Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain

Ten Tips for Pastor’s or President’s Wives

By Carol Mell, 6-20-08

	I'm not a pastor, just married to one. Pastor's and president's wives live life in the fishbowl. Glug, Glug.

As a minister’s wife I can’t help but have sympathy for Hillary Clinton’s dilemma. Having a position by marriage that subjects your house, your parenting skills, your hairdo, your dog and your fashion sense to scrutiny is what we pastors’ wives, or PWs, call “life in a fishbowl.”

My life could be Hillary’s except for no cameras, no state dinners, no trips around the world, no book contracts and no speaking fees. Oh, and my husband doesn’t cheat.

I first noticed the similarity between PWs and PWs, which also stands for President’s wives, when Hillary was first lady. No sooner was Bill inaugurated than Hillary tried to do something important for health care. In church, this would be the equivalent of trying to take over the annual bazaar. Hillary failed to realize that people would resent her for not paying her dues, which is the reason, almost sixteen years later a doctor’s visit still costs more than a new refrigerator.

After Hillary’s health care tent collapsed, she confined herself to elephant rides with Chelsea and getting shot at in Bosnia.

Having grown up among blue-collared white men, I’d bet that some of those guys supported Hillary because when Bill was president times were better. These were the very same guys who once thought she was too uppity for a woman. They figured voting for Hillary would put Bill behind the oval office curtains pulling the presidential strings. 

I knew a Hillary-type pastor’s wife, a widow who’d always headed up the choir, served on the governing board and baked the communion bread. Her church was tickled pink to have her. Then, she married the pastor and resentments stuck to her like plastic bags on a rosebush. Suddenly, she’d become a control freak who didn’t know her place.

Unlike those women, I’ve never had much ambition. One of my favorite jokes, which many parishioners steadfastly don’t get is, “I am both a humorist and a minister’s wife though never at the same time.” I’d rather watch a meeting so I can make fun of it later than run it. This has caused me, and therefore my husband, some trouble. In fact, I’m in hot water already.

For Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama, here are ten useful PW tips to remember.

1. PWs must never show cleavage, neither coming nor going.

2. Pearls are fine but limit your diamonds. People might think you’re showing off.

3. If you ever have sex, pretend it never happened. In fact, best to have separate bedrooms

4. Give up gossiping with girlfriends. The bishop or special prosecutor might be listening. 

5. You are living under a microscope so keep your teeth cleaned, your roots died and your legs shaved.

6. Find your own work to do, if it pays well, that’s fine (for the sake of our bank account, my husband and I sometimes wish one of us had married a lawyer) but best not to make more than your husband.

7. Talk to children and old folks but always suck on a breath mint first.

8. Leave six inches of daylight around your pelvis in public. This is why PWs all seem to have big butts. We can’t hug or dance without first bending over.

9. Do the work no one else wants. Wash dishes, visit Africa, take out the garbage, fluff the Lincoln bedroom pillows, help serve state dinners and be ready to haul chairs after special events even if you are wearing your best, but sensible, heels.

10. Last of all, do not covet thy husband’s job for down that road is the path to ruin.

Oh, and for all you Catholics out there, disregard this advice. It doesn’t apply to you unless you’re married to a Kennedy.

You are danged if you do and danged if you don’t so you might just as well marry a president, or a pastor, if that’s all that’s handy.

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