A question for working, married moms. I am not really addressing those of you who have children in school, nor am I addressing single moms. This inquiry is for those of you who have babies, toddlers or children not old enough yet to be in pre-school. Ok, here is the question. Why do you work? I often see young married ladies whose husbands make decent money going back to work when the baby is three or four weeks old while the baby is left with daycare or grandma. Again, single moms, I get it. Husband disabled or laid-off, I get it. Severe financial hardship, understandable. But if none of those are the case, why do you choose to work instead of waiting until your child is in pre-K at least? This is a serious question, not an inquisition. I’m a researcher, mind you. These kinds of social issues intrigue me. You owe nobody an explanation, nor should anyone judge you. So please feel free to express yourself in a non-confrontational formatI must also confess that, if I was a pastor, I would strongly counsel against it. I am thinking now of a couple of Pentecostal career women I know,in their late 20’s,with very small children that they are seldom seen with. They are very involved in ministry and so not only are they spending pitiful little quality time with their kids at home, at church they are dumping them on someone else so they can be unbound to minister. Most of their ministry involves having a microphone in hand________________
Likely these young moms have educated themselves for a career and see that as a large part of who they are. Remember, this generation has been taught, ‘I am woman…I can bring home the bacon…fry it up in a pan… Trying to do it all – and the world tends to make them feel less than if they don’t. I work with a lot of highly educated nurses. They are lucky in that they can work three or four days a week & make a decent wage, but for many, it’s a full five day a week job, especially if you want to advance in your career. Some are likely conflicted, and I can bet you they all feel guilty at some level, because they may not feel like they are doing anything well. And some women work to provide the extras for their families – things the family/kids want, taking trips, sending kids to private school, etc.IMHO, young moms who don’t spend time with their kids so that they can minister don’t understand the sacrifice they are making. They don’t understand their first calling. And likely, unless they have more kids which makes it difficult, they may not realize until their kids get older that they missed the most wonderful opportunity in their lives.I understand now that I sacrificed important family time in the name of ministering to a friend. I also made the mistake of thinking my older teen kids didn’t need me as much during those years. There’s no way to get that time back. It’s a hard and painful lesson to learn________________More of Him…less of me.twitter.com/camiracle77www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=691241499&ref=name
Every case is different. Some of these moms are from homes where daddy left mama and kids and mama had NO means of support. Some of these women are saying that will not happen to me.I do wish there was a good answer to your question RS, But it is too complicated.I do believe the mama is VERY important to the family and should be with the kids. Most dads in fact are too BUSY to bother with the kidsl.You might also ask, Why does a woman feel that I might be left high and dry! ________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/
I think in a lot of cases, this is a matter of a single income (even a pretty decent one) not being enough to live what is seen as a modern standard of living by many. Two incomes is the price of progress. To be clear, I am not making a judgment or value statement about whether the price of progress is or is not worth the double-income household. This is only food for thought for the researcher in you. Here’s one of the better write-ups I’ve seen to answer the question What has changed in the last 40 years so that it now takes two incomes to maintain a household?:
This was an incredible, make-sense post. Thanks for sharing it________________
Sadly, one pastor I know encourages moms ,even of new borns, to get a career since most marriages end in divorce. Kind of a preventive measure type thing. Should a pastor be teaching their saints to have such a shaky attitude about the longevity of their marriage________________
I think that many more feel or are going to feel the same regret you express here________________
Paul made it clear that young women were to bear children and mange the household. Men are commanded to provide a living for the family. Therefore biblically, the two have very distinctive roles________________
Thanks SW, what a trip down memory lane. Also very much truth there.Oh yes and some guy passed me in a 70k truck this AM on my way to church towing a 40K boat. They only have Sundays to enjoy that toy. ________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/
Paul made it clear that young women were to bear children and mange the household. Men are commanded to provide a living for the family. Therefore biblically, the two have very distinctive roles. #1, you didn’t say anything about Christian women.
