{Note: This article has been updated from its original publishing in Dec. 2008.}
Today I want to share the ethos behind some big choices of my life. I’ve lived as an at-home-on-purpose mom for the last 13+ years of my life because I believe this simple truth: as a mom of young children, the best place for me to be is at home.
There are two ways I mean that. First:
BEING AT HOME WITH MY CHILDREN
Me & Silas, 2008
Despite education and careers and opportunities and giftings and callings and dreams and side-hustles, the overarching, general truth most of us still know is this: children are happiest, healthiest, and best-looked-after when mom is home with them and engaged in their daily lives.
It’s strange that it’s politically incorrect to say that moms are needed. At home. To be there for their children.
No one has a problem with a boss who says things like, “Jim is the reason for this company’s success.” Or, of the secretary at the front desk: “Sandy holds this office together.”
No one gripes and says it’s demeaning for a worker to be needed in their job. But, society-wide, we feel weird and uncomfortable when someone says something that used to be such plain common sense that no one needed to speak it out loud: moms are needed by their children.
As a society, we sacrifice schedule, health, time, sleep, evenings, weekends, absolute wardrobe freedom, our freedom to post whatever we want to on social media, and sometimes even our marriages and children, for our jobs… but heaven help the person who turns this broken system on its head and says that a woman who chooses to give up some years of her professional life to devote to the formation of young character and minds is doing an excellent thing.
There are always going to be voices telling us:
- that we “need” to get out
- that we can’t be mentally, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually satisfied
- that home can not be a personally-stimulating place
- that our self-worth depends on having individual aims that are separate and distinct from who we are and what we do in our homes.
They tell us our kids need A, B, C, and L, M, and N, and X, Y, and Z, in order to be well-adapted, well-socialized, well-opportunitied, brain-using little citizens.
And all too often, we believe those voices.
My (now-9-year-old) daughter & I, 2008
Some take it so far to say that if we have a brain, we ought to be using it for society… that other people can raise our children for us (because that’s mindless work, and they’ll be fine!!), so that we can contribute to the surrounding community.
(As though raising hard-working, honest, kind, agreeable, God-fearing, respectful children isn’t a significant contribution!!!!! … But let’s stay on track, cause boy I could go off on a tangent here if I “stray but a little”).
Even the Washington Post is asking, Why does our society perpetually devalue people who care for others?
Christians sometimes counsel young moms to get out of the home more so that they can participate in “real ministry.” Even in very godly circles, young moms can easily feel that what they are doing in their daily lives at home is not really the most faithful, godly thing they could be doing.
“The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only…. to support the ultimate career.” ― C.S. Lewis
What kind of world is it, really, where women are:
- encouraged to feel negatively about being home with the very people who need them most?
- taught that the only jobs of real value are those which keep them from the greatest joys and delights of life?
- made to feel that their minds are can only be fully used outside the home, serving people other than the family they love best?
- thought to be in some way less when they choose to use their intellect and passion to infuse the minds of the next generation with a strong moral foundation, good common sense, and a broad, wise understanding of the world around them?
It is lousy, unbiblical advice that encourages women to abandon the God-appointed place of their sanctification and usefulness to Him. And for young moms, generally, that place is in the home.
G.K. Chesterton wrote these wonderfully encouraging thoughts:
When people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean.
When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean.
To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it.
How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone?
No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.
Interestingly, and far more importantly for my decision-making process, the Bible tells young women that they need to learn to be “working at home” and loving their children.
Women DO eventually reach an age when conceiving, bearing, and breastfeeding children is no longer feasible. But God has given the privilege of conceiving, birthing, and nursing children to young women, and it is only for a season.
Fall 2014- Ethan (12) with Doug & I
So I have chosen, over these 13 years, to again and again yield myself to this life-changing work of daily, up-close motherhood. Instead of an ever-increasing salary, and instead of working my way to the top of political offices, my work has been something very different.
My salary has been paid in
- kisses and
- dandelions and
- foot rubs and
- lazy walks and
- snuggles and
- “mama you’re so pretty”s and
- leisurely conversations about books and art and economics and the sexual revolution and empires, and
- satisfied smiles aimed at me, across the dinner table.
And contrary to the guilt-ridden messages I often hear about the competing interests that lay claim to women’s hearts in the wide world, I can tell you from this side of things: there is no underlying guilty feeling on my part for having made these choices. Rather, there is great peace and soul-rest in having made the choice to “sacrifice” my career so that I can invest in my husband’s and children’s hearts and lives in this way.
Not “getting out of our home more” has been a critical decision of my life, and it is already bearing fruit.
So then, you might be thinking, yes, yes, you stay at home, we all know that, so what?!
Well, there’s more… and while the last part may have been hurtful or offensive to those who don’t stay home, this part may just be an equal-opportunity offender.
Because this idea of “you should get out of the house more” being a terrible idea doesn’t merely apply to whether or not we are a “stay home mom”– it also applies to whether or not we actually *stay* home. What I’m driving at is this: when it comes to outside-of-the-home commitments, I say “no” an awful, awful lot.
ACTUALLY BEING HOME (I SAY “NO” A LOT)
“What do I say no to?” Well I’m glad you asked.
- weekday Bible studies
- co-ops (more often than not)
- playgroups
- fitness memberships
- meetups
- most community meetings and classes
- clubs
- trunk shows & private home sales “parties”
- most library functions
- most extracurricular activities for our kids
We could spend hurried heaps of time merely trucking back and forth to events that (by and large) my kids won’t even remember.
Not to mention
- the hustle,
- the words spoken in frustration,
- the cost of eating out,
- the cranky exhaustion that happens when little ones miss naps,
- the extra expenses, etc.
Contrary to the go-go-go message communicated nowadays to young mothers, I don’t think the busying-up of our lives, and upping-the-stakes of our commitments, has done anything other than harm the fabric of our families. Collectively, our families are weaker than we were when our kids had less. Collectively, we are weaker than we were when their college applications had less notables written on them.
Let me be clear: Singularly, these things can be wonderful… beneficial, even. But on the whole, more often than not, they eat up our time… and time is the precious, ever-decreasing stuff life as a family is made of.
Truly, without much effort at all, I could be running all day every day, all week long. Instead, most often, I do what they counseled us to do in high school in regard to drugs– I “just say no.” On the whole, I’ve found that it’s best for us to be at home rather than running everywhere else.
MORE IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER
As believers, our homes ought not be run according to the principles, wisdom, and priorities of the world. This is an easy trap to fall into, especially with spiritual events.
It’s difficult… young Christian moms are often actively encouraged to join groups like MOPS, ladies’ Bible studies, playgroups, or other fun weekday activities. Because of their husbands’ role, missionary and ministry wives may be pressured or expected to take on more church responsibilities than they should have while having young children at home. Young mothers who display any sort of spiritual depth may be asked to teach Sunday school classes, take on volunteer roles that eat up precious hours each week, head up ministries, or contribute time and energy to all manner of “good” things.
It can be hard to discern what God wants us to do when other people are so vocal in telling us what we “need” to be doing. It may require that we learn to say, and get good at saying, “no.”
We may need to learn to graciously but unapologetically stand up for what God reveals in His word– that God’s general plan for young moms is to be doing the basics– loving their husbands, loving their children, exercising self-control, living purely, and working at home, offering kindness to others and submission to their own husbands. It’s not popular, but making atypical decisions almost never is.
And sometimes you can even get lambasted for it by other Christians… that you need to be doing “more.” Sometimes it is the very people who ought to be encouraging us to stay home– the “older women” mentioned in Titus 2– that ask or encourage us to be away from our homes. But regardless of who’s doing the asking, we need to take to heart the things that God would have us learn and do as younger women, and implement these things.
MOTHERHOOD = DISCIPLING DAILY
Summer 2015, my youngest two sons, Theo (2) and Luke (5 months)
When you are discipling little souls and training them to love Jesus while wiping their noses, tying their shoes, doling out discipline, and cutting their meat into smaller bites, you ARE “doing more”.
It is a HUGE thing to be daily in contact with one or more young disciples that you are loving and training up in their faith. It is a HUGE thing to be available to answer their queries, tell them a Bible story, listen to lengthy explanations about the purpose of a new toy creation, tell them about a people group on the other side of the globe, read a novel aloud together, or to pray with them at night when they are scared.
It is a HUGE thing to be, daily and hourly, earning the trust and respect of a little person, so that they might later all the more fully trust and respect Christ.
