On Wednesdays, I volunteer as a counselor at a crisis pregnancy center for three hours or so. I take the kids with me and Shepherd and Ella usually nap for two hours or more while I am there. Paxton entertains himself by coloring, reading, or watching veggie tales movies. I travel thirty minutes there and back since the center is in another town. All in all, the kids and I are usually gone for around five hours. Five hours.
Five hours shouldn't seem like that much. A good friend of mine commented on how difficult it would be to work outside the home, like I do, with more than one child. I hadn't thought about it like that before. I AM working outside the home. I am not getting paid, but I am certainly working. I think until now, I have just been thinking about it as simple volunteering. I guess that, when she said that, what was going through my mind was "I don't work outside the home!" And then, right after that, I thought, "Wow, that was so nice of her to notice that just because I don't get paid doesn't mean that my whole family isn't sacrificing every single Wednesday so that I can help those in need". How validating.
You see, I get home on Wednesday, late afternoon, and feel exhausted. Utterly exhausted. I feel like I have worked 40+ hours. I feel like nothing has been done around my home and I haven't taken care of my own family for SO long. How is that? Since staring to volunteer, I have had feelings of compassion for moms who HAVE to work like I never did before. I judged them. I judged them to be having "different" priorities. "Different" equaling "backwards". No longer do I feel that way. I really don't. I have so many friends who are in that struggle of HAVING to work to provide for their families, of having to make this exhausting juggle every single day. I love them so much and I think of how blessed I am. I am blessed that I don't have to. I am blessed to be able to stay home because Wednesdays exhaust me.
I have been saving this post as a draft for two days now, thinking that it might offend someone or that I shouldn't be THIS honest about how I feel. Ultimately I decided that, like Danielle Bean's post a day ago, this is my space to talk about what I want to, about what is on my mind.
That being said, coincidentally, I had an email from a friend yesterday afternoon after I had already begun this post. It was a friend who works, has been married for a little over a year and doesn't have children yet. This friend has thanked me on numerous occasions for staying at home with my children and not working outside the home. She feels passionately about it and feels that all mothers should stay at home. She even feels that it's a SIN not to. In her email, she asked me if I felt the same way. My answer? I don't know. That judgment is left to God. I DO think that working for the sole motivation of having more money and more material things is sinful, since it is greed and sloth and those are clearly sins. I don't however think that all working mom's are working because they want to wear Estee Lauder makeup and Gucci sunglasses. Some legitimately must work so that their children can eat. I do happen to think that far too many women, however, have convinced themselves that they are in the "must work" category and not the "want to" work category. Pride is also a sin, so if I go any further I am guilty of an equal sin; judgment.
Any thoughts?
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3 comments:
I think some women really do have to work outside the home. I had to after my first was born for the first 20 months of his life. It was our mistake to have had misplaced priorities early in our marriage and we had to pay for those excesses. But God blessed us abundantly, and made it quickly possible for us to recover. I began staying home full-time when I had my second child.
But...I do think many women think they need to work, but really don't. They just need to reevaluate priorities. I think many husbands want their wives to work. I think society pressures women, especially those with professional degrees, to continue to work (to the benefit of society). I think there is little value placed on being a SAHM, and so it is difficult for a woman to be countercultural and do that.
I leave it up to God to know what is in someone's heart. Was it greed...or was it simply feeling backed into a corner that kept them in the workforce? Did they just not think their role as mom was important? Did they buy into the lie that we need our own space and fulfillment or we aren't complete? Did they simply not have enough money for the basics in life and have to work?
Some great points, Michelle. I completely agree that many women "buy into the lie". Like I said in a different reply, I really think there is a lot of grey area.
Kudos to you for reprioritizing, for taking the road less travelled. :)
This is definitely a topic near and dear to my heart! Kudos to you, and make no apologies for saying what's on your mind!
I, too, feel that many women have confused the "must work" category with the "want to work" category; in fact this is something my husband and I have discussed many times throughout our marriage. I work right now simply to help make ends meet, but I pray daily for the means to be able to stop.
In the meantime, I try to minimize the impact my working outside the home has on our family by working only at night (7p.m.-1a.m. or 1a.m.-7a.m), thereby ensuring that I am always home with my kids during the day and my husband is able to be with them while I am at work, and by working no more than two nights a week.
Our circumstances are not perfect, but whenever I start feeling sorry for myself for having to work at all, I think of all the women, who, as you mentioned, have to go to work every single day just to feed their children. My heart aches for them.
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