“Mum, why don’t you have a job?”

Yesterday I was in the car with my kids and out of the blue Luca said to me …

“Mum, why don’t you have a job?”.

In an instant the hair stood up on the back of my neck. All bristle like.

So I said, “I do have a job, I have to look after all four of you”. 

“Yeah but it’s not a real job. Not like Daddy”.

Little bastard.

Then I told him, “Well before I had all of you I did have a job. I had lots of jobs. In fact my first job was at McDonald’s and I started there on the same day as my fifteenth birthday and I stayed there until I finished school”. 

“Yum I love McDonald’s”, was all he had to say so I continued in desperation to try to convince them I had ‘real’ jobs once before I became a lazy unemployed mother of four who clearly does nothing worthwhile.

“I worked for a casino and a software company and when I was at uni I worked in a jewellery store and  I delivered pizzas and worked for an accountant, I worked for a construction company for six years and had to wear a hard hat on building sites and make sure people got paid and I even stood in supermarkets and asked people if they’d like to try stuff and I worked for a recruitment firm and I even had two jobs at once when I was trying to buy a car so I worked in the petrol station next to your school”.

“Cool. Did you get to put petrol in cars?”

<Sigh> .. “No, Luca, I didn’t”.

“Boring. Well what else do you do in a petrol station?”.

Oh my God my children think I’m a moron!

“Well you know what guys? Being a Mum is a really important job. I don’t get paid or get holidays and I don’t have certain hours I just have to do it all the time. If I’m sick I still have to go to work. It’s a very busy and important job”.

But I knew they weren’t listening. Luca’s brain was still stuck way back at the petrol station topic.

So the car went silent for a bit until Luca came out with …

“Yeah but it’s still not a real job. Not like daddy’s is. Because you don’t even work in a tall building or anything so you can’t say it’s a real job”.

That kid is walking a fine line I tell you.