Hmm... I dunno.
You get paid for hanging out here all day.
I get paid (indirectly) for hanging out here all day.
The only difference I see is that I can take a nap if I want.
I can come visit you after the operation Dervaish
Nr Hinwil, just at the point that civilisations stops ....
Quite often we see Gandalf and Frodo Baggins out for a walk muttering something about "the ring"
When I suggest "why don't you take to dog out for (another) walk?", UN Peace Keeping forces sometime have to come to our door ....
Damn right about the nap!!
I just love sleeping or lying idle in bed!!
But you know, I feel guilty and also insecure sometimes for hanging out here and everywhere else all day and get paid for it
Funny thing is my manager has suggested a couple of times that I should have an assistant.. and I was like
Honeybunch... if thats the only way to get you to visit me, I will do it gladly
But... you guys are no true friends... you could even have suggested, being a non-working house husband to a rich woman
which would mean ... two utterly booooooooooooored individuals under one roof. what a thought
Go get a virtual room ... way too much sexual angst for this thread ...
Plus you have hi-jacked my thread, so bugger off
sexual angst, moi
just showed this to my dear colleagues here. we're having a mighty good laugh !!!
CIAO.
I have been looking for a job since a year and i am quite sad to say that i have not found one yet . Now i am at a point where i would welcome house wives to get ideas of doing their own business instead of looking for a damn english speaking job. Since i am from India i am thinking of having a small place where i can have cotton clothes and silver jewellery from India. Since i cannot afford to hire a shop i would welcome any ideas and help from bored house wives who would like to start something and need help or give help. I dont have kids so i have a lot of free time and i am desperate to do something instead of having a long face in the evening when my hubby comes home. So please let us "ALL HOUSE WIVES" get together and do something!!!!!!!! Any suggestions are welcome.
As all can see, some non-working spouses spend the day putting up pics of the pups. (Hah! On topic!)
It's the ever same old story: Your question is insinuating that wifes "do not work" if they are not making money with whatever they do at home/out of home. Bringing up children, cooking for friends, cleaning the house, washing dirty shirts plus the hundreds of jobs a wife has is as much "work" as is your job regarded work! Reading all the "funny" answers that your question raised confirms how little social appreciation is payed to a wife's jobs.
Your question is davaluating the noun "work". I do not know of any human being around this globe that doesn't work. Therefore, please try to think about what I just explained, then start using "work" in another, in the correct way. Thank you.
Zürihegel, this is English we're speaking. Not German. You can't say "what do non -outside-the-home-working wives do during the day?" in English or it sounds funny.
I can't speak for everyone who has posted an answer; I have never said the work a wife does at home is not "real" work, or lesser in any way than "job work". But it is true that if somebody does not have a paid job, and has to do house work all day long, every day of the week, they tend to go a little crazy. This is a very real problem for all married expats where the husband / wife has a paid job and the other one has to remain home.
So I would say in my previous answer I did leave something out:
4. Bug the husband.
Did I speak German? Not to my knowledge. And if I did a mistake - remember that many EFers that call English their mother tongue also do mistakes. There have been several threads about exactly this. And now better get back to what I said. Thanks.
**hugs**zürihegel...
I think you are taking what MathNut said the wrong way.
What was said is more that in English (unlike German) we do not string the whole concept together to form one (hellaciouslylong) word, we rather leave a bit out and expect the inference to come across clearly.
Thus, "non-working" was not meant to imply that stay-at-home spouses do not actually work but rather merely that whatever we're doing, we're not obligated to leave the home for 8hrs at a stretch in order to do that work.
Hopefully that clears BOTH of those (apparently) sore points up for you.
I was addressing what you said. I was trying to point out in a gentle, humorous way that you (maybe in part because of language differences) are reading offence where none exists. The OP's characterization does not devalue his wife's accomplishments, and you would have to be an extremely sensitive soul - or a nonnative English speaker - to read that into it.
Referring to your wife as "non-working" in English does not always - or even usually - mean that you think she does no work. All it means is that she does not go to work/have a job/work outside the home. But you can't say "non-job-having wife" or "non-to-work-going wife" or "non-outside-the-home-working wife" - the language doesn't accommodate that - so most people settle for "nonworking wife", "trailing wife" or "stay-at-home wife." (Or husband.)
It's a very common phrase and nothing derogatory is normally either meant or understood by it. Honest.
It's not a matter of language, be it English or German. Sociologists of all languages agree with me that "work" should not be correlated with "money". That's all I was trying to explain, nothing else.
Boy, you sound like a bundle of laughs !!
"Non-working" in propah street inglish was meant "doesn't fisically contibute to the coffers" - not that she is a lazy bum, who sits in bed drinking G&Ts reading "Hello" magazine, waiting to show the milkman a good time ...
She's the one who complains about not having a "job". Obviously, she sees the other tasks, such as ironing, cleaning, cooking and shopping as recreation ...
... I know my place and just retire to the potting shed
Can I just say that I really think this thread is great, and somehow reassuring, although I could put the mum hat on and say I am a mum, essentialy my kid is in school so most of the day I too am "non-working" (in the non financialy contributing kind of work sense) so I really appreciate reading everyone else's experiences. Thanks all.
Some things I do:
*Try and learn some more german (though finding right and cheap class is not easy)
* Challenge myself to be a better house wife!!! yes I mean that, I am terrible at house work.
* volunteer in my church
* meet a friend for coffee
* make stuff (I write songs, make cards, paint)
* help my kid with her homework
* get bored
* get depressed
* enjoy the freedom to walk to the lake and realise how beautfiul this country is and how cool to live here
* sometimes borrow a friends dog, lovely dog, he values the walk and company (i hope!) and I value his company and the walk too.
*Feel happy again
*keep going and valuing this time
I'm finding the brick breaker games on facebook (Gameyola) to be rather addictive, myself.
Seriously though, one of the things that I have to do, or get better at doing is to plan my days and set some goals - I need to structure my time a little better. I look at this times as very precious ... having worked for a long time before we moved here, I'm finding that it's really easy to waste time. Nothing wrong with that, but if there are things you want to do....it's amazing how sometimes it's hard to do them even if you have loads of time. Sometimes you have to give yourself a little push to do those things.
On the other hand, me and the dog and the view makes for a lovely day.