A Letter to My 9-5less Friends

[author_by_night]

After reading countless letters and seeing countless vlogs by parents apologizing to their childless friends, I decided to write up an apology of my own as someone with a full time job.

Dear 9-5less friends,

Look, I get it. I have your numbers on speed dial, but you don't hear from me. For shame! Fear not - I have an explanation. You see, I am now married to my job, and together we have a beautiful phone that blesses the office with its constant ringing and a printer with an unpredictable personality. You say you understand, but I don't think you really understand. So let me explain it to you clearly.

When you have a 9-5 job, you don't get to sleep in. You actually have to wake up before noon and put on nice clothing. That's right, bestie - no jeans and a crappy t-shirt anymore! (Even the tacky one you bought me for Christmas - not tacky like ew, tacky like you wouldn't wear it in public, but it'd be cool for a movie marathon night. Which I don't have time for anymore. Because I'm totes like a professional now.) You have to wear pants that look nice, shirts that look nice, and not just when you're going clubbing or to a PTA meeting. :)

You also don't get to eat. Nope; lunch break is a myth. There's times you actually have to put down your food and walk away from it. It's something 9-5less people just can't relate to; after all, you have luxurious lives of being able to eat all three meals without trouble! I know what you're saying - "My shift starts at four and ends at two in the morning! I don't get dinner!" Sweetie, you work in a restaurant. You're like surrounded by food all the time, and you're seriously telling me you never get a chance to eat? Come on. The other thing  I get a lot is "I have kids! I have to feed them first!" Uh, just eat all the green food they're not going to eat anyway.

Week nights? That's a huge no. Week nights are when I come home, talk to my cats in a creepy voice for ten minutes, then eat food. I'm so depraved I actually have to eat food I bought myself; it's not like I have the time to just go somewhere, and because I don't have kids and a soccer Mom van, I don't have an excuse to get fast food. Plus, places cost money, yes, even when you have a job.

Saturdays? Ooh, those are bad. See, Saturdays are when I realize I've woken up late every day that week and hung my clothes on the ceiling fan and in the oven because I thought my t-shirt was a waffle. Which is totally something  working people do all the time unless they're rich enough to have a housekeeper. Sundays are recovery from being disheveled. But I can hang out with you for ten minutes and talk on the phone with you for fifteen minutes on either of those days, for sure. Just as long as you don't mind me chewing gum loudly (I don't get to chew gum at work) and vaccuming in the background. Wanna come over? Sure, but don't bring the kid, he'll get his hands all over everything I just washed.

So if you want to be my friend, but you are 9-5less? That's the criteria. Please don't take it personally if I cut you off from my life, because it's not that I don't still love you. I guess you could say I'm just a little clocked in at the moment. If worse comes to worse, I promise when I retire at 75, we can totes catch up then. :)

Love you muchly!

Your BFF (really and truly),

Charity Bennett-Higinbothom*


*Not my real name.

(Also, if anyone is concerned about the nature of this piece, see the tags.)

Comments

[nori-nori-nori.livejournal.com]

I loooooove this. I can't tell you how many of my friends have made the decision to spawn and then magically disappear, or just cut their single and/or childless friends out of their lives.

I think my favorite ode to this ridiculousness is Garfunkel and Oates' song "Pregnant Women are Smug."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbTB3ASkdOo

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Love the video!

It sucks when friends go AWOL. I'm sorry. I think often it's more a matter of drifting apart (which happens all the time for any number of reasons, not just getting married or having kids,) but some people also seem to think because their lives changed, they have to focus only on that life change. And I do think there's a bit of a "Mommy culture." Unfortunately I think the internet makes it worse, because people find it easier to let loose and say what they're thinking.

[dragonsally.livejournal.com]

Gold. Pure gold.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

[falena]

Hee. This is amazing. Bravo. / says a new mum who hopes she hasn't turned into that person.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I don't think you have any more than I turned into Charity Bennett-Higinbothom when I got a full time job. :)

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

I really love this :D

Comment, part 1.

