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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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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 ). 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

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

OP posts:

UniS · 15/08/2013 23:42

I have a profession, but not a career. I'm currently self employed but have no ambitions to "grow my business" I just want to work as much as I'm happy with doing work I don; mind too much. When I was employed ( in same line of work) I never rose up the ranks, just was content to be part of a team with out leading it .

dysfunctionallynormal · 17/08/2013 18:26

Yes. I didn't know what i wanted for a career and i refused to get into debt by going to uni when i wasn't sure. I've done all types of jobs from reception,admin,secretarial,call centre,bar work etc. I love the freedom of being able to go in a different direction when i get bored. Ok i'm not financially wealthy but i pay my own way in life and depend on no one.

Life is to be lived and enjoyed. Don't let the System make you believe otherwise. Do what makes you happy. You are not less of a person for not being out there 'working'.

Anyway,bringing up children and running a household is a career in itself. If you were doing it for someone else you would be getting paid a wage! ;-) xxx

motherinferior · 17/08/2013 18:37

Sorry, wtf is 'running a household'? If you mean cooking and cleaning and sorting out the bills, it's not exactly incompatible with a career - you either do it yourself or pay for some of it (the cleaning).

MadeOfStarDust · 17/08/2013 18:55

I had a career before kids... now I'm happy to pick up work here and there, balancing it with the type of family life that we want ...

marciaoverstrand · 17/08/2013 20:01

God knows what I'm doing on MN.
No career, not middle class, didn't go to uni, I've had loads of different jobs over the years.
I'm not stupid, just no ambition or encouragement from the people that mattered.
No one to blame but myself though.
Thankfully dds are the opposite of me so I must have done something right at some point.

freelancegirl · 17/08/2013 20:17

Am I the only one that has a career but not a job? I've had very few jobs since leaving university in 1998 but two different careers (having done a post grad before going freelance in the second. Being self employed is great - you have time off, there's an end to projects and it's well paid per day (which amounts to averagely paid over the year but with a good amount of time off) and it means I get to spend more time with my one year old. Of course it would be nice to have a monthly salary but being freelance (and not overly in demand :) ) is great for both spending time with dcs and also the enjoyment of a career (if a career floats your boat as it does mine).

Sharptic · 17/08/2013 20:25

I haven't...yet.

Feeling confused. I had career and was a bank manager when I became pg with ds1.

Within a few months of being back at work after mat leave, I left for a council office job, vowing that career and money was no longer my priority.

After a few years and another child, I'm eating my words and going back to college.when my youngest starts school in sept to retrain.

I am fed up of the constant stress of watching the pennies, and it's also hit home how.quick they grow up and how I would want to support them as adults, along with, health allowing, working til I'm 70, I can't see us retiring early unless we win the lottery so it better be work I enjoy doing!

dysfunctionallynormal · 17/08/2013 20:43

@motherinferior - what do you have a problem with?!

IMO 'cooking,cleaning' etc is houseWORK,which of course can be delegated to a paid employee. 'Running a household' involves more than just housework or 'paying bills' as you put it. It's akin to being managing director and the only full time employee of your own business-which in this context is your home and family.

marriedinwhiteisback · 17/08/2013 20:57

Well I'm 53 and wasn't clever enough for uni. I did a term at a poly but dropped out so did a secretarial course then a year at finishing school. Bcause I was a bit thick I got a secretarial job in the City and they liked me then realised I was numerate and because I got on with the salesmen/traders put me on the syndicate desk. That's how I became a eurobond salesman for ten years. Then I had 8 years off as a SaHM and then got a little locl job that funded prof quals and an MBA. Nine years on I have a local job 50k plus (half what I used to earn).

All I ever wanted were children and certainly had no intention of having a career. Odd isn't it?

motherinferior · 17/08/2013 22:02

No, I still don't understand what on earth you mean by running a household. What exactly are you doing that the rest of us - paid work, jobs, careers or not - aren't? Because most of us have 'households'!

motherinferior · 17/08/2013 22:05

If you mean 'looking after preschool kids is a full time job' then yes, I do see what you mean. But I still don't get the analogy with running a business.

wispawoman · 17/08/2013 22:10

I do feel we have strayed back into the 50s with some contributors. Surely in this day and age every woman should be capable of earning her own money if needed. If you want to be a SAHM and your partner/husband earns sufficient for this, great, but one day your children will be off having their own lives and who knows what can happen in a relationship. Having no way of earning sufficient to keep yourself and your children is very scary. Apart from the satisfaction of having your own money and hopefully, doing something you enjoy. By the way, how do you manage to never have worked unless you started having children very young?

dysfunctionallynormal · 17/08/2013 22:38

Motherinferior- what EXACTLY is your problem?!!! The fact that i think being a stay at home mum is a career in itself?!!!

