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  • MrsAngelala
    Posts: 5
    I'm a professional musician and currently in the middle of a huge problem with my position as an unpaid Music Director at my parish. The priest would pay me if he could, but this is a small parish and I've seen the financials - there's just no money. And now that my daughter is almost two she demands every moment of my attention; there simply isn't time to do the work anymore. I'm falling dreadfully behind, and I finally told the pastor I am going to have to transition to a seasonal music schedule (same songs every week for several weeks). The organist, a dedicated woman and good at her job, didn't like that, so she volunteered to do the planning herself - which we're certainly going to try. BUT I still have to review the selections, I don't get to determine what schedule she does it on so I don't know if I'll have time to review it before it goes live, and it also means I'm still training the cantors weekly. It has its own set of problems.

    My husband has spent months trying to give me reliable time to do my work, but his job is the one that pays the bills and is demanding at unpredictable times. We don't have any local family, so for his next attempt he wants to bring in a couple of friends to volunteer to watch the baby for an hour or two a week each, plus some nice girls from our parish whom we'll pay. This is also frustrating to me; now, in addition to donating my more than thirty years of experience in music and well into the six figures I've spent on my education, I'm also being expected to pay out of pocket for this job I have the "privilege" of doing for free! I'm also being challenged as prideful, arrogant, greedy, and ungrateful for the opportunity to give back to God what he has given me. Meanwhile, I keep looking at "The laborer is worth his hire" and wondering why teenaged babysitters who haven't invested anything in their skills are worth something and I am not.

    I've just been browsing the internet for solutions. I ran across this from bonniebede in an old thread from May 2013:

    "Embrace your calling! You are not a musician because you are paid. You are not even doing it because you enjoy it. You are doing it because you are part of Gods battle plan against the strategies of the enemy. That ones strategies include gossip, back biting, slander, division, jealousy, not to mention the temptation to despair, and the harassment of dwelling on being rejected."

    I have indeed been on the receiving end of all of those things at this parish and have at times succumbed to those temptations. I still don't know what to do, but I so appreciate the call to battle. Thank you for this forum, and for maintaining your archives.
    Thanked by 2ServiamScores Anna_Bendiksen
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    Prayers for you, MrsAngela ... as well as for you family and your parish ... but especially for you in this difficult time.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    I am unmarried and don't have children, but even I, idiot though I am, can see what a challenge small children can be. Good heavens! If anyone calls you by those oh-so-pious sounding epithets simply because you find it difficult to do something AS A VOLUNTEER while being a mother of young children, they should be read the riot act...or worse! Those are the people who drive people away from the Church: Dripping with piety, as they gossip about everyone, but of course "it's not really gossip because it's only the truth".

    (And, yes, I'm livid, because I've been on the receiving-end of gossip and slander like that at my parish...after all, I'm 34 and unmarried, so obviously... So, yes, reading this has struck a nerve.)

    You're a VOLUNTEER, so, just like all the other volunteers at the parish you should be free to say: "I need to step back for a moment because I've got my hands full with young children."

    Unfortunately, the other problem apart from just being generally uncharitable, they, like most people, probably think that you decide the music two minutes before Mass and everything happens magically without any planning or rehearsing. All musicians deal with this.

    In short, don't feel bad if you need to walk away for a time; and try not to let the pious nonsense from folks get to you.
    Thanked by 4CHGiffen Elmar Carol toddevoss
  • MrsAngelala
    Posts: 5
    Oh, I'm so enjoying your comment Salieri. :) The choir director before me used to pick songs off an OCP list, so the former choir here is actually justified in believing that. (They're "former" because after 2.5 years they still haven't forgiven me for their last choir director leaving. He was an elderly man who left to be closer to his family. I had nothing to do with it.)

    Me? Occasionally I use the NPM resource, but generally like my results more when I choose the music myself "by hand," i.e. looking up each reading in the Scripture index of hymnal, turning to the thematic and liturgical indexes if I don't find any direct matches. My indexes include several personal notations each. And then I'm also incorporating the seasonal goals, the Holy Year goals, the pastor's goals, my goals for my cantors, the one-year plan, the three-year plan....

