Working Mothers

The director of a center for women's concerns said, "Men have always been able to be involved in creative, self-actualizing work." She would like to see more women released from traditional women's work "to be involved in creative work." Creative work, in this lady's view, does not seem to include homemaking and mothering. Why not? I would like to ask. And who, for heaven's sake, is going to do the homemaking and mothering? The lady says she felt confused and frustrated when she was doing it, and "struggled with fulfillment." Many women feel as she does. I meet them often. What I long to help them to see is that if homemaking and mothering are the tasks God has assigned to them at present, it will be in the glad offering up to Him of those tasks that they will be truly "creative" and find real fulfillment.

There's an eternal spiritual principle here. It ought to be enough reason for anybody. Is there any other reason why I am always telling young mothers to stay home? Yes, two absolutely unarguable ones, and a third interesting one which you can argue about if you want to.

First, the Bible clearly tells me (an older woman) to teach younger women "how to work in their homes" (Titus 2:5, JB), or to be "busy at home" (NEB), or be "domestic" (RSV).

Second, children need their mothers. They need quantity time. None of this "quality time" nonsense. Any time which a Christian mother who loves her children gives them should be "quality."

Third, it's very possible that a working mother's income is not nearly so "extra" as may at first appear. Take a look at a study done by Wayne Coleman of Austin, Texas. I think his estimates are very modest. From weekly earnings of $175, subtract:

$17.50...tithe
35.00.....withholding tax
11.00.....Social Security
20.00.....transportation (.20 mile, 10 miles to job)
7.50.......lunches (these will have to be dieter's specials!)
12.50.....clothes, shoes, dry cleaning
35.00.....child care for one
5.00.......hair and cosmetics
1.00.......office collections, gifts, entertainments
2.00.......coffee breaks, miscellaneous
10.00.....extra for bring-home meals

Net income weekly: $18.50. If you subtract from this the things a woman may buy which she would not have bought if she didn't have "her own income," or that she may feel she deserves because she's working, how much "extra" is there for the necessities that convinced her she needed the job?

Here's a testimony from a young woman in Texas who has no children yet. "The struggle I'm having is even though I work only part-time, there doesn't seem to be time to keep house, be with other women, reach out to the needy and lost. I know the pressures of the world, pushing for 'upward mobility,' figure more into the picture than I realize, making my struggle quite a fight. A part of me wants to quit the job, another part of me isn't that free yet!"

Please--if you're a mother of young children, considering getting a job, will you consider these questions first?

• Will your income really be worth it?
• Will it increase your husband's tax burden?

Are you giving your best to your family and/or your employer? Former premier of Israel Golda Meir said that a working mother is torn apart--when in the office she's thinking of all she didn't get done at home, and when at home she's thinking of all she didn't get done at the office.

Would your husband be able to do a better job at work if you were doing a better job at home? What are your real motives for wanting to work? Could it be social pressure, boredom, acquisitiveness, pride, and unwillingness to do humble things? Are you trying to prove something?

I know some mothers of young children who in the face of genuine economic necessity have asked God to show them work they can do at home. Then they've gone to the library and read about businesses that can be engaged in at home, or they've been given an "original" idea. It's amazing to hear the answers God has given. "Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things."