do you work outside the home?

Do you work outside the home?

This seems to be the latest politically correct way to ask another woman, especially a mother, about her life.

I hear it on the playground and at school functions and at parties and events.

As someone who recently relocated and is still meeting new people and acclimating to a new area, I’ve spent the last year trying to connect with other women about their lives and fumbling through explaining my own situation on a pretty regular basis.

When this question comes up – it always does – I try to find a way to answer that doesn’t make the frown lines on my forehead go into overdrive. It is usually met with a pause.

Well….

I get it. We want to be careful of each other. We want to recognize that being at home with your kids is work. We want to dance around the different choices that are available and the different choices that we’ve made.

I get it. But I don’t like it. There’s just something about this question.

When I find myself using it, I cringe. Did those words really just come out of my mouth?

Do you work outside the home?

It seems so oddly phrased and pretentious and antiquated. I just picture invitation-only country clubs and over-priveledged ladies with white gloves and pearls where the gin and tonics flow as readily as the judgement.

Strangely enough, I can’t remember a man ever asking me that. But for women, it’s the gateway question. It’s sets the stage – who’s tribe are you in?

And there’s no good way to answer it.

When I worked, I felt compelled to downplay my career. The periods I’ve been at home, I felt like I had to justify that I was really doing stuff especially now that my kids are in school from 8:30 to 3:30 every day.

What if you work from home as more and more people do these days? Then, how do you answer the question, Do you work outside the home?

No. Yes. Kind of. Sometimes.

If you’re working on something, maybe a creative or philanthropic project, but you’re not getting paid, what then?

And even though there isn’t a prize for the hardest working woman, that still seems to be what we value. We’ll go out of our way to defend ourselves against the libel of self-indulgent laziness. We want to hold tight to our choices assuring ourselves that we could never do that.

The thing is, we’re all working. We’re all making tough decisions about what to pick up and what to put down and how we manage the demands of modern life.

There are a million different variations. And very few of them are cut and dry for the families trying to figure it out. It seems almost impossible to boil it down to working in or out of the home.

Families are trying to carve out time, earn a living and be the best parents they can be, and it’s so tempting to try to put them all in neat little boxes, label them and of course diagnose them.

Do you work outside the home?

I don’t think this is the right question for 2014. I’ve tried to think of other ways to get at the same thing.

What’s your current employment situation? Too clinical.

What lights you up?  A little creepy.

What’s your story? A little too abrupt.

Tell me about yourself. A little too personal ad.

So I’ve decided to challenge myself to be a little more interesting. I’m dropping the where/how you work question from my repertoire for good and trying:

Have you read anything good lately?

Watched anything you would recommend?

Any new favorite recipes in your rotation?

Planning an upcoming trip?

I want to learn a little something about the lives of the women I meet. Even if she doesn’t read, watch tv or movies, cook, or travel it’s still a jumping off point for how she does spend her time.

And then if there’s a connection, there will be plenty of time to get to know where and how she works.

Do you work outside the home? 

It’s time to retire.