Somebody on Threads made a comment about being asked to explain an employment gap, and someone else responded, essentially, “I didn't have a fucking job(?)”
And honestly? That's the answer.
Sometimes people don't have jobs because no one has hired them. Sometimes they leave jobs that are making them miserable. Sometimes they spend months applying, interviewing, following up, and trying to figure out what they're doing wrong when they don't hear back. Sometimes companies eliminate thousands of positions, restructure departments, or replace workers with technology. Sometimes people become caregivers, experience a crisis, need time to recover, or simply reach a point where they cannot continue living the way they've been living.
And sometimes people do everything they're told to do and still cannot secure employment.
Yet somehow, we have created a culture in which not having a job requires an explanation.
Not having a job becomes a gap. A gap becomes a question mark. A question mark becomes a potential liability. And suddenly, a person must defend a period of their life before anyone is willing to consider what they can contribute.
And I have a question about that.
When did unemployment become a character flaw?
In the United States, employment is tied to far more than income. It can determine access to health insurance, housing stability, financial security, and the ability to meet basic needs. Losing a job can mean losing the foundation on which a person's life has been built.
We’re told to work hard, develop our skills, demonstrate our commitment, and build a career. We’re encouraged to be dependable employees and productive members of society.
But there’s a fundamental problem with this arrangement: ‘workers’ don't have unilateral control over whether they are employed.
You can be qualified and still not get hired. You can be experienced and still be overlooked. You can be excellent at your job and still be dismissed. You can spend years contributing to a company only to discover that your position has been eliminated.
The hiring process itself is largely outside an applicant's control. You can submit an application, tailor your résumé, write a thoughtful cover letter, and prepare for an interview. You can do everything within your power to make yourself a strong candidate. You cannot make an employer select you.
And yet, when you eventually apply somewhere else, you may be asked to explain why you weren't working.
Explain what? That I applied for jobs and didn't get hired? That the employer had the final say? That I can’t manufacture an employment opportunity simply because I need one?
We recognize that companies can make decisions that disrupt thousands of lives, but we continue to treat individual unemployment as though it must reveal something about the individual.
We scrutinize the worker's timeline while leaving the employer's decisions largely unquestioned.
And this becomes especially cruel when a person needs employment not simply to advance a career, but to afford to live.
I have spent much of the past two years outside traditional paid employment. I know what it is to look at a job application and anticipate the question before it is even asked.
What have you been doing? Why haven't you worked? Why should we consider you now?
My résumé doesn’t tell the whole story of those two years. During that time, I hung out with my Nieces. I wrote and illustrated a children's book. I continued researching domestic work and developing standards intended to address the conditions workers experience inside private homes.
I did things that mattered to me. I worked on projects that I wanted to bring into the world. I continued thinking about an industry in which I have spent nearly 15 years working.
Some of that work was unpaid. Some of it was personal. Some of it was research and advocacy that I hope will eventually produce tangible improvements for other workers.
None of it disappears because it doesn't fit neatly into a résumé.
But here's the thing: I shouldn’t have to present an impressive list of activities to justify not being employed.
My book is not a defense. My research is not an excuse. My caregiving is not a substitute explanation that makes my time away from paid employment more palatable.
Even if I had spent those two years doing absolutely nothing professionally, I would still be entitled to apply for a job and be evaluated on my qualifications.
That’s what bothers me about the way we talk about employment gaps. We have made people feel as though they must prove that their time outside the workforce was sufficiently productive to deserve another opportunity.
We have taken a person's life and divided it into periods of acceptable productivity and periods that require explanation.
And when someone has been unemployed for an extended period, the very thing making it harder for them to secure employment becomes another reason to question whether they should be hired.
It’s circular. It’s exhausting. And it doesn’t necessarily tell an employer anything meaningful about the person's ability to do the job.
When I was questioned by a nanny agency about my own employment gap, I found myself explaining something that should not require much explanation: I do not control who hires me.
