In December an Australian cell phone company refused to sell a phone to a stay-at-home mom because she didn’t have a real job. They told her it was company policy and that if she wanted a phone her husband would need to come in to buy it for her. No credit check or inquiry into her actual ability to pay for the phone – just a blanket policy to not sell phones to stay-at-home moms. The mother of three said she was shocked and felt like a second-class citizen.
When this story hit the news most women I know were similarly shocked. We’d like to believe that this sort of dismissal of a woman’s identity is a thing of the past. We are no longer simply Mrs. John Does, needing our husband’s permission and identity to make our way through the world. We are full human beings who simply have chosen to commit ourselves to caring for others. And we find the idea that caring for children isn’t a real job just because we aren’t stuck in a cubicle or get a paycheck for being on call 24/7 to be farcical in the extreme. But apparently the myth continues.
Recently a (childless) friend expressed jealousy that I as a stay-at-home mom had so much free time to work on my writing whenever I pleased. I just stared at him with incredulity and asked if he would enjoy writing articles or a book in 5 minute increments between changing diapers, playing dolls, wiping up spit-up, reading storybooks, and kissing boo-boos. Not that I mind doing any of that, but let’s be realistic, free-time only occasionally occurs sometime after midnight – if I can manage to stay awake that long. This work is real.
I find it interesting that in our culture another group of people who face a similar dismissal of their chosen profession are pastors. They are constantly compared to their congregants who have “real jobs,” or asked repeatedly “so what do you do all week?” Apparently those of us who choose to devote our lives to serving others for little to no pay somehow fail to be full human beings in society’s definition of the term. Even within the church which values mothers and pastors in its own way, we still aren’t considered as worthwhile or important as others in more traditional buy/sell/trade/manufacture money-making professions.
Even though scripture encourages us to serve others and to place others’ needs ahead of our own, our culture often views those as optional endeavors – goals to pursue after the real work is done. We don’t value service as a career choice. I often wonder what would happen though if we chose to realign ourselves and our cultural values with the biblical call to service. I’m not talking about mothers finally receiving the estimated $100,000 a year salary some say they deserve for all the occupational hats they wear, but simply starting to value people as people regardless of what they do and to see service as a whole life orientation instead of a free time option. Perhaps not only would stay-at-home moms (and dads) garner greater respect, but the amount of service given for others would increase as well. And there are plenty of areas in this world today that could use that service.
Or at the very least, it would be nice to have a world where a stay-at-home mom could buy a cell phone when she needs one.