A chance question from my granddaughter prompted me to remember a similar query from her mother... I had just started out in H&S with the Gas Industry & brought home the standards pieces of PPE kit. My daughter stood & watched me opening it all out, but said nothing. At school, the following day, the teacher asked everybody what their parents did for a living; my daughter thought for a little while & announced that "I'm not sure, but I think he washes the gas vans....!"

Don't consultants borrow a clients watch then tell them the time and then charge them for the service then go home and spend the rest of their day counting their money?

When asked by her primary school teacher what do your parents do at work one of my daughters replied- " Dad spends his days in the pub". I was working for a brewery at the time and spending a lot of time visiting pubs across the north of England.

I wonder if Schools still ask these sort of questions these days? The purpose of asking that question in class (along with the "what we did in our holidays" essay) had little to do with curriculum and more to do with establishing social classification, class groupings, etc. As you say, our children's perception of what we do is often very different from reality, but then that can be true of Teachers too. My children would proudly tell their Teacher that their Dad was an Engineer. I had several enjoyable parents evenings correcting teacher's preconceived notions that an 'Engineer' meant a spanner-wielding, boiler-suited mechanic, as opposed (in my case) to a designer of cutting-edge aircraft systems. Best in any event to leave the youngsters with their own perceptions. I took my own Son to an open day at my workplace and he was crushingly disappointed that there were no aeroplanes to be seen (we only made the avionic systems).

I'm with the Blue one on this. Whilst I'm pretty sure my kids grasped what I did when they were younger, I am largely mystified as to what it is that they do all day to earn their living, one at least earning significantly more than me I'm delighted to say.

I don't think they've grasped what I do but they know I earn around £1,000,000.00 per year doing it!

Ahh, retirement beckons !!

Sounds like a great kid, no doubt you have equal pride in him.

Some days I have difficulty answering that question myself. I am dreading asking my kids when I get home tonight.

Slightly digressing - I'm sure there will be other parents who have been written about with the remark "My dad never gets a bath". Hopefully you will all realise that I have a shower or two every day?