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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to wonder if I'm the only person on MN who's never had a career?

160 replies

WaitressRose · 15/08/2013 09:51

whenever there is a SAHM/WOHM bunfight discussion, people always talk about how taking time out to look after kids will affect their career.

I've never had a career. Left school after A levels and got a job in an office. It was in the olden days when only a small perentage of population went to university. Worked, earned decent wage, did some travellings, bought own house, met DH and got married.

In my 30s I did a teaching degree but DC came along straight after (not the best planned move but very happy with outcome Smile). So never got to become teacher and don't have desire to be anymore - think having children of my own has put me off other peoples Grin

So anyone else just worked, had a job, earned money without having a career or profession?

OP posts:
Isabeller · 15/08/2013 19:16

hahahahahaha (at OP title) no me neither Grin

But I have done stuff.

wordfactory · 15/08/2013 19:17

Completely agree mother...

Now some careers are definitely more family freindly than others. But some are perfectly family friendly.

wordfactory · 15/08/2013 19:19

And the reason MN seesm full of women who have or have had a career, is because it is!!!!

The MN demographic is educated/middle class. And educated middle class women will usually seek a career over a job.

catgirl1976 · 15/08/2013 19:21

I think it's more the lack of sleep and zero tolerance for muppetry having a child brought out in me.....

Platinumstart · 15/08/2013 19:22

I certainly don't live to work but I do love my job...which is almost certainly a career.

LaFataTurchina · 15/08/2013 20:17

At the moment I have a job, my first long term after uni one, but it's not a 'career' yet.

I keep doing more degrees in the hope of having a career one day (in the sense of it being something you've always want to do).

But if it never happened and I ended having lots of babies and carrying on one with my job now or a similar one I think I'd be ok with that too.

nocheeseplease · 15/08/2013 20:29

I've not got a career, I've just got a job. I left school at 16 after doing my GCSEs, got a job as an office junior in a solicitors office and worked my way up to legal secretary which is what I do now and I have no intention of going any higher up in the firm. I did swap and change which department I worked in until I found one that interested me but now I'm done with change and plan to stay where I am until I retire. I'm only 31 too so have a VERY long time left in the same job.

Original poster
WaitressRose · 15/08/2013 20:38

Aren't there something like 4million plus unique users each month on MN? Do they all have careers?

DH has a career; degree plus post graduate qualifications required. Senior position with good salary and benefits. He just sees it as a job though and he'd jack it in tomorrow if he could

OP posts:
MarmaladeTwatkins · 15/08/2013 20:50

I have never had a career. I've never been driven by it. I went and got a degree because it felt like what I should do but have never used it.

I don't care, either. I'm just not motivated by it.

Mumsyblouse · 15/08/2013 21:03

To the posters who pointed out their men just have jobs, great, good for them, they don't want or haven't got careers and there are plenty of men who just work for the money and aren't interested in career progression. The point is though, that in the main, men are not put down by other men for wanting careers or seeing this as a valuable goal; women often are.

It's a shame, I hope my children have interesting careers, because my experience is that there's more of a sense of purpose in a career than when I've just worked for the pay packet (as I have also done many time). Fine if they choose 'just a job' or to step away from the workplace because that's their genuine choice, not fine if its because of subtle or not so subtle pressure for them to step back from their own career to prioritise husband's career (against their real desires), or because society can't seem to deal with women having a few years out of the workplace in a very long 40 year working life or because employers still look down on part-time employees and so women often end up under-employed in jobs which pay little and carry little authority/decision-making power or because we still haven't cracked good subsidised childcare. It's about genuine choices, and I'm not always convinced that some of the choices some women have made about work are really genuinely what they would have chosen away from these pressures.

LiegeAndLief · 15/08/2013 21:06

A career to me means progression. Like HuglessDouglas's call centre example.

I don't have a high flying job earning loads of cash, or a vocation, but I am in a more senior position earning more money in the same field I was in 10 years ago. And I would be more senior and better paid again if I hadn't had 2 dc. So I would consider that a career.

ShootMeNowPlease · 15/08/2013 21:13

I have a career. Interesting work that I mostly enjoy, and I'm now senior enough to have a fair bit of flexibility - provided I get the work done no-one's checking up on when or where it happens.

The downside is that I have to think about where I'm going next and what I need to do to get there: been in my present job two years and I reckon I need to move to the next level in another three years or so, or ageism as well as sexism will come and bite me. The next level is going to involve longer hours and more responsibility at a time when DS is still pretty small, but I'll probably kick myself for the next 40 years if I don't take that step and fulfil my potential.

