A strong, confident, 30-something friend just posted on another forum about feeling pressured to spend way more on a pre-wedding brunch than she was comfortable with. This isn’t a dumb, insecure girl, and even then, she felt an intense pressure to comply with the bride’s wishes and felt like everyone else was on board. Turns out, the moment she refused, every other woman invited felt comfortable to say they didn’t want the insanely expensive brunch event either. So ALL of the women were uncomfortable and they were all this.close to begrudgingly over spending if no one had spoken up.
Totally not wedding or money related, but I can SO see this in my real life.
I'm a strong, confident woman and I'm 47. I also happen to have a few hobbies, one of which is quilting. In that vein, I belong to a guild and a smaller satellite group of about 12 women.
In addition to this hobby, I'd like to point out that I have a full time job and 2 elementary school children. So not much time for actual quilting. I pay for the guild as it's required to be a member of the satellite group, but I really like my small group. We meet about 10-11 times a year (once a month), but unfortunately with kid stuff I'm only able to make it about half the time. That's fine with me. I enjoy the group, the chatting. Sometimes I make it to the days where we rent a big room to quilt. Sometimes I'm only able to stop in and chat. Our group occasionally does things like exchanges at Christmas (everyone draws a name and makes a quilt for the other person), or block exchanges (same thing, you are just making a block), or we work together to make charity quilts, or whatever. As I went from 1 kid to 2, my participation in these went to every other year.
In any event...this is a long story I guess, there is another strong willed and vocal person in the group. Now, this group currently has me (2 elementary school children), another woman of about 50 with a junior high kid and an elementary kid. A couple of the women are in their 50s-60s and still working (a nurse, a bookkeeper), but the remaining women (including the vocal one) are retired.
Vocal woman has, off and on, suggested that we do "more". As we used to do more exchanges, and charity quilts, and such, in the last 4 years she has signed the group up for "other things", like being in charge of refreshments for the guild meeting every month, or being in charge of the guild's "block of the month", or most recently, being in charge of the "boutique" for the upcoming quilt show. Prior to the boutique thing, she emailed everyone and wanted to know if we were interested in volunteering. If not, we would back out. I simply responded with "I cannot commit to this". A few days later, we can an email saying "thanks for all the responses, we're in!" My thought was what??? But whatever.
Then a week later, an email about our next meeting. "We're in on the boutique, you should all think about when you can help set up, and which days you can work the show, and let me know. Also, this group is getting boring, we need a kick in the pants and do more exchanges, volunteering, charity quilts, etc."
I waited 5 days to respond, because I wanted to make sure I was answering from the heart and not off the handle. I finally said "I'm out. I already said that I can't volunteer for the show. I'm sorry if we are boring, but my life is boring. If this is the direction you want to go, it's time for me to step out."
Same day, the other parent stepped out.
Did I mention the other two younger ladies did the same last year and the year before (also, both parents of young children.)
Her response was "I'm glad this is out in the open", which makes us think that it's a THING that everyone else has been talking about, those two slackers who are too busy to show up and DO ALL THE THINGS.
Then finally, one of the other older women who'd been at the meeting said "the four of us at the meeting agreed that we like the status quo. So if you (the vocal one) aren't happy, maybe YOU need a new group. We all have different priorities."
Anyway, everyone was just going along with her because she's so strong willed.I think she's so far removed from parenthood (she's a grandparent) and working (she retired 3 years ago) and chores (her husband does all of the cooking) that she's kind of forgotten about what it's like. I see her at the gym in the morning, and then I know she goes home to practice the piano and quilt lots and lots and lots. And garden. And knit. And...??? Her days aren't filled with parent-teacher meetings, baseball games, food prep, swim lessons, and snuggles.
Since I pre-paid for the year, I'm still in the group. Not sure I wanna go anymore!