Last year I became a member of a presbytery committee—sort of the uber-committee, if you know anything about presbyterian government. I learned two days ago that I’m also on uber-committee’s leadership team, by virtue of chairing one of the subteams. Confused yet? What it means is that I attend the meeting-before-the-meeting. You can’t make this stuff up.
We met this afternoon. Since Wednesday is not a child-care day, I let the group know that I would have my pint-sized assistant with me. There had been some e-discussion this week about needing more diversity on the leadership team. Sure enough, when I stumbled into the presbytery conference room at 2 p.m. sharp, my stroller’s huge wheels getting caught on the doorjamb, the sulfurous smell of poopy diaper wafting up from my child, I saw sitting at the table five old white guys. I said, “Your diversity’s arrived!”
The meeting went fine. Other folks showed up after me, including a couple of women. Our general presbyter came in, a great, quirky guy who’s really sharp but sounds like Jed Clampett. He plopped a bunch of papers on the table related to some other ministry and said he was multi-tasking. Eh, I know from multi-tasking—I was juggling agendas and PDA and soft crinkly toys—I’ve seen better.
We finished our business by 3:40, then kept talking for another twenty minutes. Meanwhile the divine miss m was getting really tired of being on the uber-committee’s leadership team and could only tolerate it while on my shoulder as I stood and swayed. Finally we adjourned. After the meeting several of the men complimented her on her good behavior, but it was the women who stopped to flirt and interact with her.
The committee is working on a huge clergy compensation policy, a thick stapled nightmare of roman-numeraled paragraphs and appendices. Each presbytery has minimum salaries for clergy that each church must endeavor to pay, but beyond that it’s up to the church session and congregation. As you might expect, there is a huge range, even between the pastor and the associate pastor(s) at the same church. And of course, if you give everyone percentage raises across the board, the gap only widens over time. The rich get richer and the poor get… rich much slower. (I’m pretty good at math, but this fact had eluded me until today.) During the discussion one man seemed to have a lightbulb moment: “So senior pastors, many of whom have been here for years and who bought homes before things got really expensive, are at one level. Whereas small-church pastors and associate pastors, many of whom [gesturing towards the woman with drool on her shoulder] are relatively new to the ministry, perhaps younger, with families and much more in the way of expenses, are at a much lower level and stay there because of the percentage system.” Bingo!
I talked several months ago with a clergywoman who works part-time in this presbytery. She has a daughter around kindergarten age and admitted to never attending presbytery meetings, nor serving on any presbytery committees. When you’re a working mom, something has to give.
And yet, and yet—Cheesehead articulates it well—
- I look around my Presbytery, and I see the voices that get the most airtime, the demographic that gets the most attention, and I wonder if it is because women like me don’t step up.
Some of you may have read the articles recently lambasting well-educated women who “opt out” of paid work in favor of staying home with their children. The articles suggest that these women, who presumably have the education and connections to get good jobs in influential fields, have somehow betrayed feminism by not staying in the workforce to advocate for family-friendly policies that would benefit everyone, not just women. The response to this in much of the blogosphere has been, essentially, “Up yours. I’m just as much a feminist as I ever was, because isn’t it about having the choice? Well, I choose to stay home with my kids.” (I think this was the article that started the whole kerfuffle.)
OK. I don’t begrudge them that. We each have to make the decision that works for us.
Still, I keep showing up. And sometimes I bring my poopy-diapered kid with me, to say I’m here, and there are other people like me out here. And what we put within these roman numerals and appendices actually matters to a whole mess of people. Diverse people.
19 Responses to “reverendmother moment #457”
Leave a Reply
Search
Asides
» IT’S SNOWING! Oh wait, it stopped.
» “If you like art, and you try it, you can’t stop doing it.” –little she-who-is
» Hanukkah begins this Sunday. Enjoy the best comedy piece on the Festival of Lights since Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah song.
Links
Join | List | Prev | Next Random | Prev5 | Next5
Skip Prev | Skip Next
Join | List | Prev | Next |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
I serve on a national committee for the denomination… they changed their meeting location when I was 8 months pregnant and couldn’t fly. They paid for my mother to travel with me when the babe was too little to be apart from me (well, my breasts) and then let me leave the meeting when I needed to feed her. And at the big national meeting when the babe was with me, they even made sure I had a space in an office all my own to feed her. Of course there was also the article on our news site last year telling us that we really shouldn’t bring children to our national meeting… I hope that we are learning….
