Peggy Campolo, in her early days as a mother, was sometimes annoyed at the fact that she had chosen to stay home and look after the kids while her husband, well known Tony Campolo, went out to work as a sociologist and gallavanted around the world as a lecturer and public speaker.Peggy found it particularly hard when she was at parties and people would say, "What do you do?" She would usually reply, "I'm a house manager." When she gave this reply she got the feeling that people thought that wasn't significant and their whole body language reinforced this message.
So Peggy devised another way of answering the question so when somebody asked, “What do you do” she would say:
"We are socialising two homo sapiens into the dominant value of the Judaeo-Christian heritage in order that they may be instruments for the transformation of the social order according to the eschatological utopia planned by God from the beginning of creation."
Then she would say, "And what do you do?" and they would often say, "I'm just a lawyer!"
Source: This story arose in a lunchtime conversation with Arbutus Sider when Ron Sider was lecturing at Whitley College, Melbourne in 1994.
Image: Peggy at a conference, pictured with three pastors.
