Stay-at-Home and Working Moms: My Thoughts
I’m a stay-at-home mom, and that automatically places me on one side of a cultural debate: whether it’s best for moms to stay home with their young children or work outside the home. From my lifestyle choice, I clearly believe there is validity to the stay-at-home option. But it may be unclear what I think about the working-outside-the-home option.
Of course, what matters isn’t what I think, but what God’s Word says. The verse most commonly used in defense of the position that women should stay home is Titus 2:5: “to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”
This post is a brief summary of my view and not an in-depth Scriptural analysis, but I reached my conclusions after studying other Scriptures as well. What is clear in Scripture is that women, especially wives and mothers, are to make the home a high priority. What is not clear is exactly what this will look like for every woman in every situation in every culture.
The Bible simply doesn’t set out arbitrary lifestyle rules in this area. You will not find any verses that say it is wrong for a woman to work outside the home (the Proverbs 31 woman even bought and sold outside the home).
Another point to remember is that this debate is often framed by culture, even in Christian circles. We have the black-and-white options of staying at home, working at home, working outside the home part-time, or working outside the home full-time. We have various childcare options.
Women in many other cultures do not have options. Sometimes they must do hard labor just to eke out a meager survival. Sometimes their income is simply necessary in the household. Sometimes extended families live together and some of the women may work in various capacities while others will primarily be invested for caring for the children. It is easy to make swift, narrow applications based on a prosperous middle-class American mindset.
That doesn’t mean we can’t make practical applications using wisdom from the principles found in Scripture. Principle: The home is to be a high priority for every woman. Principle: Children need godly instruction. And the list goes on.
For me, the very first application I can make is that I shouldn’t look down on other families for their choices. Clearly there are many ungodly homes and terrible situations for children, but the mere fact that a mom works outside the home isn’t one of them. I shouldn’t draw hard and fast rules from Scripture that don’t exist, then use them to judge other families.
There are often many factors that play into a mom’s decision to work outside the home. Maybe she doesn’t want to work outside the home but her husband wants her to. Maybe her family legitimately needs the income. Maybe they’ve arranged for her to bring in a part-time income to help pay off debt. Or maybe they’ve simply decided that’s what’s best for their family at the time.
Our personal application in this area is that it is best in most cases for a mother of young children to stay home with them as much as possible. For biblical and practical reasons, I think young children need their mother’s care and instruction, and furthermore, I think it is the husband’s responsibility to be the primary provider.
It is my joy to stay home. We make sacrifices so I can. And I am thankful that I have the opportunity to do what we believe is best for our children in this area.
I see nothing wrong with encouraging mothers to turn their hearts toward home and consider staying with their children full-time if they have that option – not in a judgmental way, but showing how it is a good application of truths from Scripture.
All right, friends – what do you think? Your turn for the soapbox…
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(I should clarify… I didn’t make a very clear distinction between moms that NEED to work, and moms that chose to work so their family can have boats and 4 wheelers and so on and so forth… Just wanted to clarify. I hold moms that need to work for their families well-being in high-regard. 
Ok, I’m done now.)
I like how you put it – many mothers and families would experience great blessings by staying at home.
Love this post and so, so, so timely. I just posted on my own transition home and have spent a ton of time thinking about this very topic all throughout this year. Thanks, as always, for the great thoughts!
Good thoughts, here! I’ve haven’t worked since I was pregnant, so I really only know one side. I do know that my Husband has done absolutely whatever it takes so that I can stay at home with our kids. Before he was even close to being married, and just starting out his self-employed career he started doing what it took so that he would be the only income. I do think there is a definite need vs want when it comes to women being part of the income. I know a lot of Mom’s who work because they simply can’t handle being with their kids all of the time or are unwilling to say goodbye to their career.
I agree with Naomi, staying at home is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and when I was a working individual it was much easier (pre kids!). I absolutely do not know how working Mom’s do it, either. Love what you said, though….home should be top priority, and when you’re juggling between home and work – spouse/kids and coworkers, something gives eventually because none of us are superwomen.
I’ll get up on the soapbox for a few minutes
*I’ll preface the rest of my comment by saying that I think when you say “the home” you’re probably including “the family”, but in my comment I’m going to make a distinction between the family and the home.*
I guess it depends on how you read the Titus 2 passage…the be busy at home part could be referring back to Titus chapter one where the people of Crete are mentioned to be “lazy gluttons”.
I think the context of when the Bible was written almost required one person in the family to stay home. If we had to wash all of our laundry by hand, bake our own bread right from the pieces of grain, slaughter our own animals, grow our own produce, make our own clothes, etc and do it all before it got dark…. Then yes, one person would need to stay home and work because all of those tasks would be VERY time consuming and labourous. And if we happened to be lazy….well our family wouldn’t eat that day. There’s a lot of other differences between gender expectation, gender rules, etc that existed during the New Testament that don’t exist now.
