Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just because the adult children don't leave the house, it doesn't mean they aren't working.

My DD (18) works from home. She's an artist who does commissions. She probably looks like she doesn't work to our nosy neighbors.

My DS (21) had an internship this summer where he worked from home 99% of the time. And probably 75% of that time he was working from home, he was working poolside or at our beach house.

MYOB

My 18 year old dd is friends with that girl, and when she came over I asked her, if she works and if her brother works she said no.

She answered that she doesn’t work because she’s a woman and she has already internalized the cultural definition of work (which OP is imposing), which is that you have to go to the office and get a company paycheck. Working part-time at your passion or something you choose to do as a self-employed person or a volunteer isn’t our societal definition of “work”. It is still work.

I’m a 50+ woman who earns money from part-time at home self-employment that I enjoy, have done for a long time and am very skilled at, but it is not in what I consider my area of true “professional” interest. What I earn now is significant but also significantly less than I got from my last professional job. I also have sole custody of my two kids who have had a lot of educational and health problems, and a Dad who doesn’t participate in parenting. So working part-time from home has been necessary from my perspective

I definitely work, but if people ask me if I work, my answer is usually “no”, or I say what I do but in a very minimizing way. But, I do work - just at jobs society doesn’t value or label as work, and one of which (full-time parenting) isn’t neither valued nor compensated by society.

Why do I say I don’t work? Because I don’t want to explain to you and have you devalue what I do as “not working”. I already understand that it’s not valued, I don’t need people to keep explaining it to me.

(And, now, no doubt, there will be plenty of DCUMers who will explain that I am not working, or not working hard enough…. flame away.)

Nobody answered the question though.

You all gave scenarios in which there is a "productive" thing that is happening. But sometimes it's the case that a kid is just slacking. There really are kids within some families that get special royalty treatment as the favorite. I'm sure if someone pointed this out to the parents they'd deny it though.

Anonymous wrote:My brother just graduated college and isn’t starting his job at a tech company until September. They have other start dates in the fall. Why would he be working in August?

This^. Same for most college grads, most companies want a September joining and kids themselves want some break before starting seemingly unending cycle of professional life.

My brother just graduated college and isn’t starting his job at a tech company until September. They have other start dates in the fall. Why would he be working in August?

I do support kids getting some experience of daily house chores and random jobs during summers but other alternatives are fine too.