"Why do you work, Daddy?"

“Why do you work, Daddy?” asked Felix, then 4, of me.

A sensible question.

To his eyes, #work is something which stopped me doing fun things with him. It’s something I seemed to spend a lot of time doing, elsewhere. Maybe he saw more too.

Occasionally I’d use the “Sorry, I need to do some work” when I wanted to stop playing. Eek. True.

Sometimes it might be a legitimate excuse when I genuinely had something else to do.

Work is what I'd do when he’s at school. And what grown ups spend a lot of time talking, worrying and maybe even shouting about.

A perfectly reasonable question.

Except it wasn’t. Not to me. Not then.

Its innocence was revealing. Words piercing through veneers of busy-ness, layers of self importance and loose fitting clothes of identity.

Why do I work?

Shit.

I’ve never really thought about that (I thought, but didn’t say).

For money - that’s an easy, first response (I thought, but didn’t say).

Really, is that it (I thought, but didn’t say)?

Why do I work?

To feel like someone. To have something to say when someone asks me.

To contribute. To be seen. To create. To feel useful and valuable and seen and heard. To be part of life.

(I thought, but didn’t say).

“Gosh, that’s a good question”, I said.

And it is.

Why do you work?

(image: Felix and Zac ‘working’ on ice cream)