Childcare "Professional"

After work, I was watering my orchids and the Boy told me about his day. He was home from school today for MLK Day. He did his Day of Service by helping watch our neighbor's four kids (ages 2 to 11) jump on our trampoline this morning. At the end of the day, he told me how he was better at with kids than he thought he was. He said the mom thought so, too.

"Maybe I could pay you to watch the kids for the rest of the day," the mom told the Boy.

"I am not a childcare professional," he said. "I am the next door childcare amateur."

I laughed at his story. "Claire-Adele is a childcare professional," the Boy told me. "She gets paid to watch kids." Claire-Adele has a job watching kids at a downtown health club.

"You are a childcare amateur," the Boy said to me. "You never got paid to watch kids." 

How depressing, I thought. My expression must have appeared on my face.

"But you are a really, really good amateur!" he said.

Oy. What makes a professional, just getting a paycheck? What about my years and years of unpaid, 24/7/365 experience? Doesn't that count because I wasn't paid? WTF? I've raised kids for seventeen years and I am a lower rank than my daughter who is seventeen? What gives? Or does "Mom" rank higher?

Addendum: I was talking to a friend of a friend at an event this evening who got divorced after 25 years. For most of her marriage up until it ended, she was a stay-at-home mom, full-time parent, primary parent, whatever. She gave up her career to raise her kids. The fact that she wasn't "working" during her marriage became a major issue in her divorce.

"Why is it someone can choose to be a nanny and that is a career, that they are professionals, but if a woman choose to raise her own kids, that isn't considered a job? What gives? Aren't both people doing essentially the same thing, except one is getting paid and the other isn't?"

I hadn't thought of that. Good point.