“You are always getting paid, and you are always getting paid in the currency you are asking for. So maybe the currency you’re asking for is likes on Facebook, or maybe the currency you’re asking for is a lot of compliments from your friends, or maybe the currency you’re asking for is neglect. You know, for a long time, my self-esteem was so low, it sort of mattered to me that I work really hard and kind of have no one notice.”

Samantha Bennet, The Unmistakable Podcast

I used to be ashamed of being a stay at home mom. I was called to do it, I knew that it was right for my family, but I felt a lot of stigma about it.

Paid Work

Our society puts paid work on a pedestal. Upon meeting someone, conversation often leads to:

Never mind that the answer to that question is almost always an inevitable snorefest—a good conversation is when one or more of the participants is really passionate about the subject matter, and few people are passionate about working for a corporate overlord.

Unpaid Work

…is the type of work that makes a life, makes a community. If volunteers didn’t run community events, how would we gather? Would we decide that children should no longer receive presents for birthdays and holidays?

Decorating a home is undervalued, but is that to say that there’s no difference between a cared-for, cozy home and a hoarded, cramped one? What of the increased capacity for production, creativity, and relaxation that one affords rather than the other?

Playing with children seems like…child’s play. But if a parent doesn’t do it, is it not a job that requires payment? Yet it would be absurd to ask a nanny to take the car to be cleaned, to hang the wall art, to grocery shop, to garden. Those are all jobs that require different paid professionals.

Those individuals are working for a living. Even to manage that amount of individual workers would be a position in itself.

what currency am I getting paid in?

The currency I’m paid in is love from my children. It’s positive interactions with other people all day long as I chat up people on my errands—last week at Target the cashier even gave me her discount on a hat after a nice conversation! The cashier today whose makeup I complimented telling me I made her day. Making someone’s day is a currency that makes me feel like Scrooge McDuck.

I get paid in the fruits of my labor: boys growing into men who are creative, think for themselves and have firmly established values. Perennial native plants that sprout year after year, blooms bigger and brighter as years past, the soil enriched, my plot of land a little bit better for the planet. Memories of love, laughter, and adventure. A home full of objects that each tell stories of their own. Relationships with people, deep and casual, where everyone feels seen.

What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?

There isn’t a job that I would like to do for one day. Not because I don’t like to work, because I love it. I love being a stay at home mom, an artist, and a writer, even though I am infrequently paid in cash directly for those tasks.

The work of one day adds up to very little. Work is done in order reap the harvest from the fruits of your labor. What might eight hours yield? I couldn’t be a doctor for a day and save a life based on a decade of knowledge. I couldn’t be a therapist and watch over years of semiweekly sessions how a shut-off, anxious client bloomed into who she was meant to be. I couldn’t establish deep connections with a bunch of kindergarten art students and know I laid the foundation for the creatives they may become in the future.

Also, to work a job for one day would be the first day on the job. That’s among the worst days of any job—fumbling, unsure of expectations, lacking confidence. Count me out!

If I wanted to know more about the experience of a job, I’d rather read a book from someone who has had a lifetime of developing that career, experienced a breadth of benefits, and uncovered the insight from it. That might take me a day to read, and I’d reap far more from what they sowed.