"Do you work"?

[ShiftLD]

I was a lawyer in my past life before kids and used to work from 8am to 8pm, some days more. Now, because of many circumstances, I'm at the moment taking care of the house and my husband is the one working long hours. That's our arrangement.

Nowadays I work even more hours than before and non-stop. Besides being the housekeeper, kids and hub PA, official buyer of anything needed, I admin a small Etsy store, our Ebay store for used items, manage ours savings...

I feel so humiliated when I don't have an answer to the question "Do you work?". What should I answer?

Surely the obvious answer is ‘Do you ask men that?’

Hire a nanny and go back to work then.

@TheRaptures I think people ask both sexes what they do.

It’s just a question? You’re reading way too into it. Just say you’re a full time parent at the moment. Try being asked “do you have kids” after years of fertility issues and miscarriage, consider that

Yes, but the question the OP mentioned wasn’t ‘What do you do?’, which presumes you work, but ‘Do you work?’ which I think is highly unlikely to be asked of men of working age.

Obviously it’s just a question but it’s upsetting @ShiftLD so she needs an answer that she’s comfortable with. There are many questions including the ones you find difficult @Rosesanddaisies1 that people find upsetting or awkward, I’m not sure top trumps is really necessary.

I get you OP!
I had a baby, a one year old and a two year old, no paid job. I actually apologised to a mortgage advisor once for not having a job.

It's just conversation, no one actually cares. It's one of the reasons I'm so shit at small talk, I hate asking questions, it feels so intrusive and I know that some people get triggered by them.

You have literally just made the same judgement about sahm. Irony is lost on you.

not answering your question but it’s not something I’d ask as it’s such a loaded question. I’d need to know someone quite well before I asked. By which stage it probably would have come up in conversation naturally . It’s asked usually I find so the person asking can judge where they are in relation to the person they are asking socially. Bit like all the are you middle class posts on here. We like to know where we are in the pack don’t we. Although Job and the wanky what do you drive are not very good questions. A better one would be what are your values, are you a decent person.

No, she’s just saying she doesn’t consider them ‘lucky’. For her they’ve simply made a choice to be economically inactive. She hasn’t suggested what she thinks of that choice.

I had never realised people were asking what I drove in that way! How funny.

It's not a question to feel humiliated about, regardless of whether you work or not.

I was in exactly your shoes 15 years ago and like you struggled with questions like this. I think it was because I felt so conflicted about what I was doing-

—I knew I was working hard and making a good contribution;
-as a feminist, I felt that work in the home (traditionally done by women) was and is massively undervalued; and yet
-a huge amount of my identity was tied up with my career success and, more broadly, my idea of myself as someone with a particular set of abilities, few of which were at the fore when I was looking after children; and
-I also felt I was failing the “having it all” test- shouldn’t I somehow be able to do 16 chargeable hours a day while simultaneously raising two kids, having a beautiful home and going regularly to Pilates? Wasn’t that the standard?

Looking back, I deeply regret the mental effort I wasted on all of this and how long it took me to realise that pretty much no one was judging me according to any of the above standards- no one thought I was failing by spending some time with my kids but equally no one had been overly interested or impressed by my career success. People just aren’t that interested.

So my advice would be to spend some time working out whether your feelings about this question are actually yours? Are you projecting your own mixed emotions onto the person asking the question? Make your peace with your decisions- work will still be there when it’s time to go back. And then just answer honestly.

This is my favourite by miles

Yes, but the question the OP mentioned wasn’t ‘What do you do?’, which presumes you work, but ‘Do you work?’ which I think is highly unlikely to be asked of men of working age.

Definitely put this way in areas with lots of unemployment and it times of recession. It’s considered to be more polite than “what do you do” when you know there is a high chance of the answer being “I’ve been laid off”. Jim Bowen famously asked it of Bullseye contestants in the ‘80s.

As someone who grew up in a city of formerly heavy industry decimated by the recessions of the 80s, and whose father was either unemployed or striking for long periods, I can assure you that no one was asking this then, because it implies options.

It’s just a conversation opener and context is everything. If you’re at your husbands work Xmas do making small talk about finance / management consulting etc then I’d say “I’m a lawyer” but if you’re by a softplay and organising a meet up with somebody the answer is probably “no I’m free any day”.

Yes, that was my point. DH is never asked "Do you work?"

"What do you do?" is a perfectly fine, non-sexist open question which requires a more detailed and hopefully interesting response.

People ask what you do so that they can categorize you in their mind, place you on the social scale/scale of deserving respect and then project a whole list of preconceived stereotypes onto you. It's a bit rude really.

I'm retired and when people ask me what I do I quote something a person gave as their occupation on a census form in 1911. I tell them 'I do what I please'.

Oh I ask this all the time as I love knowing what people do. I think I like trying to make connections. I've done about 257 jobs so very often was a Sahm for about 4 years and if someone said they were I would be interested in how they were finding it (I loved and hated it in equal measure) and if they were going to any of the playgroups/activities I used to.
I never minded people asking. It's a privilege these days to be able to spend those amazing years with little ones. I have never regretted it and was proud of doing it.

"I'm a lawyer, but right now I'm taking a break to be with the kids while they're young".

I get why you feel hung up on not being in paid employment, but I would just say the above.

Long time SAHM here and I take no offence to this question, I just say ‘no I don’t work I have X child all week, waiting until they go to school’. It’s often just a conversation point as you get to know mums in the preschool queue etc. Sort of like ‘what do you do in your spare time’ , ‘what you up to today’, someone might say ‘I’m off to a gym class, then my job as a personal trainer / work for civil service etc etc or I’m taking X to this softplay today you should try it sometime’.

I honestly just ask as I’m getting to know someone as I think it helps build rapport and gives you something to talk about / means you are taking an interest. I don’t mean any offence by it, they are interesting and we would have things in common whether the person works in the traditional sense or doesn’t work and spends their time raising the family / doing hobbies etc

I don't disagree about people categorising you based on your answer. But I don't think they're always being rude - if I asked it it would be because I was trying to find things in common to talk about - if they mention being a lawyer, I could ask what university they went to (we might have visited the same places) or if they said they were a SAHM I could ask them more about their children. Etc. It can be hard to know what to chat to people about - hard for me anyway!