To get cheesed off with people telling me I should 'get a little job'?

[LukewarmBath]

My youngest child is due to start school in September. I am getting very fed up with people telling me (totally unasked for advice btw) that I need to 'get a little job'. One of the mums at school, who is a total busybody and doesn't know me very well at all, even printed off details about a lunchtime supervisor job that is going at the DC's school because she 'thought I'd like to get a little job as mini Lukewarm is going to school soon'. People constantly ask me if I'm going to get a job. Even family do it.

The fact is, I don't really need to work financially. DH has his own company and I do a lot of his admin work for him as well as lots of cold calling and dealing with invoices. But because it's from home, no one seems to think it's a proper job. I go to the gym, meet up with friends regularly and go on lots of nights out, so it's not like I need the 'adult interaction' from a job either.

I just wish people would mind their own business!

When i grew up both M&D worked full time all week. I was sent away all day Sat so the housework, cooking, gardening, diy and shopping could be caught up on and Sunday was spent with them at the pub unwinding after a busy week. i rarely saw either of them. Neither of them had careers - Just jobs. Jobs they hated.

If DH has made investments with money WE have earned then 50% of them are mine. He has only earned that money/bought that property/made that investment because I have enabled him to. If i went to work he would have to pay 50% of childcare and all other household costs so that has been earned by me, I have let him invest my wages and put them in my name. So i AM independent financially. It's just wages a different way really. I think people are devaluing the work done at home. Just because everyone can do it doesn't mean it's free.

If i was ill DH would lose his business or have to use money from our savings to pay for childcare till i was better.

Chubby kitty. Pin money is from the 18th century when women fastened their clothing with pins. Poor people had plain ones, rich had ostentatious jewelled ones. So a woman was given an allowance suitable to her social status to buy pins (and other accessories). Her DH was considered a tightwad if she had none and he was also not allowed to interfere in her personal shopping. So a woman's own money came to be known as pin money. People say silly things about my job like why don't I go full time, what does DH think etc. I out earn him so he's glad I work and I don't need to go full time so won't.

OP - just say - I have got a job, I work in the family business
And whilst you are at it get a SALARY out of it, or if it is just DH's business, think about how your investment of time and energy can be reflected in a share of ownership.
and, recognise it yourself as a job, and the skills you use in it.

TBH I think its a natural enough to think that parents of school age children might want to or need to work in some form. For many reasons, not least of which the assumption that you wont want to spend the rest of your life watching Jeremy Kyle.

Some people are so rude aren't they and have no boundaries. I wouldn't even dream of asking someone to justify why they did or didn't work, way too intrusive in my opinion.

You're a grown up, you know what can happen if your relationship goes tits up and you need a job. However you OP most definitely have a job, if you put down your administration role on a CV then I'm sure you'd interviews!

If it's not neccessary for you to work out of the home and you don't want to then don't. Why go through the expense of childcare just to satisfy some ignorant woman in the playground. It is just jealousy that causes people to make this kind of remark ultimately. Ignore.

If you are working for the family business in a role which, were it to be for another business, would pay you a living wage, then tell them to back off.
However, if you still require the tax payer to prop up your lifestyle choices, going out, to the gym, coffee etc., then that's just not fair. Why should we pay for you when you have the ability to work.
This isn't jealousy. Having children doesn't absolve you from the responsibility to be able to look after yourself and your children.
If your husband fell ill/left you/died then who would feed the kids then?
I don't get this dependence on men attitude, what kind of model are you to your children.

Think what role models you are being for your daughters if you don't work. Do you want them growing up thinking that their lot in life is to clean and skivvy? Do you want your sons to grow up thinking that women are put on earth to serve men?

lizza that's not nice.
in fact I find it quite offensive.

I don't work as disabled but when I get helpful advice I reply ' no thanks, I'm quite happy sitting at home on my arse doing nothing while you work thanks'

usually takes the wind out of their sails

lizza a good role model is being a happy, kind human - how you achieve this has nothing to do with working or not working

Most of these posts say a lot more about the posters' lives than any supposed 'advice' they pretend to propose.

lizza my children will see that couples support each other, that we, as parents, made decisions that we felt benefitted them (much the same as households where both parents work). They will see division of labour is a perfectly reasonable way of life - that it is okay to do what you want and what you are good at, despite society telling them that only paid employment makes people worthwhile.
My dc will remember that mum was able to go on school trips and attend all their events and that dad made that possible. (He attends when he can, but me sah means that I always can).

