Sacrifice and Also Pie

 When I was a kid, I was taken to church every Sunday.

It was a very small church, so for a long time we only had services on Sunday morning.

I liked our preacher. In many ways, he was one of the better masc role models I had. But there were some places where he and I fundamentally did not agree.

He used to tell this story about pie. He actually told it pretty often.

In this story, the family is poor. The father does paid labor. The mother does all of the unpaid labor.

The preacher didn’t put it in those terms, of course. He said, “The dad works. The mother stays at home.”

But we all know that isn’t the reality of what was going on. He did labor that paid him. She did labor as well and received no compensation for it.

Anyway, in this story, the family has a pie for an after‑dinner treat. And the preacher would always say, “There were six people in the family. There were only five slices of pie. But… the mother said she really wasn’t that hungry anyway.”

This story was used to demonstrate the value of domestic sacrifice. It was used to praise the kind of woman he felt women should be. In his mind, her declining the pie was noble.

In my mind? Her declining the pie was bullshit.

First of all, she baked this pie. Meaning she knew how many people were in the family and what level of pie distribution needed to be happening. She would have also been the one to cut the pie. And you know what? It’s a lot easier to slice a pie into six pieces evenly than it is to slice it into five.

I guess it’s possible she did slice it into six pieces and someone else ate one of the slices already, but that still does not justify her not eating any pie. Logically, the person who ate the slice beforehand should have been the person denied pie. And if said person was her husband, who thinks that because he is a man he should get two slices of pie when everyone else gets one, then the moral of the story is “wow, so that guy’s a jerk,” not “ohhh mama’s sacrifice.”

Maybe she already ate the slice of pie, and now she’s acting like she’s sacrificing something to be dramatic and make everyone feel weird. Odd, but honestly kind of iconic in a way. Though I certainly doubt that’s what he meant.

Clearly, his point was that it’s noble when women sacrifice for their children. And I’m saying women because I don’t remember him ever telling a story where there were five bites of steak left and Daddy said he wasn’t that hungry. Some level of equity would have been nice.

Do people who opt to give birth and keep those children have an obligation to them? Yes. Those kids didn’t ask to be alive, and you’re the one who tossed them into that situation. So until they’re grown, you have a responsibility to them.

HOWEVER, that responsibility does not include erasing yourself. It does not include denying yourself. It does not include losing every moment of pleasure you might experience at the expense of others.

Do these responsibilities include resource delegation? Yes. Are there times when that is a very, very dire thing? Having read many a book about people in dire circumstances, I know it certainly can be.

Does that apply to pie? Given that if we can have pie, we’re probably not quite at the level of dire yet?

Nope. No it does not.

Eat your damned slice of pie. Everyone deserves moments of pure happiness.