Another Look At Staying Home

Well. I have had all day to think about the shockingly harsh comment made on my earlier post. (If you didn't see it, it is no longer there.) While I do not feel that a response is necessary, it does seem that some clarification may be helpful.

The backdrop of the original post, as I explained in the post, was recent conversations I have had with moms who work out of the home but express a desire to be home with their children. I was recounting these conversations and wondering aloud.

I hear the friction these women are experiencing – they are working but want to be home with their children. Not all women feel this way, obviously, but I was musing on this common thread that linked these separate dialogs in my mind. To extrapolate from this that I think women who work outside of the home should not have children, is quite contrary to the spirit of my post.

The circumstances of many women do indeed require them work to support their children. My post was not about these women. My post was about women who are working, who do not necessarily have to work outside the home, but do so anyway. In fact, my post is even more narrowly focused on moms who are working outside the home but desire to be home with their children. I stated that “this could obviously be a long post.” But, this was a blog post, and not the place to consider and expound on every possible scenario. (Due to time constraints, I am guilty of short, often infrequent posts.)

Finally, I want to reiterate the focus and purpose of the post. The impetus for this post was recent conversations with mothers who work outside of the home, yet all desire to be home with their children. This was an encouragement for that group of moms to consider seriously what they feel God’s call on their time to be. Are they working outside the home so that they can have a bigger home and more material things? Is it really necessary for them to work? Are they trusting God's design for them as their husband's helper? Could they be content with less in order to spend more time with their children? I don’t have the answer to those questions, but I encourage working moms to consider them.