It's OK to Be a Stay-At-Home Mom!

As a young feminist college student, I never expected to be a stay-at-home mom.  With the newly found empowerment of feminist thinking, why would I want to assume a role of such powerlessness? Needless to say, discerning God’s will for my life was not even on the radar at that time.

With the birth of my first child some years later, I took one look at him and realized my career plans were out of the question.  I was not leaving him full time to anyone else. I did continue to teach for a bit in the evenings, but my heart was not in it. I soon stopped all work outside the home.

Did this decision make me less of a woman? Was it not using my education and intellect? Did it resign me to boredom and menial tasks? Did it make my life work insignificant? The answer is "no" to all these questions.

Pope Saint John Paul II said it so well in his Apostolic Letter “On the Dignity  and Vocation of Women.” (Mulieris Dignitatem)

Motherhood implies from the beginning a special openness to the new person: and this is precisely the woman’s “part.”  In this openness, in conceiving and giving birth to a child, the woman “discovers herself through a sincere gift of self.”….It expresses the woman’s joy and awareness that she is sharing in the great mystery of eternal generation.

Clearly we are no less women for choosing to say home to love and care for our children.

Does staying home not use my intellect? There is nothing so challenging as forming a child of God, a unique human soul, into the person God intended. It stretches a woman intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. The task is monumental, and requires every ounce of grace and strength a woman is able to receive. 

Is child raising menial work? Not at all. Mothering requires a lot more than changing diapers, supplying food, and keeping a child safe. It requires the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of a saint, and the love that only a mother can give. I remember sitting with my sister on the patio of Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, watching my daughter of about three years throw tiny pieces of bread to the birds. She laughed with delight each time a bird came. I looked at my sister and said, “There is not a job in the world I would rather have than being able to watch Anne throw breadcrumbs to the birds. 

Is mothering insignificant work?  C.S. Lewis wrote “The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only—and that is to support the ultimate career.”  Why is homemaking the ultimate career?  (And by homemaking I’m sure that Lewis meant at home caring for children). Caring for children is the ultimate work because it is the most important. All parents, working outside the home or not, will agree that their most important work is the raising of their children. Even if there are those who call it "not even working", caring for one’s own children is by far the most significant work of all.

Much has been written about the stresses of working mothers. Magazines abound with articles about how to make it work, how to reduce the stress, how to get through the years…. Dare I suggest an option that is never mentioned?  Women might consider taking time off from a career, working just part time, or even choosing the home and family as the focus of their work. You never know. For many of us, it’s the best decision we’ve ever made.