by Dan Masterton
The you’re-going-to-have-a-baby books tell you to start talking about and planning child-care months before the baby is expected to arrive. They warn that the good places fill up fast, that pricing is tricky, and that logistics can get complicated. We knew we had paternity leave to help bridge the gap from our daughter’s birth back into work life, and we took time to weigh all the options.
My wife, Katherine, is a nurse. This means her earning power is much better, and her three 12-hour shifts each week leave four days that she could be home with our daughter, Lucy. I could then work full-time, and we would only need childcare one, two, or three days a week depending on her shift assignments. Alternatively, I floated the idea of trying to peel my ministry work back to part-time so that I could cover that slice of child-care while she was at work and thus avoid child-care altogether. We did the math, and even with basic child-care costs, we’d come out ahead if we had two full incomes. I felt drawn to the idea of being a partial stay-at-home dad, but was wrestling with my still-strong passion for campus ministry (and the stronger bottom line it could bring).
I suggested to my wife that I look around for full-time jobs, given the uncertain nature of my current job and school, and that perhaps the nature of what was out there could guide our decision. I submitted a few applications and did a few interviews, 1 while also keeping an open line with my current employer. Whether through the competition and oversaturated market of ministry/theology types or the providence of discernment, 2 none of those leads panned out. Meanwhile, my current supervisor remained wonderfully supportive, encouraging my creativity in figuring out a return plan that could work for my family and the school, as Katherine felt more and more like she’d prefer to avoid child-care and keep Lucy home with us, if possible.
With juniors and seniors returning to finish out the last two years of our school, the administration had to be creative in assembling a staff it could afford while also sustaining continuity and quality for these last high school students. Seeking to continue solid liturgy and strong service and especially to have an excellent last Kairos ever,3 it made sense for them and for me to come back. My greatest reservation with my work was with teaching -- from lesson plans to gradebooks to parents and conferences to academic policies -- and that could be taken off my plate by scaling back to a part-time role. I could focus on retreats, service, and liturgy; I could come in two days a week plus odd extra times; I could leave teaching to the teachers; I could be a source of continuity for our students. Done deal. I am grateful for the match.
As always, discernment and vocation necessitate constant attention and reflection. I know I am called to fatherhood and love being a dad; I know I am called to ministry and love being a campus minister. This is a tension I invite, and one I named candidly in my interviews that perhaps dropped me behind candidates who could throw themselves more deeply in the jobs. I know that I always take a proactive approach to life, both to the hours and days and to the months and years. I always try to actively keep priorities straight and plan well, to find time for myself and self-care while making quality time for others. While this can be a huge asset in my work, I knew that it would also help me excel at being home with my daughter and being a good homemaker for my family.
I know I’ll be able to find small ways to retain a sense of productivity and accomplishment for myself, this blog chief among them, as well as provide for and take care of my family -- not by bringing in a hefty paycheck but by cooking, cleaning, shopping, and being patient and present to my two girls. I know that my gifts and passions and energies can find a new positive object in the calls of fatherhood and homemaking and the greater time I’m committing to them. And I know that the desire I have to be a exceptional father and exceptional husband can flourish if I use this increased space well. I want to approach it “professionally” -- not with excessive formalism or stuffiness but with full force of enthusiasm and creativity that one would pour into a job that one loves.The whole equation of working just two days a week and enlarging my focus on being a father and husband is wonderfully liberating, humbling, and simplifying. To put it simply, it clears the deck of flimsy diversions that I allow to cloud my focus. The vainer, more arrogant part of me too easily panders to the allure of dangerous questions: Does my ministry have a sufficiently high profile and positive image? Does my school and the attention is draws bring prestige to me and my work? Does my writing and my speaking make a quantity impact in the Church world? Am I difference-maker who can make a name for myself in ministry?
In reality -- a reality I know but for which I need constant, thorough reminders -- none of those ministry things are meant to be like that, and parenthood purifies that stubborn impulse in me. Parenthood comes with no awards, no image, no profile. It’s just me, my daughter, and my wife, and the love I give and receive. Realigning the priorities of my life to fit the calls of my career and family gives me a new way to fundamentally become myself. It invites me to evolve beyond grasping toward what I erroneously try or have tried to be.
My hope, too, is that more moms and dads can have the chance to this for themselves, for their families, and for the Kingdom.4 I am blessed that the stability of my family and my wife’s family set us up to become adults smoothly, and that our sense of responsibility and fidelity pointed us toward our vocations in our new family well. It’s amazing to be in a position to freely choose to work less and be home more and to be able to make the finances work stably for our family. Liberation theology teaches that we must reform our social systems to erase the unjustly imposed material poverty that prevents people from realizing their fullness in Christ as sons and daughters of God. I am grateful for the blessing to have the socioeconomic stability5 to consider this as an option, and for the corresponding joy and passion that drives me and my family to choose to do it.
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| Too many kisses, dad. |
1 I always imagine that ministry interviews just must be so different from business-y interviews -- there’s a conversational tone and authenticity that I imagine isn’t there in other sectors -- and in that vein, I shared openly about my discernment of full-time work versus becoming more of a stay-at-home dad.↩
2 Among the odd details, my paternity leave benefit came with the caveat that I must return to work for 60 days following my leave or else I may be required to pay back the leave salary. Working at a school that was phasing out its high school (and the majority of my responsibilities) and with an eight-months pregnant wife, I secured oral confirmation that the post-leave return wouldn’t apply to me, but when I asked for written confirmation, I never got it. That in-between reality also hung over all of this and perhaps greased the skids of providence to help things resolve themselves.↩
3 Plus, we only have one Kairos a year, due to our small class size -- so a best last Kairos ever and the only last Kairos ever, not a set of three of four.↩
4 Not trying to be highfalutin, but I feel strongly that loving, strong marriage and raising children in faith and love is one of the, if not the most, concrete thing we can do to build God’s Kingdom. To God’s will is to glimpse heaven, so by answering the call to fatherhood and family, I glimpse heaven when I give and receive love well.↩
5 The opportunity for paid parental leave is integral to that.
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