It is a HUGE thing to “just” spend time with your children. Christ Himself spent three entire years with 12 grown men and some of them still took a while to really get it. And let’s not forget that it wasn’t all miracles and parables… sometimes, Jesus & His disciples were just sitting around eating fish, or taking a nap in the hull of a ship.
Even Jesus had mundane moments amidst the intense daily discipleship.
I don’t want to act as if anything outside the house is wrong– that is not what I’m driving at… but what I mean is this:
what is happening INSIDE our home is so very very important that it takes a massive amount of “upside” for me to be willing to trade in those daily, hourly, character-forming things.
We as moms are given (Lord willing, if we are blessed to watch them grow into adulthood) potentially 18-20 years of daily interaction with our children. That sounds like a lot. It’s really not.
Already I’m feeling it.
My oldest, 13, used to be snuggly and have pudgy feet. Now he’s lanky and wears deodorant and we’re discussing George Orwell and presidential debates and whether or not he can have his own e-mail address and learn to write code.
We need to listen to those older women– have you heard them? Nearly every single one says “it goes so fast!”
That’s because it really does.
We are privileged to pray for and with our children, “study” them– learning their personality, their strengths & weaknesses, their skills, their interests– and, in so doing, offer wise guidance as counsel as they grow, and serve them with kind affection. Spending time together, watching, teaching, learning, and loving– these are no small things.
SO, SHOULD I STRIVE TO “GET OUT OF THE HOUSE MORE?”
Istanbul, Turkey – in 2008 – when my kids were 6, 4, 2, & an infant
Here was my answer in 2008:
Sometimes I struggle here, particularly in an overseas setting– I want to be able to communicate with my neighbors better. I wish I had more time for Turkish study. I would enjoy being able to share deeper things and communicate more clearly, instead of at a toddler-level of communication in this language. There is a natural pull there for me.
And sometimes, well-meaning others even give me that oft-offered advice, “you should get out of the house more”. I know that from the outside, mine seems like a very cloistered life.
But right now, I have four small children… four little people I get to communicate with every single day. Four souls that I can impact and disciple every single day. Three men and one woman who I can begin influencing and shaping right now. I am doing big things and changing the world by discipling those that God has put into my immediate sphere of influence.
And it’s a job no one else can do in the way that God has equipped me to do.
Washington, 2015– my oldest 4 kids are 13, 11, 9, & 7
My thoughts now, 7 years later, in 2015:
I’m now a mom of SEVEN children, 13 down to 9 months old, and part of me wishes I could take time for every single fun and interesting thing I (or they) want to do, or everything other people want from me. But I can’t.
Instead, again and again, I commit myself to purposeful motherhood.
I still need to be every bit as selective as I did when my 4 kids were 6 & under, or else my time will be EASILY taken over by commitments, plans, get-togethers, kids’ events, sports, practices, library reading times, dinners, clubs, and more. They may all be good, fine things… hear me: none of it is inherently sinful or wrong. And yet filling up our calendar, even if we all had fun and made new friends, would not be a net GOOD for us.
Our time together will be gone all too quickly. God has given me seven amazing people to disciple. I can’t shirk this job now, and then later get these years back. This is my one crack at it.
Whether or not the world salutes it, whether or not the Christians around us value it, there is high value and eternal significance to this one-shot, daily work of motherhood.
It’s not for the faint of heart. No matter if our culture lies, saying it’s easy, insignificant, or that anyone can do it… or even, if some say that it’s too hard, and no one can do it well, and so we might as well put our kids in daycare, gripe about them, and have a margarita already, we have God’s design as our guide and His Word as our plumb line.
Very few commit themselves to hands-on motherhood for the long-haul, and each year, fewer and fewer do it well.
Bike riding with my 7 children, in one of our first goes with the Bakfiets-style bike we got in Spring 2015
I don’t want to give in to the pull of doing everything else but this. Even this many years into my full-time-at-home job, I want to keep going, and eventually cross the finish line with exuberance. I want to walk through even the hardest of times with God’s peace and joy, and through the good times with gratitude. I want to (with ever-increasing skill) encourage my husband and children with the reliable, rock-solid source of comfort, strength, and wisdom: God’s Word.
I want to yield myself, daily, to the demands of the Potter who knows much better than I do what I was made for… and He– the God of all the Universe!!– has made me a mother.
IN THE COMMENTS, PLEASE SHARE: How do you prioritize your children and home amidst the constant, magnetic pull to “get out of the house more?”
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