I am sure my indecision drives everyone who knows me MAD. Work. Don't work. Work. Don't work...But, I mean..COME ON! Am I really the only career driven stay at home mom struggling with this same issue?! My mother gave me a book years ago that her sister had given her. It is called,
"Lies Women Believe - and the Truth the Sets them Free" by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. I opened it up and skimmed through the table of contents and saw the heading "A Career Outside the Home is More Valuable and Fulfilling then Being a Wife and Mother". A stopped in my tracks...interesting...the single most prominent internal battle I have been fighting with myself since we moved away from England.
I began to read it and realized that this was something I wanted to share with my husband. When John arrived home from work later that night, I told him I wanted to share something with him and I began to read...
As I read through each line, I found it became more and more difficult to read. By the last two paragraphs, I was so choked up that I had to take a minute to gather myself before I could finish.
This is what I read (yes, I am about to transcribe the entire chapter..good thing I am a fast typer..also I have colored and bolded the statements that stood out the most to me)
___________________________________
"Half a century ago, a handful of determined women set out to achieve a philosophical and cultural revolution. Convinced that women needed to throw off the shackles of male oppression, they wrote books, published articles, taught college courses, marched in the streets, lobbied Congress, and in myriad ways, succeed in capturing the minds and hearts of millions of women.
They redefined what it means to be a woman and tossed out widely held views of a women's priorities and mission in life. Concepts such as
virtue, chastity, discretion, domesticity, submission, and
modesty were largely eliminated from our vocabulary, and replaced with
choice, divorce, infidelity, and
unisex lifestyles. The daughter and granddaughters of that generation have never known any other way of thinking.
One of the most devastating objectives and efforts of this "new" view of womanhood has been to demean marriage and motherhood and to move women--both physically and emotionally--out of their homes and into the workforce.
Women have been liberated right out of the genuine freedom they enjoyed for centuries to oversee the home, rear the children, and pursue personal creativity;
they have been brainwashed to believe that the absence of a titled, payroll occupation enslaves a women to failure, boredom, and imprisonment within the confines of home.
Statistics indicate that the gender gap has narrowed dramatically in matters of hiring practices, pay scales, and educational opportunities--results that activists have worked long and hard to achieve. But what about the unintended consequences of this newfound freedom? Whoever expected we would have to live with such things as...
-pressure placed on women by their peers to
"do more" than be"just a wife and mother"
-
the status of "homemaker" being devalued to something less than a serf.
-millions of infants and toddlers being dropped off at day care centers before daylight
and picked up after dark
-millions of children coming home from school to empty houses or being relegated to after-school child care programs
-
mothers giving their best energy and time to persons other than their husbands and children, leaving those women perpetually exhausted and edgy
-
families that seldom sit down and have a meal together
-children subsisting on frozen dinners and fast food eaten on the run
-emotional and physical affairs being fanned by married women
spending more quality time with men at work than they do with their own husbands
-women gaining enough financial independence to free them to leave their husbands
-women
being exposed day after day to coarse language and behavior and sexual innuendos in the workplace
-women who
don't have the time or energy to cultivate a close relationship with their children and who end up permanently estranged from their grown children
-children spending countless hours being entertained by videos, TV, electronic games, and computers
-inadequately supervised children becoming exposed to and lured into pornography, alcohol, drugs, sex, and violence
-elderly parents having to be placed in institutions
because their daughters and daughters-in-law are working full-time and can't manage their care
In determining our priorities and Christian women, we must first ask: Why did God make women? What is His purpose and mission for our lives? The Word of God provides women of every generation and culture with the Truth about our created purpose and primary role and calling. When we embrace the Truth and establish our priorities and schedules around it, we experience true liberation.
In Genesis 2:18 we fine the first and clearest statement of why God created the women:
"The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone.
I will me a helper suitable for him"
There you have it--God created the woman to be a helper to the man--to complete him, to be suited to his needs. Her life was to center on his, not his on hers. She was made from the man, made for the man, and given as God's gift to the man. Her relationship with her husband was the first and primary sphere in which she was to move and serve. Her husband was responsible to work to provide for their material needs. She was to be his helper and companion in reflecting the image of God, taking dominion over the earth, and reproducing a godly seed.
Together, they were to populate the earth with future generations of men and women who would love God and seek to fulfil His purposes in the world. The woman was uniquely designed and equipped--physiologically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually--by her Creator to be a bearer and nurturer of life. In a multitude of ways, she was endowed with the ability to add life, beauty, richness, fullness, grace, and joy to the family unit. There is no greater measure of her worth of success as a woman than the extent to which she serves as the heart of her home.
In his first letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul spelled out several things that had to be true of widows before they were entitled to be cared for by the church. In that we find a "job description" for godly women in every season of life. Paul honored older woman whose lives centered on their homes and who gave themselves to serving and ministering to the needs of others. The qualifications Paul listed ought to be high on every Christian woman's list of priorities:
"No widow may be put on the list of widows unless she...
has been faithful to her husband, and is well known for her
good deeds, such as bringing up children, showing hospitality,
washing the feet of the saints, helping those in trouble,
and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds."
1 Timothy 5:9-10
Paul was obviously addressing women who had been married, in keeping with the biblical perspective that marriage is God's norm for most women. However, according to 1 Corinthians 7:32-35, woman who are unmarried are stilled called to be "homemakers," though in a different sense. They are to devote their energies and efforts to building the household of faith; they are to live selfless lives that revolve not around their own interests and aspirations, but around Christ and His kingdom.