Paul made it clear that young women were to bear children and mange the household. Men are commanded to provide a living for the family. Therefore biblically, the two have very distinctive roles. #1, you didn’t say anything about Christian women.#2, Paul also made it clear that women should remain silent in the church. That’s how we do it. If we agree, it is how it is. If we disagree, it was the culture of the day. I have already guessed that you are too good of a scholar to really believe the interpretation of number 2 you posted here. But that aside, why do I detect that you are being needlessly difficult________________
No different than a Dad taking a second job.What ever it takes to make ends meet.Average home over 10,00 in credit card debt, over 20,000 in automobile debt, mortgage, etc…Those are MUST pays every month or face bankruptcy.No wonder average church tithe is around 3%…at least you don’t face bankruptcy with God________________
No, the roles are not distinctive; it only seems so because we elevate money to a status beyond what it is–a means of exchange. Father and mother are both providers. In recent history, often the father was monetarily compensated for the work he did to provide while the woman was providing work that wasn’t monetarily compensated. (When we say a working mom, why are we only referring to a mom whose work is monetarily compensated?) Now, more often than not, both parents are working outside of the home for monetary compensation. Before the Industrial Revolution, a man might have been a homesteader or farmer, and both parents would have worked at home. If you remember the story about the Shunammite woman, the child had gone out to the field with his father. If you are a researcher, you should know that some women put a heavy table leg on the infant’s shirttail and left him under the table while she went to work the field. She would have taken a break from the field to come in and nurse the baby. After the Industrial Revolution, there were women working in cotton mills and nursing the baby on their breaks, with older siblings pitching in with childcare or working in the mills themselves. It could easily be argued that a modern daycare is an improvement on those conditions for the child.The instructions Paul gives in Timothy about women marrying and bearing children are contrasted with them being idle busybodies. He is not saying that women may not stay single (certainly not, because in another passage, he praises the devotion a single person can have in service to God). Nor is he defining a female role. He is warning against idleness. The scripture doesn’t condemn the woman in Proverbs 31for the business she conducts, nor was Lydia condemned for selling purple fabric.Generally speaking, it seems young children are better off being cared for by their own parents, and that is often most practically accomplished in our society by the mother staying home while they are preschoolers, but that is not scripturally mandated, and it has become harder to do and make ends meet for various reasons (some of which are covered in Shaun’s post).
My married (wife) mother of two works for many reasons and has since before we married. She worked all through college, in spite of the fact that her father is a doctor and didn’t require her to, but because she wanted to. She has worked the entire time that we’ve been married (20 years) with the following exceptions: the four months that she student taught to finish her education degree requirements, the two months after we moved from NJ to GA before she could start a teaching job, and the the six months after we moved from GA to TX before she could start a teaching job.She never missed work in having either child, as she gave birth during her summer break both times and stayed with them for the 6 weeks before they were old enough to attend the daycare at the church that I was on staff at. Why? For many reasons.Shaun and Bonnie have both covered many of them. The only real one that matters to me, as most of the others can be figured out and worked through, is that she wants to. I do appreciate her hard work and sacrifice as she has definitely elevated our personal standard and comfort of living. She pays tithe into the church that we pastor, she pays for our health insurance, she makes two car payments and auto insurance, she pays for wifi and satellite tv, and she pays to send both of our sons to a camp each summer. She paid for me to go on my very first mission trip. We use our combined tax refund to pay for home updates and vacations. For awhile she was an airline employee so we used her flight benefits to travel.I don’t think that a married mom is somehow less than because she chooses or needs to work outside of the home to help the financial situation of her family. Nor do I think that a stay-at-home mom is somehow less than because she chooses or needs to work inside the home without financial compensation. One size does not fit all. To each their own. What is that to thee, follow thou Me!________________Proverbs 3:5-6; John 13:34-35; Acts 1:8
Let me refocus this discussion at this point….I commented….
Based on what standard of living? If parents with one income can only afford a two bedroom apartment (house, condo, whatever), one car, and rice and beans for dinner every night until the child can be put in pre-school, does this still count as can make it on one income? Do you think quality of life during that three years is important to the parents or the child? (This is a genuine question for the sake of discussion and not a rhetorical question or argument.)If you’re talking about someone for whom it’s a wash for them to be working (i.e. Mom’s income – babysitter expense = $0), then consider the lost opportunity costs for the future. It’s an employer’s market right now even when it comes to unskilled labor, and many people of childbearing age report themselves as being underemployed despite looking for jobs. If you have a job, you have to protect it right now. You can’t assume you can easily find another job in 2-5 years when your kid goes to school.Aside from that, if you are having multiple children, depending on how they overlap, you could easily be out of the workforce for 10 years from the time the first is born until your third is 5 years old and in kindergarten. At that point you submit a resume with a 10-year gap in employment as far as HR is concerned. It’s nice that you were qualified to work in this field 10 years ago, but things have changed a lot since then.Some things to consider: