Stay at Home Mom Stigma

  When I was first married I taught at a public high school.  One of the teachers there had been teaching throughout her children’s lives and they were now in middle school.  At the end of the school year, she announced that her kids needed her home now more than ever and she wasn’t coming back.  I was shocked.  She hadn’t stayed home when they were preschoolers, but now?  How naive I was . . . .

When my first child was born, the decision to quit work and stay home was easy.  No way was I handing my precious boy to someone else to take care of each day!  I continued to stay home through three more kids until my youngest was ready for 1st grade.  We had homeschooled to this point, but I was burned out so we decided that everyone would go to Christian school and I would teach part time at the school the older ones were at.  Part time turned into full time, and six years later I was stressed and finally understood what my fellow teacher had been talking about all those years ago.  I’m back home and, although I did work a very flexible part time job for a year or two, I can’t see going back to teaching any time soon.

Being a stay at home mom has a stigma, though, that makes it hard to think about staying home Biblically at times.  The Bible says that older women are to “instruct the young women in sensibility: to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be slandered” (Titus 2:4b-5, emphasis mine).  So, clearly, being a “worker at home” is a good thing.  Unless you live in a very “professionally driven” area, most people are willing to let you stay home with your babies and toddlers without giving you too much grief.  The looks get a little more questioning as your kids get older, though (and as you have more than two kids - “are you crazy?!” - but that is another article).  The trouble is, kids need you to be able to be there for them always, not just when they are little.  

So here is my dilemma now.  I only have one high schooler left that I am homeschooling (and homeschooling high school isn’t very hands on).  My oldest is married and living in his own home.  My next one lives at home, but really isn’t here much.  My third is in college and working so she isn’t home much, either.  But they still all need me at random times for random things.  And let’s face it, as we get towards the grandchildren phase, we all hope they need us, too.  And then there’s my husband.  He is so great about letting me “do whatever” and not worried about me bringing in a paycheck.  He is at a point in his career where he has more vacation time and flexibility than ever, and sometimes he just wants to take off for a long weekend (like Tampa, Spring Training - go Braves!).  I can’t do that if I am tied to a teaching job.  

So, we’ve established that my family still needs me to be flexible and able to help them, not to mention just keeping up with a house, so why do I find myself looking for a job that will allow that flexibility?  Why do I still look for “worth” in a career?  That isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing.  “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”  That is a great summary.  My chief goal in life shouldn’t have anything to do with a career.  My chief goal should be to bring God glory.  And since, as we saw above, part of the reason young women need to learn to be workers at home is “so that the word of God will not be slandered” (Titus 2:5), obviously I need to be more concerned about that than what the world thinks.  As my kids leave home, would it be wrong for me to get a job?  No.  But I need to check my motives and my real availability after putting my husband and children, even as they get older, first.  If they aren’t the first priority when deciding how to use my time, I’m not glorifying God with my priorities because that is where He told me to put them.