…. my four-year-old asks at breakfast.

Phew. Such a simple question. So difficult to answer.

I want to say it’s something you get paid for but then how to explain what her stay-at-home dad does? And then there’s the “work” they do at preschool (Montessori teachers call everything work - as in “put away your work now.”).

I end up telling her a story instead of how I love to write and I’m good at it so I went to the newspaper and they liked me too. And so they said will you work for us and now they give me money for it. And I use the money to pay for food and our house. Long-winded and lame and narrow, I know.

And it didn’t really answer her question at all.

And with that less-than-riveting answer, my daughter gazed out in our back yard and pronounced: “Mommy, that’s a really big spiderweb.”

Her question stuck with me through the morning.

Because you know, it’s a question we ask ourselves all through our lives. I’m lucky enough to love what I do for a living. But there have definitely been ups and downs in my career.

Our enduring quest to answer Zoe’s question - “what is work?” - is why we read books like “What Color is your Parachute.” It’s why something gets caught in our throats when we watch “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” and the bearded, long-haired drifter talks about searching for his “life work” which unexpectedly appears in the form of a flock of wild green and red parrots.

So I asked a couple of people who know a lot about work what they would have said to my Zoe.

Brazen Careerist aka Penelope Trunk:

“I think work is what we do to contribute to the greater good. We all want to be part if something bigger than ourselves. We are each able to contribute to the world in our own capacity. Some of us will get paid a lot; some will not. Some of us will save lives and some will not. Almost all of us will try to be part of the world around us in some useful way. That is our work, and each of us needs that in order to feel like we are living our best life.”

And H.J. Cummins, our former Work and Life columnist at the Strib, reminded me that no matter what you tell your kid, they will always have their own ideas. For Mother’s Day 2006, H.J. went to a local preschool and asked kids what their mothers did at “work.”

Here’s the story:

Moms at work: Children, do you know where your working mothers are?It turns out that many do, but the youngsters aren’t always clear about what it is that their moms do while they’re there.
H.J. Cummins; Staff Writer

Corey James Hill, 4, isn’t quite sure what his mother, Beth Hawkins, does all day at work. He knows how she gets there: “She drives a car to her job.” But what she actually does as a City Pages editor? “I just don’t know,” he said. He does have sort of the right idea, though, when asked to explain Mother’s Day. “It’s Valentine’s Day again,” as he
understands it.

Minnesota has one of the highest rates of working mothers in the country - 79.3 percent - behind only North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa, according to the 2000 census of women who have children under age 18. And in honor of Mother’s Day, some Twin Cities preschoolers shared their interpretations of their mothers’ typical workdays.

“My mother’s a doctor. She helps make people feel better. Like one time, a boy went in because his leg was broken. She took his blood and gave him a big shot, and then he went home.” Auriana Addison, 4, daughter of Maxine Thompson, medical clinic appointment scheduler.

“She gives people hair. She gives people wigs and they do people’s hair. Black hair. Only just girls.” Ty’Jhanae Walker, 4, daughter of Denise Powe, Variety Beauty Supplies.

“My mom eats breakfast and then she works in a place with computers and a desk and she has a little garbage there by her. When her boss is off of work, then my mom be’s the boss. I have earrings.”Abriel Stoneburg, 4, daughter of April Howlett, corporate trust services, Wells Fargo Bank.

“She does paperwork for her boss, Fred. Sometimes she brings boxes home. Sometimes they put paperwork in the boxes, and sometimes there’s tape in there, and pens. One time she forgot her lunch at home.” Sophia Frakie, 4, daughter of Shannon Frakie, litigation paralegal.

“She works at downtown. She does her stuff, typing on her computer and having lunch there. And she has Caribou coffee. I think she does nothing else.” Lauren Chan, 4, daughter of Chau Hong Chan, accountant.

“She doesn’t mess with water guns at work.” Khalil Abdullah, 5, son of Tiffany Stewart, vacation consultant, Blue Green Resorts.

“She works downtown in a big, big, big, big building with a bridge that has windows on the side, and you have to take the elevator all the way up. Sometimes she gets a bottle of pop and goes back to her desk. I love pop. Her desk is, like, silver. It’s very tiny. She has markers and paper in it.” Evan Woolson, 5, son of Regina Woolson, buyer, Target Corp.

“She brings copies in her room. She likes it a lot.” Jaden Wood, 4 , daughter of JennyWood, Hennepin County Department of Corrections.

“She types e-mails. She talks to people. Sometimes she has chocolate in her pocket.” Sydney Umanah, 4, daughter of Sheila Engelmeier, attorney.

“She does important stuff. Her boss used to be a boy, but then she got a new boss. I don’t know her name but I know it’s a girl. She tries to catch the early bus to work. There are four buses, one is early, and then three more earlies.” Caitlin Fitzgerald, 5, daughter of Mary Fitzgerald, project manager, Ameriprise Financial Inc.

“My mother teaches piano, if you want to put that in the news. But she’s home now because she had to have a cancer pulled out. It might take a while before she does piano teaching again. I try not to be too rough, because she’s weak.” Max Okagaki, 5, son of Sarah Miller, piano and composition instructor, MacPhail Center for Music.

Cribsheeters? What is work to you?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Family Life, Guest Bloggers, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.