Various studies have shown that Americans not only work longer hours, but have more stress-related illnesses than their European and Japanese counterparts. These days, everyone is being pressured to be as productive as they physically can, and often, can’t.

While anyone who’s ever had a truly demanding job knows how it feels to be turned into a dried-out sponge by the end of the workweek, many parents still claim they don’t know how much worse it gets when you have kids.

And one Redditor, a childfree 34-year-old woman who “works long hours, never really gets to turn off, and has a contract which means unemployment is always looming” knows that all too well.

But recently she got seriously fed up with her friends, all mothers of kids under 6, who told her that she didn’t “understand the meaning of tired” because she doesn’t have children. An argument on usurping the monopoly on tiredness ensued, so let’s see the whole story right below.

One overworked woman with a demanding job has got fed up with mothers who told her she doesn’t know the real meaning of tiredness until she has kids

Image credits: Sharon McCutcheon (not the actual photo)

So she shared her story on Reddit and asked people what they thought of the situation and mothers usurping the monopoly on tiredness

Image credits: destinedspoon

Bored Panda reached out to Dr. Lise Deguire, a clinical psychologist and author of “Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience From a Burn Survivor,” to find out what she had to say on this complex situation. “I think this story is a new variation on a decades-long theme, which pits women against each other,” Lise said and added that “there has been a tension between feminists and traditionalists; working moms and stay-at-home moms; tension between breast-feeding moms and moms unable to breast-feed, etc.”

“Unfortunately, it seems to be easy for people to fall into a trap of comparing and judging each other, instead of supporting each other. I think this issue of who-is-more-tired is another version of that theme,” she explained.

Lise said that as a psychologist, “I can tell you that everyone suffers in their own way. Some of us are in pain because of our relationships, or our financial standing, or our perceived inadequacies. And some of us are super tired.”

And what helps people feel better is to have compassion for themselves and their troubles, as well as having this compassion for others. Meanwhile, “Judging our suffering never helps, it just makes us feel more inadequate. Judging another’s suffering never helps either, it just creates stress and bad feelings, like what happened with NTA,” the clinical psychologist and award-winning author commented.

“My wish is that we could hear each other’s concerns and complaints with care and concern, and without comparison, but this is hard to do, especially when we are tired,” Lise concluded.

And this is what people commented

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