AIBU for parents to know what roughly what job I do?

[myjob]

I probably am being unreasonable, but hear me out. Just having a brat really.

I work in the city of London in a finance role, supporting fund managers. My mum has asked what I do and I have told her many times what my role is and how it supports the wider business. She just doesn't understand it and when I try to explain, she says "it's all so complicated!" And won't even try to listen. She is in her 60's and was a SAHM her whole life. My brother works in digital media sales and it's the same with him. She thinks he works with computers and I'm a secretary. She doesn't seem to understand that I'm not in a typing pool.

It's a stressful, serious job. I have tried to explain, she doesn't seem to understand that women can have important roles in an office environment.

Do your parents understand your job if it's not something like teacher or nurse? Maybe IABU! I give up with trying to explain it now!

Many years ago I got a new job which required being in London a couple of days a week (we live in the north). It was well paid with great benefits, and in fact better paid than my then Husband. When I told PiLs about it they simply said that they didn’t believe me because big companies (it was a bank) didn’t “give” jobs like that to women. 🤷‍♀️

I’m not in the same boat but I expect my mum herself is. She gets what I do, we both work in public sector management roles albeit completely different industries. However she originally trained as a midwife in the NHS so I expect her own mum finds it difficult to see that what she does now is so far above and beyond that role, and would continue to describe her daughter as a midwife.

I think the OP's mother is undermining her by not believing she has a good job. Jealousy maybe? Shw may feel self conscious because she didn't work outside the home, even though having a sahm works for many families.

My parents think my job is bigger than what it is. However they think pay has not moved on and think I am only earning what would be a good salary 20 years ago. A neighbour said their son was earning 80k and my mother said 'why would they lie' She was puzzled and not believing it. He is 50 and in a specialised role.

This is doing the rounds at the moment.

I’ve got a PhD and I don’t really understand what my husband does. I know it’s IT-related

This is me. Highly educated, married for decades and still can’t describe/or understand what DH does but it’s IT sort of stuff.

Also, I’m a bit sympathetic to OP’s mum. One of my kids is in Finance, they have explained it but I still have no idea really so I just use the broad term ‘finance’ if anyone enquires and then I change the subject in case they are interested so I won’t look blank.

She's always been a SAHM, so I think she just doesn't really have any idea that women can have real jobs!

But she's only in her 60s!

Does she not read the news?

Not heard of Betty Boothroyd, Margaret Thatcher for example?

A lot of people wouldn't know what a fund manager is, never mind what support roles there are around them. Unless people have experience or knowledge of that type of business, it can be hard for them to imagine it even when you explain it. Even something like nursing isn't fully understood. It's not just washing people and giving meds. Same for teaching, social work, accountancy etc.

Nothing to do with her being a SAHM.

It doesn't entirely surprise me. If you have never worked in an office then a lot of the imagery is of office cubicles and probably similarly outdated office processes.

I have a professional job and am intelligent and well educated.
I have never in my life worked an office job. I couldn’t tell you what half of my friends/family do for a living other than they work in an office.
Unless it’s something like an accountant or architect or solicitor I wouldn’t have the first idea what their job entails. I might be able to tell you their job title at a push but I wouldn’t know what it means. I think if you’ve never worked an office type job in your life you wouldn’t really have a clue

My dad was a factory worker and my mum was a SAHM. They have no idea what I do. I'm a procurement director and I've tried to explain years ago what that meant but they didn't understand. They've told the neighbours I do marketing

And those that do, don’t necessarily find it praiseworthy.

I think you just have to make it really easy for her by giving her a couple of words eg "I'm an investment manager" or "I manage investments". This may not accurately describe what you actually do but at least it's in the right ball park and gets her away from the secretary nonsense. Its brevity also makes it easier for her to remember than an explanation if she doesn't have the attention span to listen all the way through!

My DD is a computer scientist and I really struggled to understand what her PhD is about!

I wouldn’t take it personally I’m a forensics pathologist my mum thinks I do exactly what Nikki from silent witness does and says I went to medical school to fail becoming a dr ?😅

Tell her you have been promoted and are now a manager ( if you really care).

Or drop some heavy and intriguing hints about ‘cover stories’….whilst emphasising that she must never, ever , mention this to anyone else.

