A tale of a teenaged referee and the start of the gender pay gap

Has it all been rigged from the start?

My husband and I have been together for almost 16 years. We also grew up in the same place and went to middle and high school together.

What I learned about coolness from a fishing trip

As you can imagine, we have a lot of history—lore, as the cool kids call it these days—and a lot of that history has translated into running jokes. One of our favorite and best-tread running jokes is the one about Matt’s former life as a grocery store barista.

Even all these years later, my husband takes a lot of pride in the portion of his high school career that he spent working at the Wegmans coffee counter. (Yes, Wegmans rules. If you know, you know.) He loves to regale me (and anyone else who will listen) with stories of experimenting with new beverages and befriending the ladies at the pizza station. He also loves to try to impress me with references to his barista expertise, which is particularly hilarious given the fact that I quite literally never drink coffee.

Maybe this doesn’t seem hilarious to you, but trust me… it is.

Because this is such well-covered territory in our household, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that Matt’s actual first job was not, in fact, as a Wegmans barista. Recently, he dropped some brand new information on me. Years before he donned the signature Wegmans apron and learned to make a latte, he worked as a referee for the local youth soccer league.

Why am I sharing this with you here? Well, once I’d gotten over the initial shock of the admission (lol) and we’d laughed about it a bit, it inspired an interesting conversation about the gender pay gap.

(Stay with me here.)

First, some stats and level-setting. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2024, women in the U.S. earned an average of 85% of what men earned. The good news is that this represents progress! In 2003, women earned 81% of their male counterparts, so that gap is narrowing. But it’s still there… and its mere existence is a problem. Just because that statistic has improved over time doesn’t mean we can let our concerns go. Continued improvement is not a given—and as I look around at the state of our country right now, I personally don’t have high hopes.

There are, of course, lots of systemic explanations for the gender pay gap. There are plenty of brilliant experts breaking it down online and elsewhere, so please do your research! Allow me to add my own two cents (or 85% of that, maybe) to the conversation, though, because I am now fairly convinced that this little referee gig my husband had starting when he was thirteen is part of the problem.

At the very least—given my personal experiences—I’m confident that it wasn’t part of the solution. And for what it’s worth: he agrees.

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Currently Reading: The Guilt Pill by Saumya Dave

Author Saumya Dave and I share an agent, and I was lucky enough to have her on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. More than that, when I heard the premise for her latest novel, I had to get my hands on an early copy. Thankfully, I pulled some strings and made it happen! So much of this novel resonates with me as a new mom, but also as a woman in the world. Highly recommend giving it a try!

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It might be helpful for you to understand that Matt was really into soccer. Like, really into soccer. He would never brag about his playing career but it was pretty impressive. Unfortunately, it was cut shorter than it should have been due to a series of nasty concussions, but he had an amazing run. And even as a middle schooler, he was super committed to the sport. So it doesn’t surprise me that he would have jumped at the chance to spend more time in the soccer world by picking up hours as a referee every weekend.

The way he remembers it, every Saturday morning, Matt would get dropped off at the fields with his little cooler of snacks and drinks, which he would tote around while being directed from game to game to referee. Later in the afternoon, one of his parents would pick him up—and his pockets would be significantly fuller.

I couldn’t believe how much he got paid for this gig.

As I’ve previously established, I grew up in the same time and place. We knew lots of people in common. While I wasn’t an athlete myself, many of my girl friends were heavily involved in sports. Guess how many of them were trotting off to these referee jobs every weekend—and being paid handsomely for it?

None. Exactly none.