Lack of respect from family about my work

[OneNewOchreTurtle]

I am in my 30’s and have set up a very successful self employed business, soon hiring my first employee and tripling my earnings with the potential to be making 6 figures in the next few years. At the same time I have a husband who works away most of the time and I do everything with the household and our 2 children.

Yet my family (mother and sister’s family) have no respect for my work. My mother has in fact told me not to speak about it at birthday parties etc and to say I’m just at home (which to her is embarrassing as well). She is too ashamed to tell any of her friends what I do and just doesn’t speak about me, just about the grandchildren. She says she thinks it’s great, but says people wouldn’t understand. My family lives abroad so they are not with us in our day to day life and people that we are surrounded by have a lot of respect for what I do, it’s only my family. I have a long waiting list and get a lot of business word of mouth, but also our friends speak respectfully of how I manage everything and how I have built the business up.

I find this incredibly hurtful and I know I shouldn’t care. I have plans to slowly expand further once my youngest goes to school and sometimes hope my mum will be here to see it, but at the same time I don’t think this will make any difference. I think she will always be negative about my life choices, it’s just who she is. I didn’t care so much at the beginning but now my business is growing I feel like it is something she really should be proud of and it’s getting to me.

I did tell her the other week that I don’t understand why she is so ashamed of what I do, that she should speak proudly of me. I have a friend who is a chef and his parents are always very proud of him and fully support him, why can’t she do the same with me. She says her friend’s daughter is a lawyer and son an accountant, I said that’s great but I would be the worst lawyer. I am doing something I am passionate about, I am good at, it makes me happy and I am able to manage our home life and children basically on my own while also earning a good wage.

Not necessarily. My mother is mortified at what her children do for a living because she thinks we’ve overreached ourselves, and why couldn’t we ‘just have done something ordinary, like being a secretary or working in a shop?’

I’ve noticed from meeting neighbours of hers that she consistently downplays what we do to other people. Like she consistently gives the impression my sister is a shelfstacker in a library, when she’s a specialist subject librarian at a university library. Similarly, her neighbours think my brother is a bank teller in a high street branch when he manages data analysis for a major bank. I mean, it tickles us all no end, but I can see how it might be annoying.

The issue is that they’re extremely jealous. why else would they act like this? your family should be proud of what you achieve.

Jesus the fucking sneering is out of control. What the hell has happened to mumsnet 😢

OP you are doing something fantastic. You are working hard, building something from the ground up. Being a small business owner is not an easy path but bloody hell it's rewarding. I wish you every success and bollocks to what your mum and some of the condescending prats on here think.

OP I think this thread has gone in a different direction. You’re correct to be proud of your hard work and you should continue to be regardless of how people think your post was worded.

FWIW my family think I do admin. And if I did it would be fine. But I don’t. They’ll never accept I have a career as its an alien world to them. I’ve let go of caring about their views of me and I’m happier for it.

Oh please. My Mom ran a home-based day care for 12 with a helper for 25 years. She made so much money it was ridiculous. At the time infant care in San Francisco was $1500 a month and she had 6; plus the preschoolers that were toilet trained who were around $850 a month. Those kids had breakfast lunch and snack menus posted weekly, and home cooked food and home made snacks that she and I would make.

They had a big back yard and play equipment, including a water table and sand box. They went on field trips. She bought a 15 seater van to take them around in. Those kids LOVED being there and would cry when it was time to go home! Up until she died many would still send her flowers for Mother's Day and come visit her to show her their spouses and children!

Your mother needs to understand that those lawyers doctors and engineers would not be successful unless someone was keeping their children safe and loved in their absence. She should see you as an integral part of a team and not be ashamed.

But don't worry about it. Keep doing you and making a difference in the lives of those babies and their families.

Whilst there’s absolutely nothing wrong in having ambition and goals- you are coming across a bit ‘the apprentice’ about what essentially should be a caring business- one that can make you a good living yes- but not one to get a bit spreadsheet about and make it sound as if its been ‘set up ‘ to be about the cash! Not actually sure I would feel comfortable Asa parent if that’s the impression you are giving off - and maybe your mum feels a bit that way too - we have a business too so I do get that the financials are inportant but I would maybe tone it back a bit.

