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Working for a Living
Telling Children about Your Job By Carma Haley Shoemaker
Working 9 to 5 means nothing if you're 9 to 5 years old. You see your parents leave; you see them come home. You hear them talk to one another about what they do while they are gone but really do not understand this thing they call "work."
What is it they do all day? Why are they so tired after they do it? Children may not fully understand why their parents continually leave them to go to "work." Maybe they should. Explaining the concept of a job, why parents must have or leave to go to their job, may help a child understand more about their parents as a whole. Children may know what their parents do for a living, such as a policeman, a nurse or a truck driver, but do they know and understand what they really do?
"I'm a nurse," says Elizabeth Haynes of Toledo, Ohio. "If I would tell my children what I do all day long they would probably worry about me or be concerned because of the kind of work that I do. As a nurse in an ER, I see people who are very sick, hurt badly and may be dangerous. Why in the world would I want to tell my children about that?"
According to Mara Berkeley, a family therapist and professor in Bristol, R.I., parents should be willing to tell their children about their job as well as other important aspects of their life. "Children should be allowed to know the important things that happen or are happening in their parent's lives," says Berkeley. "This includes who they are, what they do and where they are going when they leave everyday. It is positive modeling for the child. Talking to your child about what your job entails opens them up more to the adult world in a positive way. The more we talk about our work to our children the less work becomes this thing that takes you away from your child. As work is a part of adult life, children knowing what parents do as a career offers them another avenue of interaction with parents."