Family

Payment

by mary white
09/06/15
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My kids hate going to the store with me.  Before we enter, they beg, “Please don’t talk to anyone.”  Silly children. They know I am doomed.  Rationalizing, I say, “Guys, talking and listening are my only skills.  If not for them, I would be unemployed.”  I envision myself in the olden days, begging in the streets because I have nothing tangible to contribute.  Pitiful, but I believe my benefactors and I would have enjoyed visiting.

I remember receiving my first paycheck as a caseworker.  I had worked with teenagers for about a month when our Commissioner handed me an envelope.  I thought (and may have said), “I get paid for this?”  Being with kids felt like breathing to me.

It would be interesting to compare salaries of a product-based company with that of a human service company.  It seems that we are willing to shell-out infinite amounts of money for phones and internet and tobacco, but babysitters and home health aides still make poverty-level wages.  Does it make sense that those charged with the care of our most fragile are poorly paid?  Shouldn’t our money be invested in what matters most to us?  Maybe it is.   I find it odd that ledgers are reconciled to the penny, but in the business of human lives, only fatalities draw any amount of scrutiny. Imagine if we demanded an accounting for every broken heart?

And, teachers. When discussing salary, an educator’s “easy” work schedule is inevitably cited as justification for conservative pay.  Having witnessed the school-world up close, I know that educators pack a year’s worth of work into 180 days. Our oldest son’s Kindergarten teacher contacted me about a month into his year and asked me to clarify some names for her. From his stories, she was having trouble sorting out sibling versus pet.  She understood that the business of what mattered to him would be priceless in reaching him.  What compensation is appropriate for that kind of commitment?  Of course there are exceptions, but most teachers don’t measure their work in time…..they measure their work in relationship and broadening lives.  There is no punch clock for that.

My career in the human service field has not secured our family fortune.  By far and away, my husband has shouldered the breadwinning for us.  In a meaningful, lucrative career, he has made sure our children don’t go without.  If not for him, I would have had to rethink many of my decisions.

But sometimes, at least in my case, what you don’t get is the real perk. Drawing from limited budgets that cannot sustain over-time, I have never had to face the soul-sucking choice of money and time.  In fact, time has been my biggest dividend…...Irreplaceable, unreturnable, finite, no-take-backs time.   There has never been an instance, in any of my jobs, that I have been questioned for staying home with a sick child, attending a school meeting, or leaving work for a school event.  I have never missed a holiday or concert due to work demands.  And, best of all, one of my jobs gave me 7 summers at home…...summers in which our children were too old to be babysat, but too ridiculous and irritable to mann themselves.

In assessing the pros and cons of the human service field, I was completely unprepared for the “who” of this work.  I had no idea how much these people could mean to me, how much they had to teach me.  I did not foresee the acts of pure cruelty and sickness that I would be privy to, nor the acts of courage and tenderness that would shatter my notions of bravery.  These terrible and inspiring acts would lead me to the final act of surrender, wherein I would take the Lord’s hand, understanding that I was useless to anyone, especially myself, without Him.

Our family has been blessed by my husband’s provision, in stability and in the certainty of enough.  I pray that I always remember the sight of him leaving for work, head bowed to the elements, no matter what the hour, no matter how many hours already worked.  And, I pray that I always remember that I, too, have been richly paid.