Jo's Blog

Oh dear. Many things wind me up. Let me give you a list.

• My son crying for no apparent reason.
• My daughter tormenting her brother for fun.
• People who overtake you on a roundabout by driving on the pavement.
• The way my arms and hands have constant pins and needles and have done for over 6 months now.
• People who drive in isolated fog on the A35 with no lights on at all.
• People who park really close to you in a car park and don't look to see that you have car seats on both sides of your car.
• People who park in parent and child spaces and are neither parents nor children.
• The way that even when you get to the bottom of the washing pile it only remains clear for a maximum of a couple of hours.

But what winds me up more than anything else are people telling me how in order to work full time as a parish priest I need to have a house husband.

Follow up:

No I don't. Why should Harry give up his career in order for me to fulfil my vocation? Is my desire to work for God more important and more valuable than his desire to work in his chosen profession? If I hear another story of a young woman priest with small children whose husband has given up his job in order to stay at home and look after the kids, then I will scream. Great for them if that is what they want to do. Not great for them if that is what they have felt pressured to do. If the church wants to ordain women then it has to accept that some of them will have small children. Working six days a week is not conducive to a fruitful family life. Some might argue we have very flexible working hours. In some parishes that is true. But my experience so far is that it is very normal to work a full day and a full evening and have very little time for anything else. And don't even get me started on house for duty, which seems to be my only other option.

No one goes into the church for the money. But neither should working for God be seen as an excuse for exploiting good will. It is amazing and fantastic that people feel called to work as self supporting ministers, holding down a full time job alongside a parish post. God uses different people in different ways to do his work. But isn't the church fortunate that some people are able to give themselves without requiring payment? How many people work in teaching or for the NHS out of the kindness of their heart, yet those jobs require a similar vocation. House for duty(working part time for a rent free house) works well for some people, but for some dioceses it would appear to be a way of filling vacant posts without having to pay the going rate. I requested flexible working hours when I became a Mum and my archdeacon, bishop and incumbent were extremely accommodating. My stipend was reduced accordingly. What an excellent solution. But I haven't found a single parish job advertised that has the same working agreement as my curacy. Not a single one.

I am really struggling to work out how I can continue to work for the church and be a Mum. I know that the connundrum I'm facing is no different from any other working Mum, save for the fact that my employer doesn't yet seem to have caught on to part time work. Obviously trying to continue any sort of career whilst having pre school children is a delicate and difficult balance. Perhaps it is just impossible unless you have the financial capacity to pay for a nanny? But it is messy to say the least. God appears to have called me into the church but I feel equally strongly that he has called me to be a wife and Mum too. How do I balance them all?

I suspect that it is not until all our children are at school full time that I will feel able to apply for a parish post. Until then I don't know quite what I will do for my part of the housekeeping? I'm thinking very seriously about the night shift at Tesco. I don't think I have the confidence to return to teaching. After all, it is 5 years since I was in a classroom full time. Things will have changed and moved on.

I do trust that things will work out for the best and that if God has called me into this then he will help sort out the thorny issues. Until then I guess I should just enjoy being at home and being a mummy. Only three and half weeks until our family of four becomes five. But the spectre of what happens next after maternity pay has finished continues to loom large. I'd love to hear how other people have managed to balance parenthood and work. Particularly if you work for the church. Anyone fancy a job share in Dorset?