to be annoyed that other mums think Self-Employed = Lady of Leisure.

[noseynoonoo]

DC2 starts school in September. I have spent the past 9 months or so having people make comments to the effect of "from September you won't know what to do with yourself, you'll be a lady of leisure". Seriously I get this about 2-3 times a week.

I am self employed, which means that when DC2 is at morning nursery I am with clients, as I am one or two evenings a week and also most Saturdays. I spend a lot of my 'spare time' e.g. evenings up to midnight and Sundays afternoons on marketing activities. I am nowhere near being a lady of leisure and once September arrives I'll be filling the new 'spare time'.

This morning a mum at school commented on my work and then said the lady of leisure bit - how can she think I can work and not do anything all day - how does that work? I am just a really rubbish worker for not being able to acheive being self-employed and a lady of leisure lifestyle?

Do other self-employed people get this?

All the time. I usually ask to switch lives if they think running a company is leisurely.

Ha! Yes. My mother keeps asking me when I'm planning on getting a job.

I get it a lot as well but I'd rather have people thinking I'm a lady of leisure than have to work for somebody else ever again

Another one who's mother keeps suggesting I get a job....

YANBU
People refer to when I "used to work" despite the fact I work much harder now, I'm just not going out to an office!

I worked from home in a 'proper' job (civil service).

My PIL used to be really surprised that I actually had to book annual leave with my team. They thought I could just not do anything for a fortnight and nobody would notice

I do understand where you're coming from on this one. It is because you don't work Monday-Friday 9-5, people don't get it!

I work nights and get to sleep from 9.30 am till 2 pm on a good day.

I get told I am obsessed with sleep! Huh? Switch that to working days and sleeping from 9.30 pm till 2 am, not so lazy really then!!

Yup, same here. Almost like I'm playing at having a job. Er no, I actually work most evenings and nap times - and late into the night on many an occasion.

Still wouldn't go back to employment though

I think its because you can manage your time appropriately, eg if you wish to lunch with the ladies on a Friday or specifically go to the gym at 9am after school drop off, people don't factor in that you probably start working again at 9am doing paperwork.

Then again it depends on what you do. 'Self employed' can be anything from Avon lady, Betterware distributor to Richard Branson and anything in between.

Yep. Today a friend emailed to ask if I could meet her Wednesday daytime for coffee and I had to say no, I'll be working. She replied 'That's OK, I understand.' I was probably irrationally narked; I wasn't asking for 'understanding' ? I'm just going to be working, like lots of people are going to be working on a Wednesday afternoon!

Also someone who, when I said I wasn't all that annoyed that our neighbours had had a one-off noisy party on a weekend night and at least none of our household had had to get up at 6 and work a 12-hour shift the next day, said 'The weekend's the time you need to relax when you work full-time, though.' Patronising caaah.

Better than hearing that being a SAHM teaches your DC to be lazy (MN example today).

People are always asking when I'm going back to work. I tell them I never stopped. When they ask what I do, they are .

same here
ie working at moment (waiting on things to upload to a central server = time to mumsnet lol)
i work morning, noon and night but because everyone sees me doing the school run in the morning or twice in afternoon = i have a great job

i will still be working at 10pm tonight!

Can everyone on this thread please tell me what you do / what your company does.

Especially you Rhubarb .

I get it from my own Mum. She doesn't seem to believe that DH and I have to work weekends too.

I have been self employed for 20+ years and although i now fit work around school drop off & pick up, i'm often catching up on computer work in the evening so probably put in 45+ hours a week.

So not the lady of leisure that some people think i am!

I have a normal job, with dd in nursery 4 days a week and a friend said that nursery time is when I should go to the gym.. Not sure my boss would approve. Some people don't understand that other people's lives are different from their own.

RecursiveMoon, glad I'm not the only nosey one with a healthy curiosity!

My MIL tells people that I do a bit of babysitting for friends so I don't have to ask DH for pocket money. She also thinks it disgraceful that I don't spend my day cooking cleaning and doing the ironing, because poor DH has to go to work.

I'm a registered childminder who works longer hours that DH and my job is a damned site harder.

I hate the assumption that because you work from home you do nothing all day. Friends ask me why I can't just meet them for lunch, their weekends are precious after all because they've been to work all week. Ggggrrrrrrrr, you may have guessed it drives me mad!

I don't even do paid work as such - I volunteer and sell stuff on eBay - but I also get resentful of the assumptions that because I am ostensibly a SAHM, I have nothing better to do than drop everything and spend all day meeting friends for coffee. Then they get huffy if I say I can't.

Um, no, my DCs are in childcare for a reason. I'm working my socks off whilst they're there!

YANBU, OP.

Another one here

I used to work apparently.

I am available at all hours for anyone and anything.

My personal favourite is how they don't know why I'm always tired . Because I spend the time I should be sleeping on mn.

YANBU but a little over sensitive perhaps. To the outside observer being self employed is often invisible so there is an assumption that you have loads of free time. I am a freelance copywriter specialising in IT so what I do is very niche. Most of my friends know I work but I still get thought of as a SAHM.

It doesn't concern me unduly because I have a degree of freedom to organise my time, and my work pays highly for the hours I spend on it. The downside is of course that when an opportunity comes in I basically have to say yes so can end up working evenings and often weekends. I still have 2 under school age and am expecting DC3 imminently!

And yes, I have to say I think I have it easy compared to when I worked 3 days a week in London after DC1 was born. I net a similar amount with considerably less effort which was my exact goal.

Guess it depends what you do- I doubt the mums who see me always running at the last gasp to the school think I am a lady of leisure

I get the opposite "don't know how you manage to fit it all in!", which always leaves me with a sneaky impression that there is an implied slight there, as if obviously I don't manage to fit it all in but have chosen to put my career before my beloved children

You can't win, no matter what you do, so you might as well do what suits and smile politely!