I do think this may be true in some way, as my mother was a single mother and chose to follow a big career which meant my sister and I were left alone a lot. I know she did her best under hard circumstances and I’m very grateful for her for the opportunities she gave me. But our childhood has been the reason both my sister and I have wanted to prioritise being present in our children’s lives and my mother has been upset neither one of us has gotten a professional job. I have found a way to do both, but it’s not in the way she would have wanted. It’s just confusing me because when I was working as a receptionist in a hotel earning 2k a month she was very overboard with positivity about it- but it was something she had done herself when she was young. I think the thing here is I’m doing things differently to her and she doesn’t like it.

How wonderful that you have kept such a beautiful image of your mother and the work she did.

My mother won’t have many years to live and being told that she stays quiet about what I do as she is so ashamed, when in fact I work so hard from the moment I wake up at 6am to when I go to sleep is just very very hurtful. I barely get a moment to sit down in a day. When I was talking about the expansion plans, it is partly to see if that would make her happy.

For a long time I didn’t care, and I don’t know why I do now. But you are right, what matters is my children growing beautiful memories and the impact I am making in the little ones lives.

thank you for all the lovely comments- there has been many and I am not able to comment back on each one but have read through all of them.

and to answer some questions- nobody back home really knows what I do - I think they mainly think I’m a stay at home mum who married a rich man (which is not true). My mum is the only one to know everything. My sister knows I look after “a few” kids and I have told a few friends I am a childminder but they don’t know anything more than that. My sister just always goes very quiet if anything is mentioned, she is a SAHM with a nanny so I don’t think she is judging as such but she doesn’t understand.

When I first started as a childminder my mum straight away told me to not tell anyone anything at the party and I think because everyone assumed I was a SAHM nobody asked me anything about work so I didn’t tell anyone anything about it. My cousin knows and talks very positively about it - she’s the only one I talk about it to when I see her. I think part of the issue is there’s no childminders where I am from so people don’t really understand what childminding is and just consider it as babysitting.

Because she will be developing it into a daycare business I would have thought!

That's just a future plan, though.

In the OP's situation, surely most people would say that they're currently working as a childminder and that they have plans to try and open up a nursery/daycare business in the future?

God the sneering here is absurd. Good for you, OP. Focus on the work you do. Let your mother (and mumsnet) sneer.

I think it is sad that your Mum is not proud of your achievements. I think you have created a very worthwhile career for yourself.

all parents reading this being stung for excessive top up charges to hourly funded rates will be reading this weeping - since 99% of childminders and nurseries cry poverty most of the time

I hear you! I was an area manager and my sister was a bank manager but the one my mum used to gush to her friends about was our sister who had a husband and 2 children…

Your mum would fit in here with the sneering going on, how embarrassing for mn.

Op you are obviously ambitious, self motivated and entrepreneurial, which some people like your mum and the sneerers here don't understand or appreciate.

You can't convince your mother to see what she's not capable of seeing.

Obviously you want your family to be proud of you, but I think you're going to have to accept they are not capable of that.

The sooner you accept their limitations the better, and continue to get your validation and motivation internally.

OP, I'm a self employed electrician, always busy and make enough money to be paying 40% tax on quite a chunk of my earnings - but there are still people who ask when I am going to get a job!!

Some people just can't get their head round self employment, not sure if its jealousy, not understanding how it works or what! - as others have said, not our problem.

Exactly.

I've been running a successful business, based online (nothing to do with any form of sex work and/or influencing) for the past 14 years. I earn what my mother does x 5.

Yet I'm self employed and mostly work from home. I fully support myself, own my own home, etc. Yet I'm always somehow pitied by my mother and grandmother and periodically suggested 'real jobs' I 'should' get (many of them are paid less than I make).

They just don't understand self-employment at all and especially WFHing. I've tried explaining to no avail. If I'd be married, they'd view me as a SAHM engaging in a hobby, and my theoretical husband as a breadwinner. The problem is, I'm a single parent and pay for everything myself, so they're a bit perplexed, but still refuse to recognize I earn money 'scrolling internet all day' (what it looks like to them).

Explaining anything is pointless, so I long stopped doing it. The work I do provides me with an excellent work-family balance and enables me to be there for my DD, yet both my mother and grandmother prefer me working in some office for 12 hours, just so they could say I have a 'real' job.