I really love this. When my kids were younger, I had the same realization that I was making my work invisible to them--my husband works from home, so they see him working all the time, but at the time, I was either teaching on campus or *not working* while at home with them. (Which is a whole other thing about how I reduced my own working hours to accommodate caregiving.) I've become much more deliberate about talking to my kids about my work in the last couple of years.
This is great. My job is incredibly difficult to explain -- even my parents barely understand what I do and I've been doing it for a decade -- but I think I do a pretty decent job of showing my kids how much I enjoy my work. I talk about it in front of them -- usually positive things, because I usually only have positive things to say. They know my coworkers; they know my office. They also understand that when I travel, I don't like being away from them (and work travel is 1000 times less fun than personal travel), but I love what I do and traveling is part of that. This doesn't even include the many, many conversations we've had about why I work instead of staying home with them, why mothers and families might choose to do it the way we do it instead of that way, etc.
Such a thoughtful piece - I think about this a lot (and I do the same re rose, bud, and thorn, but something work related is often my thorn!) and about how little I knew about what different careers would really look like even when I was in college (and even now I am surprised when I learn details about jobs totally outside my area, e.g., healthcare). Thanks for sharing.
I really love this. When my kids were younger, I had the same realization that I was making my work invisible to them--my husband works from home, so they see him working all the time, but at the time, I was either teaching on campus or *not working* while at home with them. (Which is a whole other thing about how I reduced my own working hours to accommodate caregiving.) I've become much more deliberate about talking to my kids about my work in the last couple of years.
This is great. My job is incredibly difficult to explain -- even my parents barely understand what I do and I've been doing it for a decade -- but I think I do a pretty decent job of showing my kids how much I enjoy my work. I talk about it in front of them -- usually positive things, because I usually only have positive things to say. They know my coworkers; they know my office. They also understand that when I travel, I don't like being away from them (and work travel is 1000 times less fun than personal travel), but I love what I do and traveling is part of that. This doesn't even include the many, many conversations we've had about why I work instead of staying home with them, why mothers and families might choose to do it the way we do it instead of that way, etc.
Such a thoughtful piece - I think about this a lot (and I do the same re rose, bud, and thorn, but something work related is often my thorn!) and about how little I knew about what different careers would really look like even when I was in college (and even now I am surprised when I learn details about jobs totally outside my area, e.g., healthcare). Thanks for sharing.