[white-serpent.livejournal.com]

I'm torn. I get where you're coming from on this because I think there's a sense of martyrdom and smug superiority that comes with the territory of writing something like this. That, in and of itself, is offensive to everyone.

On the kid front, though: kids tend to amplify issues that were problems before but were tolerable.

Once upon a time, I lived in a tiny apartment near the university. It was on several bus lines, and I could easily get to the symphony, several shopping malls, walk to multiple different grocery stores, etc. Want to eat out? Several restaurants within a few minutes' drive. Want pizza? Walk to the next block.

Now, the problem with this lifestyle is "tiny apartment"-- can't decorate, not enough room for books, no pets, no piano, limited privacy. (Also, being near the university means you wake up to fun problems like having your car windows smashed in, hear car alarms all night, etc.)

Eventually, we moved. The house we chose was in the middle of nowhere, for various reasons (perhaps an overreaction to "tiny" and "hear car alarms all night"). This was our choice, obviously, and we thought we understood the future implications. Because we had no kids, the fact that everything was now a 20-30 minute drive (minimum) was a surmountable obstacle. (After all, when you took the bus, didn't everything take that long, anyway? And besides, did we really need to eat out that often? So, sure; no one delivers pizza to us, but livable, surely? And piano! And pets! And space! And quiet!) We were far away from friends-- but weren't we before? They'd moved out of the university district years before, they didn't consult us when they chose where to move, so why not pick what we wanted?

But there are other implications, too. You need to time the commute right, since any problems anywhere along the way can turn into massive backups. Is it really worth the trip back into downtown on a weekend to go to the symphony? *Really?* What if you forgot to pick up something at the store?

These were problems with the choice of where we moved. This was always true.

Add a small child. Can I time my commute for convenience? No, because I have absolute restrictions imposed by daycare hours. (Daycare opens at 8 and shuts promptly at 6 pm-- no option to "drop off really early" or "leave until 9" if you have an evening event.) If I've been forced to drive at regular commute times, do I really want to do more driving afterward? Let's say I want to go to the symphony. Before child: pick weeknight symphony, stay downtown after work, go to symphony, go home late. (Or: go to work very early, drive home early, let out dogs, rest and eat, drive back to symphony much later.) After child: child is too young to behave through concert and needs to be taken home from daycare after work, whether left with husband or with babysitter. Do I then drive all the way back into downtown to go to symphony, or do I decree that it is simply not worth it? (Option B! Option B!)

If I forget something at the store... before child: "run in" in the morning before work; "run in" on the way home. After child: morning has been a struggle already; do I want to take him out of the car seat and deal with going through the store on the way to work, or will this just frustrate us both? Evening... last night I thought I'd go shopping on the way home, but he didn't take his nap at school and fell asleep immediately on the car ride home. Do I wake up a sleepy preschooler to drag him into a store, knowing that he's truly exhausted and will start screaming, or do I skip shopping and take him straight home? (I chose the latter; he slept all the way through to the next morning.)

Comment, part 2.

[white-serpent.livejournal.com]

It wasn't that I was unaware of the various disadvantages of where I chose to live before. It's just that I had more leeway to deal with "special circumstances" than I do now. In terms of seeing friends (and my husband's family, actually)-- we used to make accommodations to see them; they didn't make accommodations to see us. We can't make the accommodations we used to (1.5-2 hrs drive on last-minute notice to attend the most important event ever! we'll be offended if you do not come!). They're not picking up the slack. The only thing I see as our fault in this is the fact that we ever attempted to accommodate them.

Re: Comment, part 2.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I see your point, and you're absolutely right that having kids presents specific challenges. I'm making fun of smug attitudes in "I'm a Mom now" articles more than the facts themselves, and in my parody I tried to include truisms that are nonetheless not specific to working (or having kids).

Having said that, you're right about things such as accommodations, which some friends are dense about. Last minute plans are hard for a lot of people, but especially those with kids. And that's not your fault. I do think there are people who really forget that their friends DO have kids and what that means.

[thekaiserchief.livejournal.com]

Nice snark, "Ms. Bennett-Higinbothom" ;)