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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:

LessMissAbs · 19/08/2013 06:32

I would say the op has had a career, as she earned a good wage. I would define a career as anything which provides a consistent means of financial independence in the same or similar field and some skills which require training.

I dont see anything wrong with stopping work. I worked in a profession but listened when a senior lawyer described a lot of female solicitors as 'cannon fodder' - meaning they were going to work themselves to the bone to make profits for someone else's business, all for the sake of holding onto a vision of a 'career'. I've made far more money out of astute property decisions but the number of people who cannot understand why I've 'given up work' are unreal. And in actual fact, i still keep a toe in by lecturing, as i think going through life without the means to earn an income is extreme folly.

I cant believe when women have never worked or gained any skills. Its 2013 for gods sake! Its just so risky not to have something to fall back on should it all go tits up. I also find that work teaches you to get on with a wider variety of personalities.

dysfunctionally if you are suggesting that most women who have a career have had support from mummy and daddy to do so, your views sound distorted and badly out of sinc with reality. That's one of the strangest comments I've read.

BrianTheMole · 19/08/2013 06:56

Unlike most of you i didn't have any financial or emotional support from mummy and daddy to propel me through life,i did it all by myself.

jumping to conclusions there a bit aren't you. You don't want your life defined, yet you are happy to define others. I certainly didn't get financial help from my parents, they had no money. All my own work I'm afraid, sorry about that.

I do think you are going to get a bit a shock if you think fostering is as simple as that. I don't know if you have passed your assessments yet, but I suspect you haven't. I would go and talk to a lot of foster carers about a day in the life of a foster carer. It isn't a walk in the park by any stretch of the imagination. It would concern me that a prospective foster carer had such a rose tinted view of it all. Although the social worker doing your assessment will probably pIck up on that too.

wordfactory · 19/08/2013 07:19

Dysfunction I'm sorry you had poor parents and what must have been an unhappy childhood . That's not good for anyone.

Perhaps your username is more than a coincidence?

You sound very angry and defensive and inflexible. Maybe somehting needs to be addressed?

ShellyBoobs · 19/08/2013 07:34

Shellybooobs-i didn't accuse anyone of being a shit parent,that's your own insecurity talking.

Yes, that'll be it.

And as for financial and emotional support from parents? I was lucky if I had something to eat when I was child, never mind money or encouragement.

comingintomyown · 19/08/2013 07:55

I have often thought that too OP !

I always had jobs from early teens and was a worker and I assumed that I would have a career. I went to Uni alongside reading mags like Cosmopolitan that was all talk of careers and empowered women.

When I graduated I got a job that was ok and had I wanted to I could have started to use it as a launch for a career but I had no direction or vocation. In my private life I was making a lot of mistakes including living with DV and all in all I just sat in this same job with my self confidence ebbing away.

I then met XH and had DC and loved being a SAHM and gave no further thought to work apart from a PT job for a couple of years.

I divorced and after more or less 14 years at home got a job which I have been in 2 years .

Its in retail and there is a fairly clear career path which I have been promoted in once so far but on MN its definetly seen as a job.

I have read many comments on MN looking down at those of us in "jobs" eg "I have tried so hard and I cant even get a job in a shop" . I think people categorise their respect for work based on salary and if you dont earn much its a job and if you do its a career

ShellyBoobs · 19/08/2013 10:27

I think people categorise their respect for work based on salary and if you dont earn much its a job and if you do its a career

I don't know about other people, but in my opinion, it's not the salary that makes someone's work a career rather than a job. There are lots of careers which aren't well paid.

dysfunctionallynormal · 19/08/2013 16:35

Ooooh! Aren't u bitchy!!! :-D

I give my opinion and you jump on me with your superiority complexes and judgemental attitudes and then you throw it back at me?!

Yea,i had a shit childhood. I'm not ashamed of it and for you to suggest that i am 'angry,defensive and infelxible' and to suggest that my username is 'more than a coincidence' is just laughable!

Brian- perhaps you need to read my earlier post. I haven't reached the final panel stage yet,and i don't believe i will have any problems when i do. I've been working with foster children-which involves working/liaising with social workers/other foster parents/agencies/health prof etc,and funnily enough-they have a totally different opinion! The fostering agency i am with and my social worker who is doing my assessments also have a very different opinion than you all :-D

wordfactory · 19/08/2013 17:06

dysfunction your shit childhood is nothing to be ashamed of, but nor is it somehting to be proud of!!

You seem to think it gives you an edge of some sort. It doesn't. It's just sad.

BrianTheMole · 19/08/2013 17:20

Brian- perhaps you need to read my earlier post. I haven't reached the final panel stage yet,and i don't believe i will have any problems when i do.

As I thought. Well good luck with that then. I used to identify potential foster carers as a social worker, and someone who presented as you, but in rl, would ring alarm bells with me. You don't sound as if you have a strong understanding of what its all about at all.

motherinferior · 19/08/2013 17:22

I'm giving up - whenever I ask about running a household you're just going to go on with the insults, aren't you?

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