Ladies,
Were you trained to love your husband and children, or to work at home? We live in a culture that trains women for everything except the family and home. This part of a woman’s life is patently ignored for the workforce. We are mostly trained to make money, shake hands, build business and to feel like this is where our value lies. No wonder so many women suffer from depression at home and after having children. On top of her body adjusting, she was never given permission to be at home with her babies but sustains an expectation to jump back into a paycheck job sometimes while a newborn is still brand new. I have never met a baby or a child who preferred to be in daycare or with a nanny. This is not the ideal situation for anyone even if it is the unfortunate necessity for some.
“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”
Titus 2:3-5
Even for the women without children, they are taught that their place is in the workforce not the home. We have erased women at home and the very concept of working at home has gone unheeded for so long it is no wonder women do not choose it or think they should not choose it.
Women have a right to work at home. In fact it is our God given directive. While we absolutely can make money and are given an example of earning money as the Proverbs 31 woman, women are shown a different purpose in scripture while men are directly commanded to work to earn money and to provide for his household.
The worst crime of preening women only for the workforce instead of the home is that women behave as foreigners in their own domain. She is unacquainted with what to do all day. She is overwhelmed. She always has a (fairly accurate, depending on her situation) suspicion looming over her that no one values her at home. Women have suffered the loss of their own homes for the pursuit of the outside job.
How do you run your home? Does it hold the level of importance you place on a workforce job? Or does your house languish daily in a state of neglect because you do not value it the same way others do not? If a health inspection was done in your house today as in a restaurant, would yours pass? Would you rent a hotel room in the same condition you find your house in currently? Do you have a plan for dinner tonight? Are you thinking about how to serve your household today or are you thinking about yourself?
Working at home is a lost skill and a lost mindset. But if we compare the way we run our homes to any other work we might have a realization of our own disrespect toward our job at home. Working at home is a necessity that culture ignores. But we have a God given directive that shows us a role we are meant to fulfill. Notice that working at home is sandwiched between being pure and being kind, which are not suggestions. Working at home is not a suggestion or an option for some. This is a directive to women. Working at home makes an impact the same way that loving husbands and children make an impact. Loving our family and working at home is of the utmost importance. Many people grow up in homes that are neglected both physically and emotionally. We have a job to build a home where both are tended. Our words, our work, our presence in the home, it all matters to a degree that the world minimizes in pursuit of clout and money.
If you ever feel insignificant in your role at home just remember that the neglect of a home is not insignificant and you are the difference. You are not just the cleaning, or the meal making, you are the ambiance.
“The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.” Proverbs 14:1
A wise woman builds her house. The world teaches us to build our careers. While it is not wrong to have a career we must consider how it has dominated the purpose of women’s lives and whether that was ever meant to be.
There is a purpose and a work we have been assigned. We must work to be pure and kind and to love our family and we must train these attitudes into ourselves. This is as much a work in the home as cleaning it. Work to clean with kindness work to cook with kindness. The world says there are more important things for you but maybe we need to listen more to the Word of God.
Happy homemaking ladies. You are changing the world.