ShellyBoobs · 17/08/2013 22:48

I have a career. I recently moved from being a director of a multi-national, to a role as global operations manager of a consulting firm.

I was extremely driven to do something career wise as I had a shit upbringing which left me in no doubt that I had to be self-sufficient.

Working nights in factories to make ends meet while studying full time, followed by saying yes to whatever oppportunity I was given helped me to get on.

I do think that some women are inclined to sneer at others who try to get on in the workplace - there's evidence of it in this thread with comments like 'not everyone lives to work', as if having a career means you're obsessed with work life at the expense of family life. A career and good home life aren't mutually exclusive.

ShellyBoobs · 17/08/2013 22:51

The fact that i think being a stay at home mum is a career in itself?!!!

I think that's confusing in itself.

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with being a SAHM but calling it a career is misleading given the accepted meaning of 'career'.

BrianTheMole · 17/08/2013 22:59

The fact that i think being a stay at home mum is a career in itself?!!!

No its not, sorry but it isn't. Where do you get to be financially independent by being a sahm? Nothing wrong with being one at all, but its not a career.

Original poster

WaitressRose · 17/08/2013 23:06

Oh pack it in, you lot!

Go and have your SAHM-V-WOHM sneerfests on another thread (if you bloody must). We were discussing if some of us had never had a career, who had jobs instead.

My husband isn't going to do a runner and if anything happens to either of us - I'm of value too, you know - we have life assurance.

OP posts:

Preferthedogtothekids · 17/08/2013 23:19

I had a good qualification, a professional career, a husband who worked in the same field and 2 small DC. I brought work home, I worried about work and I was permanently exhausted. My DC didn't get the best of me, the career did.

Now I have a job, I work school hours, I'm home for my kids when they get in from school and I don't worry about my job for one minute when I'm not doing it. Less money, but more quality of life.

UniS · 17/08/2013 23:27

SAHParent is a job. Promotion prospects are minimal & there is no annual pay review. On the plus side, there are no management meetings, staff meetings, annual reviews, probation meetings, interviews or dress code.

Myliferocks · 17/08/2013 23:31

I don't have a career and it doesn't bother me. We run our own business so I am able to work there during school hours but then I leave to sort the DC out.
DP is the mastermind behind our business. He has the contacts and the knowledge. I do the jobs that mean that he can concentrate on selling the products to people.
I'm not bothered that I don't have a career. I'm happy with my life!

BlackholesAndRevelations · 18/08/2013 07:59

I have a career but feel I'm not doing it of myself justice at the moment... Considering jacking it in and them retraining when my dc are older (currently preg with dc3). Think I'll wait and see how I feel though.

ifancyashandy - what do you do?

Jinsei · 18/08/2013 08:41

Depends what you mean by career. I have had a series of jobs in different organisations but related fields. There is no clear progression path, but with each new job, I have taken on progressively more responsibility, based on my experience in previous roles, and my salary has increased quite dramatically with some of the moves. If I had taken time out when dd was younger, there is no way I'd be doing what I do now, and I'd probably be earning half as much. I also wouldn't be in a position where my employer was willing to fund me to do an expensive professional qualification that will no doubt help me when I come to applying for higher level jobs in the future.

For me, this is a career. There is a logical progression and I have learnt a lot along the way, while working bloody hard to get here. Others might define it as a series of jobs, I suppose. It's all semantics really.

motherinferior · 18/08/2013 10:49

My 'problem' is that you have still not clarified what you mean by 'running a household'. I am unsure about where childcare ends and 'household' begins, and you haven't explained it so I remain confused. You seem rather, er, defensive...why don't you just explain what you mean?

Stropperella · 18/08/2013 10:59

I like to pretend that I have a career, but actually I just have a job.

StormyBrid · 18/08/2013 11:15

I graduated into a recession in a grim northern city with very high unemployment. Never managed to find full time work (though have worked part time, in bars and doing security at rugby matches). I'm only 28 though, and hoping I'll be able to find something not too soul destroying when the baby's older. Not ever likely to have a career though.

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