You looking for a career? Come over to my table at this weekend’s job fair and let me tell you about a new vocation. If you’re made out of iron, and you want God to bend you into a completely new shape using power tools and a blazing hot forge, then I’ve got a possibility for you.

Some market research might help. In the natural world, mothers earn a ridiculous wage. Mother birds sit for hours hovering over a scratchy nest, bored like crazy. Female cheetahs give up their own well-earned kill for the children to pounce on. An Emperor Penguin mother makes an arduous journey to secure the survival of her young, losing a third of herself along the way. Forget those cute $3.99 posters at Walgreens of baby animals and their mothers; let me show you a photograph of a mother bird—whose shriek diverted its prey away from her babies—being carried off by its predator.

Our benefits manual is short. No insurance, no vacation days, no holiday bonuses.

I’d recommend becoming a wife first; it’s really the only prerequisite that prepares you well for self-denial. Even so, spousal experience goes only part way. Motherhood is one of the few jobs that people sign up for without knowing their salary ahead of time.

There are several ways to break into this career. The most common way starts with sexual foreplay and ends up with a new member of the human race (Gotcha there! What a trick, eh?). You can also start a career by begging others who don’t want the job to switch places with you. Some aunts, nannies, and babysitters think they’ve been interning, but I’m afraid it ain’t the same thing. A babysitter gets snacks and a twenty-spot at the end of the night; a mommy gets a Zoloft prescription.

It’s really easy to sign up, but nearly impossible to get out of the business. Let me warn you: many women express an interest in the job, but get weary after the Babies-R-Us cards stop coming in and no one finds their bellies cute any more. About half of them end up doing the job alone, so be prepared for anything, including a dark, solo flight through lots of turbulence.

But where are you going? Not interested anymore? Let me tell you a few more things before you make a final decision. No career will force you to look into the face of God for answers quite like this one. No job will demand such Herculean effort, or make you this compassionate toward the human race. Few jobs reach in and chemically alter your love-making capabilities for life. You will become filthy rich. Only your own children can bring you to the end of yourself and then help you find a little more. Few careers have dividends that pay out ten or twenty years after you punched your time clock. No vocation shines such a bright light on your flaws and dis-abilities, and in return, brings you to repentance and change.

If you think this job description is exaggerated somehow, please take it up with the management. Perhaps they will ask you if you have any teenage daughters.

Thank you for dropping by our table at today's career fair. Take these brochures so you can share them with your friends.