Yes, I Will Join Your Cult if Your Policies Truly Are as Family Friendly as You Say They Are
Regarding the maternity leave, will my family still be allotted our full weekly ration of lightly sweetened turnip mush?
Honestly, I’ve never even considered joining a cult before, but today I’ve driven down this secluded dirt road to your heavily armed compound on the outskirts of town to check out your ultra-religious sect for one reason and one reason only — because I’ve heard that this cult offers excellent maternity leave and great onsite daycare.
I first spoke with your outreach team while I was waiting for my luggage at the airport — Driel was super helpful by the way — and she explained that entry level work here involves growing, harvesting, and processing millet into a hallucinogenic drug used to lure in new members.
That sounds OK I guess — I have some experience in marketing that might be helpful — but look, what I really want to know is, exactly how excellent is this “excellent maternity leave?” Are we talking six weeks? Six months? This isn’t one of those things where I have to be member of your cult for at least a year before I’m eligible for full family leave benefits is it?
Because to be completely upfront, I’m planning to have a baby in the foreseeable future, and when the baby comes I can tell you that I will be harvesting and processing very little millet.
But that doesn’t mean I want to lose my job! I don’t know if you understand how hard it is out there in the regular world to balance financial security with having kids. It’s not as easy as just shaving your head, laying on a dirt floor and praying to the Grand Leader for four hours a day.
So, regarding the maternity leave, will my family still be allotted our full weekly ration of lightly sweetened turnip mush? Because if we still get our turnip mush, your maternity benefits are way better than those at my current job, which include neither monetary nor mush-based compensation of any kind.
As for your religious beliefs, my memory gets a little hazy after Driel offered me a bite of her millet bar, but I do remember that she morphed into a giant iridescent blue chicken and said something about ritual blood offerings to the Grand Leader in preparation for the Great March to the Sacred Crater where we will be miraculously transported to the Planet of Eternal Bliss. Honestly, I’m not really into long hikes or human sacrifice per se, but I am willing to be flexible if this cult actually does have the amazing onsite daycare that Driel was raving about. That would be a dream come true!
Because eventually I will want to stop weaving homemade wet wipes in the communal tent and get back to outside work. But it’s not enough for the daycare to just be safe and reliable, you know? I really want to find a daycare that is nurturing too! Tell me, are the child care workers in this cult licensed in any way? Will there be some kind of interactive enrichment activities, like maybe visiting a turnip field or learning about the millet milling process?
On another note, I’m really intrigued by the fact that the Grand Leader is a woman, but I also know that women at the top are not always supportive of the women who work below them. I’m really close to saying yes to your cult, but before I commit to the blood and Kombucha drinking ceremony in which I vow to give the Grand Leader all of my worldly possessions along with my bank account login name and password, I want some reassurance about sexism. Is gender equity a cornerstone of this cult?
For example, when we make the Great March to the Sacred Crater will the men be expected to help with the kids and the cooking along the way? Because I don’t want to be stuck at the back of the line with a bunch of other overworked women pushing a stroller and trying to juggle a backpack full of squeeze tubes of lightly sweetened turnip mush while the men all stroll along ahead eating drug laced millet bars and having a grand old time.
Oh! And one last thing! On the Planet of Eternal Bliss, how are the schools?
Kathryn Baecht teaches English to adult language learners from around the globe. You can find her humor writing at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and at Quick & Wordy.