Thanks for bringing your poopy-diapered kid with you. Someday the guys sitting around the table will offer to hold her (and even change her diaper) so you can sit for a minute…
I realized that I just wrote a near-dissertation length comment. Rather than scare your readers, let me just say that I agree with you whole-heartedly.
As my wife and I move into the second half of the first trimester with three little buns currently in the oven, I’m often asked if she will stay home with them. Yes, I will pay a mortgage and raise a family of five (FIVE! EEK!) on an adjunct payscale when I am not allowed to teach more than two classes (half-time employment) and have no benefits. That will be so much better than me staying home and my wife, who makes at least ten times as much as I do and has benefits, going back to work.
But, if I am able to continue my academic career, I will have one advantage over you. See, I’m a man and everyone expects me to be inept at caring for a child. So when I ask for help, there is no shortage of women who will be happy to show me how wrongly I am holding/burping/changing/etc. my own children.
Perhaps the best thing we can learn from our progress is that we have not even begun to make real and lasting progress.
XT
I’m very proud of you RM
Apstraight, that is wonderful, the way that committee accommodated you.
And,
XT!!!!!!
Congratulations!
I will comment later on the substance of your post, but I am thrilled for the whole Texan family.
I’m on the uber-committee, too, and I wish that you were here with the divine Miss M to liven up the proceedings. (Visioning, anyone? Snore…)
It IS really important for you to be there. I was asked to serve on a couple of presbytery committees back when my two girls were in elementary school. But the committees met at 4 pm, in downtown Houston. That conflicted with school carpool duty (we were never eligible for buses and I couldn’t envision dragging two cranky kids after school downtown for a meeting).
I brought this up several times in presbytery meetings when attending as a commissioner and they were “visioning” and pointed out that the presbytery would never get younger women to participate unless they scheduled noon or evening or midmorning meetings. But it all seemed to be about the staff convenience.
Now serving on the present “uber committee” I’m the next to the youngest member (in my fifties) and the youngest is a woman in her early forties. We recently had a flap when I challenged a nominating committee request to waive term limits on a moderator position. They claimed they couldn’t find anyone else to take it but the person who had done it for years. They never asked me for any recommendations, or the younger woman. I’ve got a list of about 10 women from my church and a couple of other churches who might be persuaded to serve–but they keep going back to the presbytery groupies. This won’t change unless people like you and me agree to serve and push them to seek out others like us.
Sorry for the rant. You go girl!
Seems to me that if they don’t get much more diverse, they’ll have poopy diapers sooner or later, anyway….
I’m with you girlfriend.
I worked PT and never served on permanent committees until my youngest child was finished with elementary school. Went to Presbytery but it was tough with clergy husband. Either kiddos went to nursery which made them unhappy or either husband or I stayed home. Lots of juggling, but you are right — the choices we make are what with determine are best for us and our families. Sometimes we are dead on. Sometimes we are mistaken (about what’s best.)
In the meantime, know that the drool and baby spit up are all so good for the church, and especially for committees full of older white men.
Well, I’m flattered for the mention.
Since my “baby” is in high school (I’m Janey-come- lately to this biz), I know I have a different set of choices to make. Do I give up an extra whole day every month in work hours while the last kid I will ever raise is still at home these next three years? It’s not the same as drooly shoulders and poopy diapers, but it still is a big choice for me. At 5′9″, size 11 shoe, she is still my baby.
Or–what do I teach her by letting the only dominant voices of the church in these parts be those of people who look just like her uncles and grandfathers?
It’s tough.
I think workplaces everywhere would benefit from visits from the divine miss M generation…can I bring her next Wednesday???
Keep showing up AND don’t let them make the decisions for you (us). There was no maternity leave policy in our presbytery so my friend got some information and made her 3 months of maternity leave happen. I quickly followed suit and so while I work on “uber” committee to get this officially included in minimum terms of call, 3 months remains precedent.
Can you imagine if my friend had just asked the Presbytery to tell her what was appropriate - I gaurantee that would have been 6 weeks (at best!)
Thanks for keeping the conversation going, rm.
I have to agree with ppb.
Six month of maternity leave? Wow. I think our county’s policy is something along the lines of “you can take whatever sick time and vacation time you have left once the baby is born. And we’ll leave your work in a pile by the door for you to sort out as soon as you get back.”
Glad you’re making your voice heard, RM! Good luck! (Here’s your diversity! - loved that! ha ha!)