I can apply for positions. I can demonstrate my experience. I can provide references. I can make myself available. I can do the work of presenting myself as a ‘qualified’ candidate.
I can’t force a family or an agency to hire or place me.
And the assumption that a gap automatically indicates professional instability ignores the fact that employment is a relationship between at least two parties. A worker may be willing and able to work while employers decide not to hire them.
My experience also raises a more uncomfortable question: Why is the worker's history examined so closely while the conditions of the employment relationship receive so much less scrutiny?
I have nearly 15 years of experience in private childcare, including infant and toddler care, travel nannying, and working within households where the demands of the job extend well beyond a conventional job description.
I understand why families want reliability. I understand why they ask about experience, references, and the length of previous placements. They are trusting someone with their children, and those are serious responsibilities.
But reliability can’tt be evaluated honestly without context.
And neither can longevity.
Nannies are often hired to meet a particular need during a particular stage of a child's life.
A family may need a nanny through infancy and toddlerhood, then transition to daycare or preschool. A child starts school. A family relocates. A parent's work schedule changes. The household adopts a different childcare arrangement.
The nanny does not necessarily decide when any of that happens.
A position ending because a child enters preschool is not evidence that the nanny was unreliable. A family deciding to change its childcare structure does not automatically mean the employment relationship was unsuccessful.
Private childcare positions are not all designed to last indefinitely. Sometimes a nanny is hired to meet a need that exists for a particular period, even when neither party knows exactly how long that period will be.
Contracts can clarify expectations and protect both parties, but many employment relationships do not have a predetermined end date. Neither the nanny nor the family can always know how long a position will ultimately exist.
So when an agency examines a résumé and questions the length of a placement, what exactly is it measuring?
Is it measuring the nanny's commitment, the quality of her care, and her ability to establish meaningful relationships with children? Or is it measuring how long the family continued to need the particular arrangement that made her employment possible?
Those are not the same thing.
A résumé should start a conversation about someone's experience. It shouldn’t be treated as a complete account of their character.
And if we’re gonna examine employment gaps and short placements, we need to be equally willing to examine the conditions that created them.
Because sometimes people leave jobs for reasons that have very little to do with their qualifications or their commitment to their work.
Sometimes they leave because they need to protect themselves.
This is where the employment gap becomes more than an awkward interview question.
Workers know that leaving a job can create questions about their employment history. They know that short placements may be interpreted as evidence of unreliability. They know that an extended period without paid employment may make their next job search more difficult.
So they stay.
They try to make difficult situations work. They tolerate conditions they might otherwise leave. They convince themselves that things may improve because they know that leaving can create another problem they will have to explain later.
In domestic work, those decisions can be particularly complicated. A nanny may be working inside a private home, navigating an employer's expectations, caring for children who have come to depend on her, and relying on the employment arrangement for income or housing.
She may recognize that something is wrong and still struggle to leave.
She may know that the situation is harming her and still worry about what the decision to leave will mean for her professional future- and the babies.
And when she finally does leave, she can find herself explaining why the placement was so short.
The experience that pushed her out of a job becomes a potential liability in the next one.
Stay in a bad situation, and risk your well-being. Leave, and risk your employment history. Take time to recover, and risk having that recovery interpreted as professional instability.
The system penalizes workers for staying in bad situations and penalizes them again for leaving.
And then we wonder why people hesitate to report mistreatment, why they remain in unhealthy workplaces, or why they feel compelled to turn every difficult departure into a positive career narrative.
We’ve created an environment in which workers must consider the future consequences of leaving even when their present circumstances are becoming untenable.
A worker's right to leave a job should not come at the expense of her right to find another one.
My experience with Morgan & Mallet International Agency made these questions painfully concrete.
In December 2025, I accepted an international nanny placement through the agency. What followed across Istanbul, Gozo/Malta, Munich, and Montreal became one of the most destabilizing experiences of my professional life.
