This post is not going to make me very popular in today’s society, but I’m going to jump right into it. I remind myself that I went through four years at Chapel Hill with this and other “unpopular” and “archaic” viewpoints, and I survived, so why should I worry about my coolness level in the blog world? So I’ll start off my blog with one of the very broad reasons that I am going to be staying at home…
I like gender roles and think that, in many ways, they are a good thing for families.
Okay, I said it. Feel free to roll your eyes and hit that little “X” box in the upper right hand corner of your browser right now if you can’t bear to ready on (that is, unless you’ve already fainted).
I know that this flies totally in the face of modern culture, where we are actually taught that gender roles are unnecessary but largely narrow, bad, and oppressive. To me, there is a huge difference in believing in basic women’s rights (suffrage, equal work for equal pay, and other things that I think most of us would agree to be good things) and the belief that women should have to prove themselves to be the same as men in all ways possible. Let me explain further.
I think that men and women were created equal in terms of being heirs of salvation through Christ, and what a wonderful thing that is! But I DON’T think that means that God intends men and women to be the same in all ways. I believe that men and women were created as different by the Lord in order to offer their unique contributions to fulfill a single purpose – glorifying God. As Elisabeth Elliot puts it…
“Equality is not really a Christian ideal. It is, in the first place, very hard to get at what people mean when they speak of equality. Surely they can’t mean that men and women are like two halves on an hourglass or an orange…Men and women are equal, we may say, in having been created by God. Both male and female are created in His image. They bear the divine stamp. They are equally called to obedience and responsibility, but there are differences in the responsibilities….The statement ‘All men are created equal’ is a political one, referring to a single quality for a single purpose. C.S. Lewis called this a ‘legal fiction,’ useful, necessary, but not by any means always desirable. Marriage is not a political arena. It is a union of two opposites. It is a confusion to speak of ‘separate but equal’ or ‘opposite but equal’ in referring to this unique union of two people who have become, because they were made different in order that they might thus become, one flesh.”
I believe that God made women with an undeniable capacity for nurturing and relationships (I urge you to check out Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge if you want to delve further into this idea). I wish I had time to expand on it more here, but I think most of you can think of examples of this on your own. Who is more likely to send a card to cheer up a discouraged friend, a man or a woman? Now this is NOT because a man isn’t caring, but because I believe God made women with the deeper capacity for nurturing and maintaining relationships. If this goes for friendships, thing of how much MORE it applies to her relationships with her husband and children! It’s a pity to try to stifle this gift that God has given to women! As US Journalist Agnes E. Meyer said…
“God protect us from the efficient, go-getter businesswoman whose feminine instincts have been completely sterilized. Wherever women are functioning, whether in the home or in a job, they must remember that their chief function as women is a capacity for warm, understanding, and charitable human relationships.”
In my opinion, if women are given such a great passion for relationships, what better place to use them than in the home! And what better way to use them to their maximum than by being at home full time, where you can focus on your relationship with your husband and children above all else (which I think most would agree SHOULD be their top priority, after their relationship with the Lord)! In Titus 2:3-5, Scripture points out that a part of God’s design for a woman is that they be … “Teachers of good things – that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.”
I guess what I’m getting at is that, as women, we have the great opportunity to live out our God-given gifts and abilities such as caring for others, and I believe the best expression of those for many women (myself included) is at home, taking care of the house, a husband, and the children. Obviously a few others agree with me on this, too…
“Home is the true wife’s kingdom. There, first of all places, she must be strong and beautiful.” – J.R. Miller
“No occupation in this world is more trying to soul and body than the care of young children. What patience and wisdom, skill and unlimited love it calls for. God gave the work to mothers and furnished them for it, and they cannot shirk it and be guiltless.” -Isabella Alden and Mrs. C.M. Livingston (the "shirking" here not being implied about working mothers but rather any mother that isn't committed to the nurturing of her children and all that it requires - so no one freak out lol!)
Also, Scripture is pretty clear on the expectation of men to be the providers. Now I’m not saying that it’s wrong if a woman brings in more money than her husband, I’m saying that it’s wrong for a man not to do everything in his power to make sure his family is provided for. This is not my opinion, it’s God’s, specifically outlined in 1 Timothy 5:8 – “But if a man makes no provision for those dependent on him, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is behaving worse than an unbeliever.”
So, if Scripture is clear that a woman’s priority should be teaching and building relationships with her husband and children, and that a man’s should be providing for his family, doesn’t it make sense that the stay-at-home model may be a beneficial one? Personally, I think that a dual-income family where both partners work full time makes the division of household labor more difficult. If I am at home while David is working, then it makes it easy (well, maybe not easy, but more simple perhaps) for me to take care of the vast majority of household duties while he in turn brings in the income. I’ve noticed that in many dual-income families it becomes a battle instead – both people come home tired from work and then there is the hair-splitting task of determining how to divide the household responsibilities (cooking, cleaning, childcare) so that all is equal. Or, even worse, one partner ends up not only working outside of the home but doing the majority of the “inside the home” work, too! I thought the below was a humorous-yet-poingnant example…
“The Liberation Ladies will lead to generations of women willing to support a tired husband, and provide for his old age. He can be snug-abed in the morning while she pounds off in her thick boots to her job or carries a briefcase to her office. And when she comes home at night – she can cook him dinner, too, and wash and iron his shirts. She can do the housework while he watches TV and complains of the pain in his back – which she will eventually rub away at bedtime. Women wanted careers, didn’t they? They can do a man’s work, can’t they? Well, let ‘em do it, and be glad they were able to get a husband besides, even if they have to take care of him!.” – Taylor Caldwell
Personally, I don’t want the battle. I’d rather have my “set” of things to take care of – the care of the children during the day, the cleaning, the cooking, while David focuses on bringing in the income to meet our needs. I realize there will be times that David helps me with the housework, and times that I help David with his duties (in fact, on our to-do list right now is a trip to his office soon for me to help him get it better organized). But, for our family, I believe it is just easier for each person to have their primary role to serve.
One of the reasons that we have decided for me to stay at home is that we believe that it just works better that way, and that Scripture backs up the existance of specific roles for men and women! While many of the reasons I’m going to present later on this blog series may be a little more specific, this is one of the broad backings for our decision.
You can read my past posts from this series here...
Part 1: http://www.onefleshonelove.blogspot.com/2012/07/why-im-going-to-be-stay-at-home-mom.html
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