This is same as my DM. According to DM, her friends daughter got a job [big intake of breath] 'in a bank'* and therefore no matter what job I got, it would never equal the cudos of having a job 'in a bank'. I work in a compliance/finance role, one that you need to have and maintain qualifications for but still, her friends daughters job is 'in a bank' and therefore more worthy of only being discussed in utter reverence 🤣

However, when I qualified though and a letter from a governing body arrived in the post, with the qualification letters after my name, my DM started telling family/friends 'oh yes, projectme has got letters after her name now'. [Imagine les Dawson busom pose] if anyone asked DM, what my job was she would say 'you'll have to ask her?' Making it sound like it was top secret!!! 🤣

But despite me telling her what I do, she has no clue really.

*absolutely not dissing anyone who works in a bank.

No one in our family, including me, understands what my brother or sister-in-law do. I think on my part this is partly because I have only ever worked in public or third sector jobs, and I really don't know how private sector professional jobs work. My brother did explain to me in detail (at my request) what his role involved, but then I was even more confused because it sounded like something that would take at most half a day a week, and I still don't get how it can stretch to a being a more than full time job. They were living with us for a while and WFH and my SIL's job seems to consist entirely of meetings. I am used to jobs where you have meetings to plan what needs to be done and who will do it, and then you go away and do it, and have another meeting to check progress and so on ... but her whole job is the meetings! I asked her when the work got done that the meetings had planned, and was met with mutual incomprehension.

However, IMO that is entirely separate from thinking that WFH is not really working. I can WFH for the admin part of my job , but my Mum does not think I'm really working. As in, she will ask me to help with various household chores that I actually don't have time to do, and I don't just mean something small like hanging the washing out or putting the shopping away. She very much sees any time sitting in front of a computer whilst not in a Zoom/Teams meeting as not really working and therefore available to deep clean the bathroom or cook a meal. It is starting to annoy me. She worked herself, but in a job where you have to be in the workplace to do anything.

Not understanding what someone does for a living happens quite a lot, I think. Taking the leap to think that, therefore, the person does nothing at all or not very much is hopefully much less common.

My dear grandmother told anyone who would listen that I was teaching English in x country. I have never been a teacher, never lived or worked in X country, and have never voiced the slightest interest in teaching anyone anything- far less kids. When I visited I used to bump in to people all the time who asked if I was enjoying X country and did I speak Y language. After a while I gave up trying to explain and would just say, yes, really enjoy it. Kids are great etc etc.

My parents don’t have a clue. They are also frequently surprised that I have a job for some reason and my mum often refers to me as a SaHM (I’m a full time senior civil servant but apparently this is just a hobby as I earn less than DH).

What can you do? I just roll my eyes and carry on, while making a mental note to avoid behaving like this to DD.

What were you doing? Were you even in that country?😀

Surely you can explain what you do in a simple way that your Mum can understand? To someone who has never worked in that sort of field, I can imagine that she would be confused by a very general high-level description of what you do. You make it sound as though there is something wrong with her having been a stay at home mum?

So, it seems that lots of apparently intelligent posters are saying that they don't understand what their near and dear ones do. This is very surprising to me.

For those who are saying this, is it because your family members are really bad at explaining what their jobs entail? Is it the case that you do actually have a reasonable understanding of what their job is all about but you say you don't understand because you're not sure about the finer details of what's involved on a day to day basis? Or is it that you're just not really interested enough to really take it on board, so you never ask/ don't listen?

I really don't believe that there are that many jobs where the basic idea of what they entail is truly incomprehensible to a person of average intelligence, so there must be something else going on here!!

For me, I think it’s that I struggle to understand what people in office environments actually do day to day. All I can come up with is: reading and writing emails and going to meetings (I’m not dissing this- clearly a lot of important and interesting things go on in the emails and meetings). If they are managerial then I guess some of their time is spent monitoring what other people are doing and providing training to help them be better at their jobs.

You can probably tell I’ve never worked in an office 😂 (Actually I did, briefly, when I was in my early 20s. It was a travel agent so most of us spent most of our time answering the phone).

my father understood my role at work, it was a bespoke type of role but he showed an interest - my mum died previously.

Im not far of your mums decade and understand my off springs roles at work, take an interest and listen to their problems some times. Often have no advice but think listen will help them come to their own solutions or get off their chest

I think it's a generational thing to be honest and how much jobs have changed. My parents aren't alive but pretty sure my in laws don't understand what me or DH do. I am in HR but I reckon they think I just 'interview' people and offer jobs when I don't do anything like that.....