Oh, the cliche. A stay-at-home-mom gets asked that question.
Today, at the bank drive-through:
teller: Hello, welcome to Blahblahblah Bank.
me: Hi, I’d just like to cash this check, and I need a pen, please.
teller: Do you work?
awkward, prolonged silence
me: Excuse me?
teller: Do you work. Are you e m p l o y e d. (clearly and loudly, as if suddenly I was non-English-speaking and hearing-impaired)
me (lasers shooting from my eyes): No.
teller: Oh. Well, that’s OK. That’s fine, I just . . . if you worked . . . there is a Work Perks program . . . and I would send it to you . . . and rewards . . . and . . . if . . . but you don’t . . . so . . .
me (exposing canines): grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrowl.
She didn’t even send a fucking sucker in the tube.
I will save you the bitchy yeah-I-too-was-once-a teller-when-i-was-EIGHTEEN-and-I’d-take-that-stupid-job-again-any-day rant. After the growling, I smiled and am now completely “over it.” I guess I was a little sensitive to the at-home mama stigma today. Just before the bank, a fellow RN-turned-SAHM and I had been waxing nostalgic about our old jobs in which we used to make life and death decisions. And exercise our actual brain cells. And get lots of money for it.
But then there was this,
. . . and of the brain-cell using full-time working mamas of young kids, I thought: suckers.
;-p
i always tell people i’m an artist…
even though it sounds so totally lame. it’s better than them writing me down as ‘unemployed’ aka ‘moocher scumbag loser’
The answer to the question, of course, is YES!!!!!!!!!!!! I work. YES, YES, YES. Mothers of young children are working harder (by a long shot) than any bank teller.
Ditto Suzanne. Hell Yeah I Work!! I would have given that teller a piece of my mind…well, whatever is left of it after WORKING all day with four kids
You showed more control that I would have!! Love ya 
oprah calls us the hardest working people. add to the mothering the fact that many of us are trying to do OUR ART, whatever that might be, too, vocation, hoping for pay from it, and we’re working double time. i feel the dicatomy every day: others perceptions of what i do and it’s lack of worth because no dollar value is attached, and what. i. actually. do.
it’s very demeaning to be so wrongly perceived.
Marty has to answer this question all the time, and is rarely dismissed with “Well, that’s ok” it’s usually “REALLY!!!” and starring. Then men usually say “Yeah, I would have liked to do that” (They obviously don’t know) or women who say “Oh, that’s so wonderful blah, blah” (and I know they are thinking ‘I wish i had a husband who would stay home’ and I think “you picked him”) And then I get the comments about “You MAKE your husband stay home while you work” or “How did YOU decide to be the one to work” So in the end let’s all raise our glasses to the amazing SAHP(parents) and praise them and all their glory (and needed insanity!) I wouldn’t trust my children with anyone else;D
that. photo.
TERRI! that is one of my favorites ever. I can’t even stand it.
nothing matters. nothing else matters. oh. *love* (sigh)
it doesn’t matter one little bit what anyone else says or thinks .
*you* know. *WE* know. and “suckers” is right. you have the secret and you don’t have to share if you don’t want to. You have it all. Heart-exploding-ALL
Okay, so I am retired…now. Not just because I’m not teaching anymore (which I didn’t begin as a career until my girls were in Junior High and David was in college), but because all my kids are grown with families of their own. When my kids were little…”do you work?” was in it’s infancy…and working was a “necessity”…so my answer was…”do I work? I’m an accountant. No wait, a chef. Oh and a nurse and a teacher. Oh how stupid of me, I forgot, I also run a laundry and taxi service, and I clean a three bedroom house and take care of this family 24/7. And I do it all while my husband floats on the water 9 months out of every year.” All the while, in my mind, I’m thinking “what a stupid question…you are an effing asshole.”
Demeaning, INDEED.
I hate the stigma that comes that with that too! Like your an idiot and and you had to stay at home when it’s actually a complete family sacrifice, but so worth it in the end. I always say I work for charity. Yes, they don’t have to know it my own, and family that is. LOL.