The Scripture is clear that the married woman's life and ministry are to be centered in her home. This is
not to suggest that it is necessarily wrong for a wife and mother to have a job outside her home--unless that job in any way competes with or diminished her effectiveness in fulfilling her primary calling at home. Further, it is important for women to evaluate their reason(s) for working outside their home and to identify any deception behind those reasons.
For example,
it is widely assumed today that a family simply cannot make it without two incomes. It is true that one of the unfortunate by-products of the feminist revolution is that our economy has become dependant on two-income families. However, that does not necessarily mean that families cannot survive on one income.
The Truth is that God gave to the man the primary responsibility to be the "breadwinner" for his wife and children. The Enemy has seen to it that it has become extremely difficult to function this way, but it is always possible to live according to the Truth if we want to.
I have a number of close friends with six, seven, eight, and nine children who have chose for the mother to stay at home with the children. No, it's not easy; they don't have a lot of material things many people consider necessities today. Yes, they make sacrifices--in a sense;
but the sacrifices pale beside what they are gaining in exchange. in virtually every case,
-these families are content and have joy
-they have a netter sense about values and the things that really matter than do many two-income families
-they have learned how to pray and depend o God for everything from "daily bread" to college tuition.
-the parents know where their children are and are able to monitor and direct their activities
-the parents and children have close, loving relationships with each other
-they are actively involved in serving others in practical ways that many families don't have time (or energy) to do when both parents are working outside the home
Now you tell me--who is really sacrificing?
Even many secular women recognize the tension that is created when a woman tries to marry a career with a family. In an interview, actress Katharine Hepburn said:
"I'm not sure any woman can successfully pursue a career and be a mother at the same time.
The trouble with women today is that they want everything. But no on can have it all."
Another actress, Joanne Woodward, agrees:
"
My career has suffered because of the children, and my children have suffered because of my career...I've been torn and haven't been able to function fully in either arena. I don't know of one person who does both successfully, and I know a lot of working mothers."
In a fallen word, I realize there are some situations where the "ideal" may not be possible. However, realities such as the prevalence of divorce and single moms should not make us throw out the ideal. It should make us more conscious of the desirability of God's way. We must resist caving in to the culture. After all, it is the culture of "working moms"--at least in part--that has given rise to an increased divorce rate, more single moms, more affairs, more women on welfare, more teen violence, and more stressed-out, depressed, exhausted women.
As Dorothy Pattersom reminds women:
"It is true that many "perfect jobs" may come and go during the child rearing years, but only one will absolutely never come along again--the job of rearing your own children and allowing them the increasingly rare opportunity to group up at home."
.....
These women have chosen life by bearing children (something only a woman can do, I might add); and they are choosing life every day...
-with every meal they prepare
-with every load of dirty clothes they wash
-with every trip they make to the grocery store, to school, to the dentist, to piano lessons, to soccer practice, or to the shoe store
-with every scraped knee they bandage
-with every encouraging word they speak
-with every night hour they spend rocking a sick or scared child
-with every dispute they arbitrate
-with every moment they spend building Legos, coloring, helping with math problems, reading a Bible story, or listening to a husband or child describe his day
-with every moment they spend interceding for the spiritual growth and protection of their family
Day in and day out, they are building a home; they are being life-givers; they are laying a foundation and building a memorial that will outlive them for generations to come; they are honoring thei Creator in the greatest possible way."
____________________________________
Now that my fingers are killing me....
Elisabeth Elliot writes,
"'You mean that's all you do? That's all?' As a mother, Your life is given to taking care of people, small ones to begin with, whose wants never seem to cease. Sometimes when your days seem to be wholly taken up with wiping things, dishes and sinks, little runny noses and big, slow tears, you wonder about what fulfilment is supposed to mean for you. You wonder about being, besides the perfect wife and mother the hostess with the mostest, creative, intellectually productive, beautiful, and slowly your dreams seem to evaporate."
This really sticks out to me because this is a prefect example of what, I am sure, lots of new SAHMs go through in their heads.
I think people believe this is an easy answer..."Well, what do you WANT to do?" That is a hard question, and I don't think it has anything to do with what I WANT to do. I think it has to do with what brings JOY and why. Being a SAHM really doesn't sound glamorous. But, I do understand that, although society tends to look down on SAHMs, it is truly a privilege. It is a blessing that my husband provides enough for the family that I don't HAVE to work. Not only that, but it is a HUGE blessing that my husband is so encouraging of me staying home. Although this makes it hard for me to pitch my reasons for wanting to go back to work.
This chapter made me cry. I have yet to figure out exactly WHY.
If you ask me what I want, this is my answer, "I WANT to make up my mind. I WANT to be unapologetic and proud of my decision. I WANT to be joyful. I WANT my husband to be happy with my decision. I WANT my children to benefit from my decision."
And how ironic is this that this morning, knowing I wanted to write on this particular subject today, I find a job offer at Ft Bragg waiting in my Inbox. I replied that I was moving to Hawaii. He replied and CC'd their rep in Hawaii who offered two more positions...Lovely.
“Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Here is a GREAT
video that Andrea shared with me...It is done by the wife of her church's pastor, Rachel, at a women's conference.
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