I was expected to enter a household, provide childcare, navigate international travel, and conduct myself professionally. But the circumstances I encountered raised questions about the viability of the arrangement and the support available to me if things went wrong.
Within my first week, I was receiving messages about fighting in the household, being told to ignore it if the energy in the house felt strange, and being asked whether I would accompany Megan and the children to the Bahamas if Matt decided not to go.
On my second day in Malta, Megan was crying to me about her prenup. Before I had even started the position, she had disclosed that she experienced some sort of neurosis.
Those details do not, individually, establish that someone is an unsuitable employer. Unemployment does not automatically mean financial instability. Discussing a prenup does not prove an inability to pay wages. A mental health condition does not make someone inherently incapable of being a good employer.
But these experiences contributed to my growing uncertainty about the household and the circumstances I was being asked to navigate.
I was a new employee, in another country, trying to do my job while learning about the dynamics of the household around me.
And I have questions about what the agency assessed before facilitating that placement.
Neither parent appeared to be employed, and I ultimately was not paid for my work. I cannot establish from their employment status alone what resources or other income they had. But the outcome makes the question of financial safeguards impossible for me to ignore.
If a nanny's employment history is considered relevant to whether she can be trusted to fulfill her obligations, what corresponding attention is given to the employer's ability to fulfill theirs?
What establishes that the promised compensation is sustainable? What happens when the worker is not paid? What protections exist when the placement becomes untenable?
A résumé can’t guarantee that a nanny will be reliable. A family's social standing, lifestyle, professional connections, or ability to present itself as desirable cannot guarantee that the family will honor its employment obligations either. But if they present well enough, and can afford the agency’s “placement fee”, alls well, right?
I was being evaluated as a worker. And I’m still wondering what safeguards existed for me as the person entering that working relationship, that household.
One of the contradictions of private childcare is that the nanny may be the person responsible for maintaining stability when the adults around the children are experiencing instability.
Children still need routines when their parents are fighting. They still need attentive care when the adults in their household are struggling. They need someone who can regulate their own emotions, anticipate their needs, and provide consistency even when circumstances around them are unpredictable.
That is my job. It’s work I love, and it’s work I’ve spent nearly 15 years learning how to do well.
Sometimes, I’m the most stable person in the room because maintaining that stability is precisely what I have been hired to do.
I understand that children are not responsible for the adults' circumstances. I understand that they deserve care that is not contingent on everything going well. I know how to maintain their routines and remain attentive to their needs even when the environment around them is difficult.
But recognizing instability in the adults around me doesn’t mean I am unaffected by it.
My ability to remain professional doesn’t mean that the circumstances are acceptable. My capacity to provide consistent care doesn’t mean that I have an unlimited capacity to absorb instability myself.
And my affection for the children does not eliminate my right to a safe working environment.
In fact, understanding children's needs can make leaving a difficult placement more emotionally complicated. You know what consistency means to them. You know that they have come to depend on you. You may worry about the disruption your departure will cause.
Those feelings are part of the emotional reality of domestic work. But they should never become reasons a worker feels obligated to endure conditions that compromise her own well-being.
Who creates stability for the person responsible for creating stability for everyone else?
Who considers the nanny's need for safety, predictability, and support?
And who helps her leave when the circumstances become unsustainable?
A placement process can help a worker get into a job. That doesn’t mean it will address what happens when the job becomes unsafe or untenable.
During my placement, I sought help as circumstances unfolded. I have described being left to navigate the situation on my own when I reached out to the agency. The experience ultimately involved my dismissal, police involvement, displacement to a hotel in Montreal, and the challenge of getting back to the states safely.
I’ve also described the lasting disruption to my work, housing, travel, financial circumstances, and ability to function normally afterward.
And I’m not writing about these experiences because I want to turn them into an uplifting story about resilience. They hurt me. They disrupted my life. And they affected my ability to work.
I want to be able to say that plainly without feeling compelled to soften the consequences into a narrative about ‘professional growth’.
When a worker realizes she doesn’t feel safe in a placement, what is she supposed to do?
