thelongmum : Most liked Posts

There does seem to be a real gulf between what she considers to be normal lifestyle expectations and what most other people do. I went to Devon for 2-3 days in 2015, a few months before I got pregnant with my first baby. That was my last holiday. Discounting a couple of 48 hour trips across the channel round that same time to tend to a dying relative, I haven’t been on a holiday abroad since 2011. I’m mobility restricted atm from a health complication and in charge alone all day of my very boisterous eldest with special needs and a small toddler. Would I like a holiday? Sure. Am I prepared to send my broke arse even further into poverty just for a few days sweating and wanking in an AirBNB? Nah.

The very obvious answer to the question she so often either suggests at or directly asks (“why shouldn’t I have a nice lifestyle?”) is: you don’t have any money, old girl. It’s kind of that simple. Like sure, at one level why shouldn’t _anyone_ be able to float around eating artisan goods and having fancy tipples and making inane comments here and there about politics like the himbo ranch-dwelling son from Succession. But again, for most of us the answer is ‘because we can’t pay for it.’

Find proper work, and if for whatever reason you can’t, then either accept that there’s a literal cap on what the state can realistically provide you with even in a perfect system, or find a rich fella. “Only” a free cruise and a trip to the Caribbean in the last couple of years alone, I mean it’s not exactly Angela’s Ashes, is it.

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Charity shops, coffee hops, northern c*cks anything that makes the parenting stop.

electric_boots said:

Coz she got absolutely annihilated last year for having botox and fillers while claiming UC. Not keen to reopen that can of worms but she clearly feels she's gonna get hate for it again and needs to justify it.

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I think it’s absolutely fine if she want to get botox, I agree that just cos she’s on UC she shouldn’t have to not have the odd nice thing. My issues is that I earn a bloody good wage, I work 2 jobs, I’m a single parent, I get no help from her dad with money and not as much help due to his hours with childcare but I don’t have the life she has; botox, daily trips for coffee and cake, trips out every weekend, clothes bough every day, hairdos, it’s when it all adds up. She thinks she deserves all of this because she has such a hard life. She doesn’t even see her privilege that she has parents that have helped support her, a university education, now help from the baby daddy and her mum, a job that she can do from home in between wanks and boyfriends. I cannot deal with how she thinks everyone owes her something. Instead of all the coffees and botox etc work out your finances and find a better flat if it’s getting you down? Get a part time job? Move closer to your mum if you reckon the dad isn’t helping you out, stop obsessing over finding a man, give back to your community? Oh the Nasty tories have ruined everything- I don’t see you doing anything about it? Become a home start help- offer to help as a classroom assistant at school, get a job in a bloody coffee shop? Today posting about how she’s so worried about covid in schools and how dare it be decided that we need to go back to normal. My beat mates husband topped himself 5 weeks ago cos he lost everything! She’s worried that some kids at school have a cold, colds have always existed and always will, but it’s the governments fault. She wasn’t worried about COVID when she boarded a bloody ferry for a freebie holiday. She literally can’t see how pathetic she is, that’s the problem with social media, so many people telling her she is right all the time, she actually is being validated in all her moaning.

I think it's clear she is suffering from mental health issues and has been for a long time. Objectively it's easy to look in at someone's life and what they 'should' be able to cope with. Sadly, not always that easy when you're suffering with mental health problems. It's hard isn't it because we all talk about being kind but often with mental illness - it's not comfortable to see people struggle with everyday things. It can feel frustrating as an outsider or hard to understand. It's not easy to see someone make self destructive choices or act in ways that seem selfish. That's why people tend to hide mental health problems or feel alone in them. This is not a judgement on anyone else here or what anyone has said but it made me think...

First time commenting on this thread, I watch it with interest as Anna is a funny one isn’t she. I do hope she’s ok, I feel like I follow her just to check in as whenever she’s trying to appeal to isn’t what I’m really looking for but find I can’t unfollow.

However, I have to say, some of the comments on this thread are so upsetting with regards to UC. I have a degree and a masters and I’m currently at home with my 2 little ones due to unforeseen circumstances while my partner works 60 hour weeks a lot of the time and has been furloughed for the best part of the last year making us quite heavily reliant on universal credit (more so than we were before). Saying that someone can’t possibly be on universal credit and afford holidays or little treats for themselves is really REALLY harsh. My partner works extremely hard to provide for my family and when the cost of childcare doesn’t outweigh what I would be earning then I will work really hard too. Please don’t be under the incredibly false impression that people on UC can afford this that and the other without working hard and scrounging off the government, we can barely even afford to eat this month. If I scrimp and scrape to get my nails done (which I don’t anyway) or go on holiday with my family then that’s what I’ll have done - scrimped and scraped but this won’t be instead of paying my bills/council tax/rent/food/clothing my children, this will have been putting £5 away a month until I have the money to go. My partner is so deserving of those small treats we can afford to give ourselves from HIS hard work so a huge fuck you to whoever said that we are being paid too much to have these things when the reality is extremely different. We struggle monthly but we are good people, I sincerely hope that you are never in the same position.

"Life couldn't be harder, I ponder from Lake Garda..."

Libertine said:

Who is it insulting to? You?

You do realise Anna’s experience of single motherhood can be different to yours. Or to mine.

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She posted a story a few days ago of her little "day date" that she does every Monday. Coffee, scone, followed by a browse of the shops. Then she goes home to a peaceful house, kids are at their dads for three days, she cooks herself a fancy three course meal and catches up with some TV while enjoying a bottle of wine. She doesn't have to be up in the morning. Absolute bliss eh? If she's burnt out after getting to do that WEEKLY then yes I find that insulting.

Onecandream said:

Because she would have to go and get a job?

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Huh?

If he was an amazing father and Anna was as abusive as thread would lead you to believe, he would be at a solicitor’s first thing Monday morning to start litigation. He’d tell the court that Anna was absolutely not fit to care for her children while he was happy to reorganise his life to care for his children full time.

That obviously has never happened and won’t ever happen. All a single father needs to do to be labelled ‘a great dad, much better than the mother’ is have some contact with their kids.

It won’t be held against single fathers if they go away for a buck’s or lads’ weekend and ask the mother to care for their children extra nights. No one will question if the children’s holiday sweetie money was spent on lager.

Single fathers don’t need to ever book and pay for a haircut, communicate with nursery/school, have a pair of shoes fitted and pay for them, purchase and label school uniform, make a doctor/dentist/optometrist/etc appointment, organise and pay for a birthday party, bake and send birthday cupcakes to nursery/school, or attend a school sports day or concert.

If they do any of these things, they will be lauded as An Outstanding Father. The bar is indeed lower than the belly of a pregnant ant.