Career: “What Does Your Mom Do For A Job?”

The other day, when asked what her mom does for work, my daughter came up with an interesting job description….

A couple of weeks ago my eldest daughter learned about the different kind of jobs people do for a living during a career orientation subject week. Part of this subject was talking and learning about the parents of the children in her class and which career path they are following.
When picking up my daughter at the end of the day, her teacher asked if I had a minute to have a look at something in the class (with a huge grin on her face).
“Oooooh” I thought to myself ” This should be interesting.” You just never know what to expect when your child’s teacher asks to have a word with you…… but (judging by the grin on her face) I didn’t expect it to be that bad…..

Her teacher proceeded to show me the work they had been doing that day; filling out a sheet of questions about their parents work. ” I wanted to show you this as I though it might give you a laugh” she continued. Pheeewww, that’s promising I thought to myself; “It can’t be that bad if it makes the teacher laugh.”

“Your daughter has just informed us all that her mom does nothing for a job. She just goes to the Grocery Store every single day!!!”

Silence.

I had two ways of reacting to this news.

Take it in the light-hearted manner with which it was delivered and laugh it off (Awww, these cute kids come up with the straaaaaangest things hahaha)  Or stew on it in a paranoid, insecure slump, pondering how it is my own child regards me with so little value and what a lazy reprobate her teacher must think I am.

I decided on the former.

Having said that, just for good measure, when my daughter and I arrived home that afternoon, I asked her how her day had been.

“Good” she replied in her standard daily reply.

“Well, mine was good too thank you for asking. Do you know what I did today?”

“Nope” she replied shrugging her shoulders as if to say “why would I care?”

“Well, I washed all of your dirty clothes and tidied all of your toys away, I cleaned up the kitchen and all the dirty dishes, I took out the rubbish, rang your school dentist for an appointment, filled out your school notices, payed some bills…..”

“How long is this story mom?” my daughter interrupted, clearly bored witless.

“Well, I just wasn’t sure if you knew what I did in a day,” I continued….

“I read all the different school news letters, making notes on the calander regarding all the various events and activities you and your sister have on this term. I went to the bank and got some cash out for pocket money, school money, sports raffle tickets and school lunches. I prepared for dinner tonight, filled the car up with gas so I’m able to drive you to your after school activities…”

“Mom, are you OK?”

“Almost done….and then I went to the Grocery Store.”

“Cool” she muttered.

“Do you get that I did go to the Grocery Store, but that I did ALL that other stuff as well? And that’s even before we get to the activities – in – the – weekend part?”

“Yep”

“So, you get that I’m actually very busy looking after you guys?”

“Yep”

“So why would you tell your class and teacher that your mom does nothing?”

“I was joking.”

*Photo credit: Pinterest/ Funny-moms-and-kids