YANBU, OP.

Sounds as if you have a great set-up, and, invariably, people will be jealous.

I'm fortunate enough not to have to work. I have a 6 month old and another on the way. I tell people, when asked, that I don't plan on returning to work, at all, and that's it.

I think the role of SAHP is much undervalued. I'm not coming at this from an angle that that sees these women as "kept women" or women who have no purpose in life, etc. My only misgiving about the role is that far too many women end up being shafted when their OH's end up leaving them and they haven't made adequate provision for their future or assumed that their OH would 'do the decent thing'. I would love to see greater rights enshrined in law to protect SAHPs.

However, the role of SAHP has, and continues to be, very much a privileged one that only a small section of society has been able to enjoy (working class women have always worked). It is unusual. It's not unreasonable for most people to assume that you would probably need to return to work once your youngest child starts school - most women would have to.

If that had been me in your situation I would have taken the school mum's job 'offer' quite kindly. She'd gone to some trouble to give you an opportunity that she could equally not have bothered with. Of course a lot depends on the tone with which she delivered it and maybe she's a patronising idiot, but why assume that she has an opinion on how you ought to behave? Couldn't she just be doing you a favour?

You have a job OP - you are a parent and a clerk for your DH's business. You don't need to justify your existence to anyone and it's none of their business, but I think a little acceptance that your life is an unusual one would go a long way towards being able to accept that people are maybe not so much interfering as trying to help. In a way think of it as a compliment - if they thought you were a PITA they wouldn't bother to print out job opportunities for you and leave you to it.

I think the OP was objecting to the patronising term 'a little job', as would I. Most of us are capable of doing far more than 'a little job', which implies something poorly paid and menial to keep our tiny brains occupied so we're not bored while our kids are at school. I am NEVER bored on the very rare occasions I'm on my own, and I know lots of non-working mums who are also never bored, because we're all intelligent enough to find stimulating things to do when we're not occupied with school runs, wiping bums, shopping, etc. Maybe I will go back to work - I haven't decided - but I sure as hell won't be doing 'a little job'.

The OP has to take it as a compliment that somebody has an opinion on her life and thinks she is either stupid or idle enough to need their help getting a dinner ladies job, which is probably about 10 hours a week, when she already has a job requiring a bit more skill and has an impact on the success of the family business? I don't think so.

Btw, I have researched my family tree going back 200 years now, with a few exceptions, none of the w/c women in my family (which is all of them - I don't come from landed gentry sadly) had jobs. Their husbands worked on the land and they stayed at home with 7 or 8 surviving children. They didn't have paid work although I am sure they took part in the running of the farm but that is just what rural women did - it was part of their 'housework'. They certainly didn't pay for it. Seems to me that is a bit of a myth that some women use to beat up other women for their choices.

Agree juneau . Many sahp came from professional, well paid careers. Sah does come with some sacrifices, but I did not give up a career so I can do some menial job while my dc are at school. Why would people assume that this is a better use of my time that anything else I could choose to do?

True independence only comes from earning your own money.

starfish, it's more about the idea that women sah because they are incapable of having a 'proper career' or that once the dc have started school there is no more value to us sah and the only value we have is if we are in the workplace, even if it doing a job we don't want or need and may be over qualified for!

Lizza, although put quite buntly what you said is true. We should be encouraging girls to work hard at school and have them believe they can be anything they want to be. Whats the point of uni etc if its never used, housework and staying home is not exactly rocket science.

Starfish, i agree that lots would love a "little job" and there was no need for the OP to be offended. It sounds like the other lady had no idea she already worked and was trying to be helpful. Jobs on schools are always filled quickly as the hours and holidays match and are generally rewarding jobs.

I think I am also uncomfortable with the idea of someone thinking it is okay to tell a virtual stranger what they ought to be doing with their time. Being a sahp seems to invite a lot of value judgements from people, who really ought to be minding their own business. I don't think anyone would approach a man and tell him that his life choices were all wrong and that it was time he did something completely different with his time!

Say Darling I simply do NOT have time for a job. Big grin and saunter off.