I am a peacemaker.
By my very nature I want everything to be okay and everyone to get along and sing in harmony while fluttering along with the butterflies….while eating cupcakes.
I do not like conflict. I do not even like the possibility of conflict. But alas, one cannot escape it…and that is not a bad thing (repeat over and over self, “conflict isn’t always bad”). It is with a sincere and “peacemaking” heart that I write the following…
A sweet friend had some wonderful questions about my decision to raise a homemaker. I have decided to post the questions and my answers for any of you who be interested in *my* thoughts on the raising homemakers…
1. Would you still encourage your daughters to go to college?
I don’t know. How I feel about college so far on my journey is that we will not be talking a lot about it because it is not our focus for our daughters. If we are raising them to be homemakers I don’t want to send them off to college and strap them with debt that they (or their husbands) will have to pay off. So many women have to work so they can pay off college debts. Also, I’d rather them spend their time focusing on serving the church, ministering to others, and continuing in their life and homemaking skills…on a more practical level. This is no way means that they will not have an education! Some of the most educated women I have come across have not been schooled at a college (see Jasmine Baucham and be blown away). Would I stop my daughters from going to college? Probably not (could I even?). There are so many options for education in between! I will love my children no matter what life path they choose. For a wonderful explanation about how I feel about the college thing, read this: Should a Young Woman Go to College?
2. What if they want to pursue careers? What if God has instilled a deep desire in them to fight social injustice, climb Mt. Everest, start their own company, become a professor, train as a veterinarian, go into the military? Would these clash with this idea of homemaker?
If my daughters want to pursue careers outside the home that is their choice. I will encourage, teach, and train them as homemakers with the hope that they will choose to stay home and raise their children throughout the day, side by side teaching, discipling, educating, and mentoring. I think a homemaker can fight social injustice, climb Mt. Everest, start their own company, and be a professor to their children! A woman, as we all know, is capable of many things, it doesn’t mean she has to do them working a job outside the home. I would not encourage military service as a soldier, ever (and yes, my sister is in the army).
3. What can we do to prepare women whose children have left the nest, who need to go back into the workforce, or find themselves called into work beyond the home?
Women whose children have left the nest can dedicate themselves to ministry! ”Washing the saints feet,” “ministering to the poor,” “teaching and training younger women…” or working alongside her husband. The body of Christ needs women!
4. Does one need to be based at home 24/7 to be termed a “homemaker”?
No.
5. Don’t many of the skills one gains in the “career world” directly impact one’s ability to be an “intentional homemaker”? Time management, discipline, organizational skills, strategic thinking, networking, dealing with conflict….
Yes! There are skills that can certainly be used from the “career world” to help anyone in life. However, with regards to managing a home well, there definitely needs to be additional, intentional training (just ask most any stay-at-home mom who wasn’t trained in the homemaking arts!).
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I believe it is God’s call for women to be home, not working a career outside the home. I also believe (and reality dictates) that things in life are not cut and dry. Therefore we as women need to love each other as sisters in Christ without condemnation…on either side of the “debate.”
Here’s the thing, it doesn’t so much matter what we think, it matters what God says.
There are many women out there, including my gracious, brilliant writer friend, who can write a much better article then I on perhaps why a woman should be able to work and not be raised solely as a homemaker. But this is what I know:
“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
I believe God when He says that women should be “working at home” so that His word would not be “reviled (or blasphemed).”
I think Jennie Chancey puts it well when she says,
“How does a woman blaspheme the Word of God? This isn’t something we can just brush aside or take lightly as a “cultural thing.” St. Paul evidently believed it would be obvious enough to his readers that he didn’t need to say, “Leaving the home and going out into the workforce is sin,” as Rev. Sandlin seems to think is necessary in order for us to avoid Phariseeism. But do we need such bald statements in order to understand St. Paul? Apparently, blaspheming God’s Word involves doing the opposite of what St. Paul has just exhorted women to do: be “reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, 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.” Going to the Greek again, the word for “homemaker” used here is oikouros, which literally means “guard or watcher of the house.” Thayer’s Lexicon renders the meaning “keeping at home and taking care of household affairs.” A woman cannot both “keep at home” (or “guard the house”) and “keep” in a separate workplace.” Responding to Titus 2 Cynics
God made a woman to be Adams helper-completer – she came from him and was for him. God made our bodies to grow life…He made our bodies to then nurture that life from our breasts. He gave us a good and noble call to love our husbands and children and work at home…why? So we could be free to tend to our children’s souls day in and day out without the pressures of a “job.” So we could manage a household well in order to invite people in – to show and share the love of Christ with hospitality, minister to those in need, disciple our children, and so much more!
We may be gifted and skilled in many areas, but I think we can be creative and learn how to use those giftings to serve God without forgoing our place in the home.
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I know that many of the things I said here will offend or hurt some of you out there. I hate that. I do not have that intention whatsoever, I am just speaking to where I am at right now. I am always learning and seeking truth…and falling hard into grace.
Thanks for reading.