    If I didn't enjoy my work so very much, this wouldn't be so hard. I still can't even believe how impossible it is to get work done with my tiny toddler around. I keep thinking that if I just did better somehow, I could get everything done. But I can't. Maybe it's just my personal limitations, but I have to admit I can't. ::shrug::
    Thanked by 4CHGiffen Elmar Anna_Bendiksen toddevoss
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    My dear, sweet, bride was told many years ago -- when our eldest two were quite young -- that God understood if she was distracted at Mass. She took some comfort from that, because she stopped being so anxious about the children and having to choose between caring for the children and attending Mass. She knew that she would do the best she could do. The rest, as the saying goes, was in the hands of God.

    We've been married now 30 years, and she has signed on to be a sort of honorary grandmother for the "families with young children" group in our parish.

    I second Salieri's point (though I'm loathed to agree with one so young).
    Thanked by 1Elmar
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    I understand the part about the parish having no money. I pretty much ran a music program out of my own pocket for a number of years. No real sacrifice since I could afford it. Someone else, maybe could not. But in that time, the priest got a new carport, the rectory and basement of the church were remodeled, father got a hot tub installed, and the list goes on and on. There is money it is just poorly allocated and depends on whose needs and wants get catered to.

    Advice. Move on since you have done more than enough. You are one person and you can't reasonably solve all the problems of the parish. Put raising your daughter first and let the parish deal with it, which they won't do as long as they have a willing soul to take advantage of.

    I'm also being challenged as prideful, arrogant, greedy, and ungrateful for the opportunity to give back to God what he has given me.


    Isn't it amazing that some have such an inside track with God that they know everything he wants you to do for THEMSELVES, certainly not for you.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen Elmar Carol
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    father got a hot tub installed

    Has he been made bishop yet? (Not sarcasm)
    Thanked by 4ServiamScores CHGiffen CharlesW Elmar
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    He has since passed on to the great hot tub in the sky. My point being that money is available if the right person wants it.
    Thanked by 4ServiamScores Elmar Carol Salieri
  • francis
    Posts: 10,825
    Your children are your primary aim above all. You are first and foremost a mother. Don’t ever neglect such one of the greatest callings in life that is central to your very nature. Let the music fall to someone else.
    Thanked by 2Elmar Carol
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,889
    The church has a tendency to wring people dry. I've long-struggled with this too. For the first 10-ish years of my ministry it was only part-time.

    I'm grateful for my current post; I have two good priests and my job was stable through all the craziness of the last two years... but it does sadden me that I cannot be a sole provider for my family. There is a certain disconnect between this clarion call to traditional values from the Church (esp. where the marital union and children are concerned) and yet Her own inability (or at times, unwillingness) to support it at any but the largest parishes. My MM in organ wont pay for itself and my groceries don't pay for themselves, either.

    I think that if you are a volunteer, while there is certainly something in regards to steadiness (ie- not being 'flaky') you also have the right to step away. Perhaps, however, you can do this at a major seasonal change such as the interim between Christmas and Lent, or better still, if you could make it all the way to ordinary time, then there would be a season of calm where the liturgy is concerned, which would give plenty of time to find a replacement. But at the end of the day, they have no right to hold your feet to the fire, as it were.

    Your needs are just as real and material as those of the church, and it sounds like you've already made many sacrifices. As my wife and I recently discussed (we also have two young children) perhaps [you] being involved in music ministry needs to be a "season of life" thing. In other words, your music career doesn't have to be over per se but perhaps it needs to be put on hold right now until your children are older and familial duties are more flexible. There's a difference between turning your back on a God-given talent and burying it in the ground, so to speak, versus being a good steward of your primary duties (children) and then returning to till your musical field when the season is right.
    Thanked by 6Carol CHGiffen Elmar francis toddevoss MNadalin
  • Carol
    Posts: 856
    I think Serviam has given great advice. Your child will be this age only once. It is a tough decision to make, but it sounds as if you do not currently have the time to donate to accomplish the tasks as Music Director, for which you have set yourself a high personal standard. I took time off when my children were very young. It was the right choice for me. I was able to return to being a cantor at a later time and the example of sharing my talents at Mass seemed to be a good one for my two sons, who are now men.

    Make a decision and then don't second guess yourself. Put your trust in God.
    Thanked by 2Elmar toddevoss
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Just remember to sing to your children.
    Thanked by 1Carol
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,889
    but it sounds as if you do not currently have the time to donate to accomplish the tasks as Music Director,

    Another thing to consider, too, is that you don't want the church to suffer due to your own inability to take care of it all. (I don't say this implying any deficiency on your part; trust me I get it! Rather, you are honest in admitting how thinly you are now stretched. You should also consider how this affects the church, not just your own mental health. It could be to your mutual benefit for you to take extended leave.)
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