SignoraStronza · 15/08/2013 21:15

Mid 30s and also never had a career. Left school in my final year of A levels (and kicked myself ever since) and went to work in a bank. Quit that when I asked to to do the financial adviser training/exams and was refused on the basis of not having been there long enough - when a lad on the same induction course was put forward for them (realised was not the best workplace for women). Temped, buggered off travelling for a bit, got a fledgling marketing type 'career' job but then moved abroad with my idiot ex. TEFLd and (once I'd learned the lingo) worked in offices doing admin. Always worked in evenings/weekends doing shop/bar/waitressing too.

About time I decided what I want to do when I grow up really. Wink

WhoreOfTheWorlds · 15/08/2013 21:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SignoraStronza · 15/08/2013 21:21

I found it really embarrassing when I was teaching English to doctors, lawyers, architects etc. They'd inevitably ask me what I did at uni and I'd have to mumble something about whichever OU course I was dabbling in at the time. Blush

The thing is, I know I can come across as knowledgeable and educatedWink but just don't have the qualifications or 'career' to back it up. I really wish I had a profession I could return to one I'm done with having children.

grumpyoldbat · 15/08/2013 21:27

I don't consider myself to have had a career because I've always failed. I have worked most of my adult life though.

Littleen · 15/08/2013 21:29

Got pregnant a few weeks after finishing my bachelor at uni.. Desperate for a career, as it's what I've always dreamt of, but seems it will have to wait a while now! :(

themaltesefalcon · 15/08/2013 21:40

I began my career and then it stalled, so I went travelling and got a job. Then I had a baby and was self-employed whilst finishing my education. Now I am doing some advanced studies and doing a career-type job in a different field whilst trying to launch my "real" career. Got it? Grin

I doubt you are too old for a career. Some novelists, for example, only get published for the first time in their 60s- or even later. If you have regrets, why not sit back and have a long, hard think about how you want to spend the rest of your life? What have you got to lose?

treaclesoda · 15/08/2013 22:00

I long for a career. Left university full of drive and ambition, but couldn't afford to work for no money, so took low paid job and slogged away looking for my big break, which never came. I drove myself close to a breakdown with my desire for a career and I look back and see that I ruined what should have been the happiest most carefree days of my life. Every night for ten years my poor DH listened to me cry after work at the sheer misery of my job, and knowing that I was capable of more, and of course the frustration of earning so little. I'm a sahm now, and although I cherish the time with my children and am generally happy, I feel there is a huge chunk of my life missing. And it will always be missing because even if, as I hope, I can try again once my children are older, I'll be 20 years behind people chasing the same opportunities (I'm in my late 30s already and won't be able to go back to work for a few years yet). So that's 20 years of lost opportunities, 20 years of lost earnings. It hurts.

Mumsyblouse · 15/08/2013 22:08

I do agree you don't necessarily have to have set out on a career early to end up with one. I kind of fell into mine in my mid-thirties and am very glad I did. I have friends who didn't really hit their stride career-wise til their late-forties, having retrained. It's not a one-off opportunity if you miss the boat. If you don't want to be on the boat, that's a different matter, but I do think if you have a sneaking suspicion you would like to go back to college and do those qualification, or get a more interesting job with opportunities to progress, you should have a go and don't discount yourself just for being older. We also won't be in a recession for ever and then the labour market will open up to women who took years out for childrearing (at the moment, even a textbook career path won't necessarily get you the job). My colleague at work started her current career aged 40 having had 10 years out. It is possible (although not obligatory!)

HuglessDouglas · 15/08/2013 22:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Bubbles1066 · 15/08/2013 22:19

Me. I've worked in a museum, shop, cinema, theme park, worked as a health care support worker and then as a teaching assistant for 3 years. I'm now a SAHM. So no career for me, just jobs.

Deemail · 15/08/2013 22:23

I haven't read any more of this thread so I don't know where it is at but I have just read three threads on aibu and two of those mentioned class. Wow

Deemail · 15/08/2013 22:29

Sorry I replied on the wrong thread, ignore my last post please. [Blush]

Vagndidit · 15/08/2013 23:19

DH is the one with the career in this household. His career moves us all over the globe (academic) every couple of years, so that I've had a hard enough time staying in one place long enough to establish one.

Last career aspiration of my own resulted in 5 glorious years as a primary school teacher. I gave it up when we moved to the UK. To do the same in this country I'd have to retrain and I'm hopeful we'll be moving outta here soon anyway

I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me. It does; but this is the life we live.