So how should one ask? What would not be demeaning? What is your family structure? How do you spend most days? Do you work outside the home as well as in? What do you do for a living? ‘Cuz see, I do both. I run my household, take care of young kids AND run a full time business in between all my “stay at home” duties. I think it’s only a demeaning question if you let it be, if you see what you are doing as demeaning. I am lucky to run my business mostly from home, but that also means in between my kid barfing, I have to somehow manage to get the payroll done because if I don’t do it, it won’t be done and no one will get paid.
You sound just like me 30 years ago
I wouldn’t have been mad, except for the “e m p l o y e d” part. That was ridiculous. Kp, back in the day, “Do you work outside the home” was the more acceptable way of asking. And not treating the customer like a moron would’ve helped, also. Terri, I still remember when you’d get the call that the hospital didn’t need you to come in & you & Belle would do a happy dance. Gorgeous pic, of course 
What I hate more than that are some of the assumptions that since you stay home with your kids you must not be capable of conversation beyond, “Oh, what brand of diapers do you use?” I stay home with my kids. I home-school them. And yet, miraculously enough, I can still have an intelligent conversation about literature, current evens, current educational trends, etc. etc. It’s a miracle, isn’t it?
sometimes a picture tells it all…
Have the reverse problem. Surrounded by stay at home moms who think I’m a bad mom because I work full-time. Why doesn’t your husband take a better job? Oh life, la la la la la.
*sigh* This question still gets me every time.
I still like the “Do you work outside the home” way of asking.
*sigh*
but you do work; you are employed. and i mean beyond being a mother; which is work you know. you are a very talented artist. so your answer should have been “YES; i’m a photographer, writer and painter. and a mother too.” would have been interesting to see where the convo went after that.
love you.
deb
Oh I love that photo. How gorgeous is that…
and next time someone asks me if I work, I’m going to say, “sister…. you have no idea.”
Great post
so i suppose i should clarify that:
1. i do not find it demeaning at all to be classified a stay-at-home-mom. it was only the way she said it, as if i was a complete idiot and probably incapable of holding a job. it is the assumption, as cate said, of a lack of intelligence. ho-hum.
and
2. i have been a working mother, and i very much know how hard that is, too. i don’t think working moms are bad moms. i am fully capapble of being a BAD MOM AT HOME, thank you very much.
sometimes, when I’ve reached my breaking point, I wish I was a stay at work mom. as in, be back in twelve years. But mostly the working and the staying and whatever I’m doing is just fine. That little girl is so awesome hoarding her pile of friends. Love her.
yeah. sigh. yeah.
it’s WAHM, thank you very much. every mother works. its her full time job!
It’s work for sure, but also the greatest privilege.
Someone asked me, “Do you HELP OUT in the business?” That I found demeaning. As if it’s something I do just for fun, every now and then. I said, “No. I RUN the business.” I’ve also been known to answer the do you work question with, “Yes, I work my ass off.”
I forgot to mention how beautiful the photo is. I like that you can’t see her eyes, b/c the parts you see are so perfect, that if you added her eyes, you wouldn’t be able to take it. Her lips are so perfect.
Annnd lets hear it for the always appropriate answer to that question…”None of your damn business.” Especially when the question is posed by a total stranger on the verge of a sales pitch.
Gorgeous photo!
I’ve been a stay at home mom now for 17 years….yep, 17 and counting….
anyhow, I love it when it someone says, “and what do you do ?” this question usually from someone who just finished beating their chest after their last conversation confirmed that they graduated from “the better” college…and with honors…..ANYHOW, I have learned to answer now with a very cocky “anything I want to” and WOW, does this shut people up….and fast !
but honestly as a stay at home mom….I really do do anything I want to….. if you think about it hard enough…..
LOVE the photo, you are an artist and photographer and musician and philosopher and all of that. Oh, and the laundress and taxi drive and the other not-so-fun things, to boot. I feel guilty because I’m happy to escape to work- especially yesterday after half of a day with one sick kid and one bored crabby kid. I’m off! And no motivation left to have interesting hobbies or read interesting literature. kind of a one trick pony. From my fav Jason Mraz, “sistah, you’ve got it all!”