In PC circles, I was trained to ask a woman (ok, never had for a man) who I suspected was housewife and mother. “Do you work outside the home” which was intended to validate all the work they do maintaining the house and family. Maybe all this lead in was unnecessary, but whatever.
Anyway, I was in conversation with someone and went to ask the question and realized many of us don’t work outside the home and the question has lost it’s purpose. Yes, I analyzed this all midsentence, then I verbalized it.
So now I am thinking what is a good way to ask the question? Is asking if you have a JOB outside the home, enough of a difference semantically? Are you employed, wouldn’t work for a self employed lawyer or accountant, or would it?. Do you earn an income, seems like it crosses a line.
Anything worth thinking about is worth overthinking.
I meet a lot of people who are retired or at/near retirement. I typically ask, “Are you in the workforce?” I use it at all age levels now. None of the stay at home spouses I’ve met seem aggravated by the question.
Same. And a SAHM will replay “oh I stay home with the kiddos” or something like that. My wife actually hated when people assumed she was a SAHM and didn’t have a job, even when she was a SAHM while my kids were younger.
Maybe people assumed it because your kids were so well-behaved. If they were uncontrollable brats, people might have asked where she worked and where the kids went to daycare.
I ask people, “Are you employed, or are you a stay at home parent or something else?”
Obviously parenting is work but somebody who’s offended by that question I probably wouldn’t want to connect with anyway. I guess somebody who’s been laid off might be offended but context clues might push me away from asking then.
I ask, “What keeps you busy?” That covers SAH parents, retired people, and pretty much anyone else who doesn’t spend their lives in their parents’ basement watching romcoms and playing Angry Birds.