How can anyone with a job and kids be bored?

[kiz]

I think there’s a difference between “boredom” and “tedium of everyday life”.

I’ve found the older I become, the less I can deal with unstructured time. I don’t know if this is because I witnessed retired relatives watching TV nearly 24/7 or retired relatives developing addictive habits or dementia or what-have-you. It seemed that once you stopped working, all you’re waiting for is the grave.

I don’t want to be like that. Even though I’m 10-12 years from reaching retirement age, I force myself to be interested in going out and doing things, even though I often don’t have the energy to do so. It gets me out of my own head and forces me to talk with others. I have dogs, so I’m out walking them. My husband and I often eat at a couple of particular restaurants and we’ve become “regulars” and have gotten to know other “regulars”. Vacations still stymie me because more often than not nobody else has the same week off and there’s only so much one can do around the house. I persevere, though.

Most of my “mommy” friends can explain the tedium of raising children better than I ever could. A lot of them post things on Facebook relating to it and their “mommy” friends respond and commiserate. It’s not only quite an education reading what they post but I now have such an appreciation for what my own mother went through raising me.

[Maastricht]

@snfaulkner

A common “conversation” with the wife goes as follows:

Me sitting on couch staring at the wall
Wife: “what are you doing”
Me : “being bored, thinking of something to do”
Wife: “well go can do lists of several tedious chores”
Me: “No, I’m trying to NOT be bored” drinks beerx20

Come on, tell me, what does your wife say then ?

[Maastricht]

@bump

I feel ya though Maastricht; I’ve been in the same situation you’ve been in, where there are things you’d like to do and which sound on paper like they’d be entertaining, but all you want to do is vegetate or do something very low-key. That’s different than bored though.

Exactly ! It is different, but I don’t know how, exactly. Too tired to relax properly, or something?

[Gothic]

Try doing something with just you and the kid every night before bed, football, cross country skiing, swimming. It may help and it will give you great memmories.

[snfaulkner]

@Maastricht

Come on, tell me, what does your wife say then ?

Aggablagblag! blag! aggablagblag!..And it slowly fades into the background.

[pool]

I wish I was one of the people who could complain about leisure time and to be fair I probably have more than some people, but I don’t usually get bored because I can’t think of anything to do, I get bored because my various responsibilities get in the way of what I want to do. For instance I’ve been playing the bass for probably around 15 years and it’s probably my favorite thing to do, I have an electric and acoustic and if left to my own devices I can easily entertain myself by playing it for hours and hours, but with school, being married, and having children I don’t have much time for my favorite hobby which can lead to things like staying up late at night to play downstairs when everyone is sleeping. I don’t get enough sleep and the next day it starts a bad cycle and effects my responsibilities.

Luckily sometimes the “boring” and fun things coincide, some people hate driving, but I have a sporty new car so even a short trip to the grocery store or taking the kids somewhere is fun for me because I get to drive. Also, as much as a gripe sometimes about the daily hassle of being a parent I do enjoy playing and interacting with them and even helping them with school stuff because I find it fascinating to watch them learn.

[SpoilerVirgin]

@Crafter_Man

I have no idea what it’s like to be bored.

At my job I work four or five projects simultaneously, and am always behind in delivering reports. So much work to do - no chance for boredom there. (At the same time, there are people in our group who literally do no work whatsoever. And they are catered to. But I guess that’s another topic.)

At home my job jar is always overflowing; there are endless projects. I had a barn build a few years ago, and I am still in the process of “finishing” it. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of wiring in it. It will take me years to get it done the way I want it. And then there’s 15 acres to take care of.

I have no time to be bored.

It’s not that you don’t have time to be bored, it’s that you are not bored by the things that you have to do. A different person, with different interests, could find the projects you’re working on incredibly uninteresting, and be completely bored, even if they were always behind. And I personally can’t think of many things I’d find more boring than construction and wiring. You’re very lucky that the things that you need to do happen to interest and excite you, but just having tons of work does not mitigate boredom. I’ve had jobs that required 65 hour workweeks where I was still bored for the whole 65 hours.