Who can she contact without fearing retaliation? Who can help her evaluate her options? Who is responsible for assisting her if she needs to leave?
And what happens when leaving means losing income, housing, transportation, or the practical support needed to navigate an unfamiliar country?
These questions are particularly important in international domestic work, where the consequences of a failed placement can extend far beyond losing a job.
A worker may have crossed borders for the position. She may have left other opportunities behind. She may have limited access to independent resources in the country where she is working.
An agency's responsibility cannot be understood solely through the successful completion of a placement. The ability to get someone into a job and the ability to help protect that person when the arrangement fails are two different things.
Workers need more than a way in. They need a safe, realistic way out.
This is the contradiction I keep returning to.
A worker can have an employment gap and still be qualified. A worker can leave a short placement and still be reliable. A worker can need time to recover and still have valuable skills. A worker can recognize that a job is harming her and decide to leave without that decision becoming evidence of a professional deficiency.
At the same time, an employer can be unemployed and have sufficient resources to hire someone. An employer can experience personal difficulties and still fulfill their obligations. The point isn’t that employers should be judged by the same superficial assumptions that are routinely applied to workers.
The point is that the employment relationship must be evaluated in its entirety.
We can’t claim to care about reliability while ignoring the conditions that make reliable employment possible. We can’t insist that workers demonstrate ‘stability’ while failing to consider the stability of the arrangements they’re entering. We can’t treat a worker's decision to leave as evidence against her without examining what made leaving necessary.
And we can’t treat employment history as a complete measure of a person's character while ignoring everything that employment history leaves out.
For domestic workers, that means examining not only qualifications and references, but also the structure of the placement, the boundaries of the job, the support available when problems arise, and the practical consequences of leaving.
For workers across industries, it means acknowledging that unemployment is not always a choice, that leaving a job can be necessary, and that a period outside paid employment does not erase a person's experience or worth.
It also means questioning a culture in which a person must continually prove their productivity to justify their place in society.
And I’m not arguing that employers should never ask questions about employment history. I’m arguing that those questions should be relevant, contextual, and proportionate.
There’s a difference between asking whether someone has the skills to do a job and assuming that a period without paid employment means they lack those skills.
There’s a difference between evaluating someone's experience and demanding that they justify their existence outside the workforce.
And there’s a difference between assessing reliability and treating the absence of a conventional employment timeline as evidence of instability.
My own employment gap hasn’t erased nearly 15 years of experience in domestic work. It hasn’t erased my ability to care for children. It hasn’t erased the work I have done on my own projects, the book I wrote and illustrated, or the research I’ve pursued to improve conditions in an industry I know intimately.
And I shouldn’t have to produce that list to prove that I deserve another opportunity.
The same is true of the person who spent two years caring for a parent, recovering from burnout, searching unsuccessfully for work, or simply trying to get through a difficult period of life.
We need to stop treating paid employment as the only legitimate evidence that a person has been doing something worthwhile.
We need to stop assuming that unemployment is a personal failure while treating the decisions that produce unemployment as inevitable.
And we need to stop expecting workers to carry the burden of explaining every disruption in their employment history while giving so little attention to the conditions that made those disruptions possible.
I want a world in which a worker can leave an unsafe job without fearing that the departure will follow them into every subsequent interview. I want a hiring process that evaluates what people can do rather than making assumptions about what their timelines supposedly reveal. I want domestic workers to have meaningful protections when a placement fails, not simply assurances that the right person has been selected.
And I want us to recognize that the ability to work is not the same as the ability to obtain employment.
Sometimes people don't have jobs because nobody has hired them.
Sometimes they leave because they have to.
Sometimes they spend the time afterward rebuilding lives that employment itself helped destabilize.
None of those circumstances makes a person less deserving of dignity, security, or another opportunity.
“I didn't have a fucking job”; That’s not a confession. It’s not a character flaw. And it shouldn’t be a verdict on what a person is worth.
