Occupational Deconstruction

It always comes up. It's just one of those inevitable things. In social situations when I, you, pretty much anyone, meet new people, they ask this question. What do you do? Just four little words. Three, actually, with one of them repeated. The general gist of the question is, for most people, what is your job, your occupation? Doesn't seem to be the least bit loaded at all but there have been times when I have had difficulty with this simplest of questions. During the fifteen years when my occupation was stay-at-home-mom I sometimes struggled with how to answer. While it was my choice and my pleasure to be a homemaker and mother there often was a pause and a smile from the questioner. And a second question ultimately followed. And when do you plan to go back to work? Somehow suggesting that I wasn't busy enough, occupied enough, stimulated enough by caring for my two sons, volunteering at their school, keeping house, and often working on various remodeling projects in our home. I was sometimes left feeling inadequate, as if I was somehow not doing my part by not being out there in the world. That somehow I was doing my children a disservice by being there for them and denying them the opportunity to fend for themselves. That somehow I was failing my husband and family by not bringing home a paycheck. Another surprise was that I happen to be somewhat of a rabid feminist despite the fact that I allowed myself to be "kept" by a man. Now that I have been back out there for a few years, I have discovered something. I find it interesting that so many people almost wholly define themselves by the work that they do. Usually the work that they get paid for. When I believe that certainly most of those people have a much more interesting story about themselves aside from their jobs. I staunchly defend my fifteen nurturing years when I worked without pay at home. Because in retrospect I can't imagine having done anything more important during that time. I don't think that it is the right choice for every woman, and many women don't have the luxury of that choice in today's economy. But it was the right choice for me. I think the whole point of the feminist battles that our mothers and grandmothers fought were not so that women could become just like men. The point was to free us all from stereotypes so we could have choices in our lives. That goes for men, too, who often have a tendency to define themselves by their careers alone. I find that much too confining. So now, when people ask me what I do, this is my standard reply. I am a mother. I am a writer. And the thing that they pay me to do is torture seeds. When the questioner is engaged by my unconventional answer I know I have found the one person in the room I would rather be talking to.