Amen, sister, and all who responded! You’ll see my take on this later, but know this was well timed for me spiritually.
a bit off track but …
in Finland we have 11 months paid (60-70%) maternity leave. About 3 months in total must be taken by the mum (pre and post birth) but the remainder may be taken by the dad. If you adopt I think you get slightly longer. You get your accrued holiday days on top of this. Also paid. (Dads get two weeks paternity leave in their own right, and can legally take longer -without pay- as a right)
Plus the employer must keep your job (or equivalent) open for a year. If you decide to stay home until the child is three the job is kept for you then (so quite many people get temporary jobs/placements as maternity cover).
Until your youngest child is 10 - you are entitled to take time off work (with pay) - I think the first three days you don’t even need a doctor’s certificate.
The country has NOT ground to a halt because of it. People do not abuse the system by calling in sick when it’s not true (Finns are scrupulously honest) and most families have only two children - because it IS expensive to live here, and taxes are naturally high to pay for all this. (as are petrol prices, and we pay a TV license tax etc etc)
My point for telling you this is NOT to make you jealous but to say that this did NOT happen overnight and it took some far-sighted men and women to make it happen.
Most women in Finland work. Most small children go to day-care. (exceptions are those who live deep in the countryside and are mostly farming families) And compulsory schooling does not start until your child turns 7.
I’m proud of RM taking Miss M to the meeting - and I do believe it will happen that the men will - one day - wake up to what they are missing
When I went back to work part time and our baby sitter was sick, hubby took our daughter as a toddler to work with him and no-one batted an eye lid. Mind you he did the same with the dog only a couple of weeks ago, and even that didnt raise any eyebrows -except with the lovely lady on reception who kept bringing her treats 
Be blessed. sorry for the long-winded comment. Don’t give up pressing in RM; QG, Will Smama, Cheesehead and others. But remember it’s a JOINT effort and it isn’t -as CH so beautifully put it - only about you. Honest!
Preach it!!! I took two different babies to COM meetings over my two consecutive terms. My pleas to Presbytery Council to make childcare a voucerable expense if incurred in order to attend a meeting of a committee of presbytery fell on deaf ears. When I suggested that it would be good for the Presbytery office to get copies of the school vacation schedules for the various school districts so they could refer to those when setting meeting and event dates. They looked at me like had two heads. Sheesh!!
I served as a lay member of COM in the ’90’s and was in the last year of my term when The Princess was a baby. As a part-time student, I did not have childcare on the meeting days, so I took her along to every meeting with the exception of a disciplinary procedure. A friendly pastor with a slightly older daughter enjoyed holding her to allow me to use my hands to talk!
There were other times, earlier on, I brought along a mildly ill son too young to be left at home alone. People dealt with it.
Unfortunately, the church where we meet booted us out of the convenient, carpeted parlor, with couches in every corner, so bringing someone along with a book is no longer a good option. When we had a meeting during this February school vacation week, *I* provided the childcare for a colleague’s five year old, inviting her to bring him to my house to be “sat” by my 10 and 15-year-olds.
We absolutely have to make this work, or an entire segment of the population is left out, as you say.
I was a young mother when I volunteered for a search committee at Large Church. I remember how nervous I was seeking out the Governing Board President and saying, “You don’t have anyone who represents mothers with young children on this committee, nor anyone in my age bracket.” I was 29 and felt profoundly called to participate. He listened. I became co-chair of the committee, and that experience was a significant piece of my discernment process. We don’t always know why people need to do these things, do we? We just know they need to do them.
One of my COM colleagues that time around was a pastor and single mother. The father was also a pastor and lived in another state. She trained this Association to provide childcare at Association meetings, at Ecclesiastical Councils, at Ordinations and Installations. Yay for her! What a great model she was.
I just received our presbytery’s e-newsletter which had some thought-provoking stuff in it. One thing though–a retired minister wrote a series of reflections entitled “If I Were Twenty Years Old I Would Notice That…”
He’s a great guy, but here’s a thought. Why not just have a twenty-year-old write for the newsletter?!
RM or why not both? irksome though it is - people seem to listen to retired pastors more than 20 year olds. Imagine if they both said the same thing
maybe with slightly differnet langugage (grin)
I’ve loved this discussion. Sorry for hijacking it about maternity leave yesterday.
You’re right. When I said “just” I meant “if you want to know what 20-year-olds think, go to the source,” but I realize now it may have come out as “to the exclusion of the other.”
I actually love hearing about what other countries do. It seems truly family-friendly to me, but I can’t see it happening in the U.S. unless people’s perceptions change about taxes as the root of all evil.