The fact is for many moms who work outside of the home, the home is still a high priority because they continue to work when they get home. It’s called the “second shift”. And we often say that we make sacrifices to stay at home with our kids….well another truth is that for many women, going back to work and leaving their kids is a HUGE sacrifice, one that is often attached with a lot of guilt.
My question is, is it the home that should be priority or the family that should be priority? There are lots of women who can keep a nice home, but the family is in shambles. And really it’s not that difficult to keep a home clean, make nutritious meals, etc.
In my opinion it is the family that is the priority. The home is something that the family takes care of together. I don’t think tasks within the home (cooking, cleaning, child care) need to have gender specifications. And it takes all members of the family contributing in many different areas to make a good home and a good family. Often the amount of hours that women AND MEN work outside of the home can have a negative effect on the family. I think women who stay at home can also work too much…. to the point where we just “want to get one more thing done” so we end up neglecting our children or husband. “Mommy will come play in 3 minutes, she just wants to finish this”…..and then 2 hours later we sit down to play.
I also think it is important for women to have a means to financially support their family. Our husbands may not always be alive or able to work. And unlike the Bible we don’t have a “the community will take care of the widows” or a “I’ll just be married to my brother-in-law” clause to fall back on. The bank doesn’t care that you’re a widow or that your husband is sick or on disability or whatever, they just want their mortgage payment.
And if the home/family is such a big priority then what does the age of our children matter? Our kids need us just as much at each stage of their life as they do when they are young.
I think we need to be careful when assigning gender roles to life tasks. My husband and I have often considered me working full time and him being a stay at home dad. If I worked full time in my career, I would make almost 3x more money then my husband currently makes. He loves being home with our 1.5 children. If he stayed home and I worked, I don’t think our home would be any less godly or and less biblical.
that’s my 2 cents (or 50 cents *lol*)
I’m not a mother, but from my observations, motherhood is a struggle because, by staying home we(errr…you) say ‘no’ to the culture of Feminism. Of course, when given the chance to pursue a career, make money, and no less, be completely independent, who wouldn’t want to do that? In my opinion, motherhood is a clear example of saying ‘no’ to self. However, may God give grace to the women that may have to work to support their family, and the last thing they want to do is leave the home.
The biggest ordeal when it comes to a stay-at-home mom vs. working and stay-at-home or always working is between you and your husband. You *both* have to examine scripture and pray to see where God is leading you currently. If there is no sinful motive for going outside the home, and the family agrees (mind you, father and mother), I see no wrong in working outside the home.
^ At least, thats what I think- pre-marriage pre-kids, so I could be mistaken.
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I agree with you, Anna. I think it is ideal to be able to stay home with your children full-time, and I think it’s important for children to have a parent around to teach them about the Lord! That’s something they aren’t going to learn just anywhere.
I also agree though that it’s important not to judge other families based on what they decide to do in this area, because there are so many factors that go into decided whether the mom should work or not, and most of them aren’t obvious.
I live in another culture and am getting married soon. I always thought I would stay home with my kids, but I think my future mother-in-law pictures me going back to work while she takes care of the kids. In a way it’s practical, but I worry about not spending enough time with my kids and clashing with in-laws over generational (and cultural) parenting gaps.
On the other hand, I have no idea how I will feel once I have kids. So I will have to “wait and see” instead of dreaming up possible conflicts. I’m sure that it is possible to be a godly wife and mother no matter the culture or financial situation.
I agree with most of your thoughts very much! Its wonderful to hear of a mother making her home her place of work and investment.
Happy I “stumbled upon” your blog today! Very nice
My husband was laid off almost a year ago. He is in a narrow field and has not been able to find work and our savings is now gone. Because of our financial circumstances I have had to start working full time outside of the home. I fought this everystep of the way, but ultimatly it is in His plan for me to be here. It is not for me to question, just to follow. So now my husband is home with our boys and taking classes. My mind is ALWAYS on my family and I got over my mind being on how clean my house is ages ago. I agree that my FAMILY not my HOME are the priority. I know that I have been placed where I am at for some reason beyond my knowledge and that in all circumstances the Glory goes to He that provides for me.
LOVE this! I was a working outside the home mother for the first three years of having kids, so I have perspective on both. Now I am a SAHM. And, yes, it has taken some sacrifice for me to be a SAHM. I really think this is one of those things where we’re not given rules, simply exercises and desires, and strength for our circumstances. I think there are a lot of moms/families out there in our culture who would be abundantly blessed if they chose to make the sacrifice to stay home, BUT, that is not me being judgemental, to be clear–more of an observation on our society, and the things we feel we need. I will say that going to work was easier. I know that sounds crazy, but this is hands down, the HARDEST job I’ve ever had. I love it dearly.