Parents: are you always honest or will make up small social lies?

well to be honest I am often tempted to say my hubby's working even though he's not, he's had a lot of medical problems lately and is now waiting to have surgery to fix nerve damage in his spine, I hate people feeling sorry for me so whenever an old friend asks me what he does I just say he's a chef which was what he was doing before all the medical problems, if we go into it I tell them he's taking time off work for medical reasons but if they don't I just leave it that he's a chef.