need to be able to listen to someone else's hard thing without always having to compare it to your own life. It's okay if your friend is struggling with something that is easy for you at the moment. You don't have to feel guilty or somehow less than. It's fine.[/quote]

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