A week ago, <\/b>the blogosphere began buzzing about a debate that, to be honest, I thought maybe we’d moved beyond. Turns out I was wrong. The whole situation was about whether or not it was OK for Christian moms to work outside the home. Seriously. And people got really mad.<\/p>\n
I have an opinion about it, but I’m a man. Instead I asked my sister — the notorious Mama Monk<\/a>, Micha Boyett-Hohorst<\/a> — to address it in a guest post. I asked her because she is a feminist Christian who has worked full-time in ministry in the past but currently stays home. Her excellent blog<\/a> is about her struggle to maintain a robust spiritual life despite being a harried mom. Here’s Micha’s response to the whole moms-and-work kerfuffle:<\/p>\n ———————– <\/p>\n Last Saturday, <\/b>a little corner of Christian blogland erupted when Matthew Paul Turner That morning I sat at my computer in a post-Bible-bashing-induced funk So, having been a member of both sides of this particular Mommy battle, the That night I explained my frustration to my husband while I stuffed my mouth with Even Piper’s video admits that our understanding of “work” and “home” have The concept of a Stay-at-Home Mom did not exist until sixty years ago when, Three out of my four great-grandmothers<\/b> lived on cotton farms in the 1920’s and Was anyone asking if it was biblical for my Grandma Johnson to be gutting the I’m not implying that applying Scripture to the discussion of the working mother is Of course, that argument doesn’t get us all off the hook. If I were going to argue So as much as I’m thankful that I was not raising kids when Grandma Johnson I long to find some balance between the life of the mother I need to be and the So, until some genius can tell us there’s a way to do our work like Grandma ———————– <\/p>\n Thanks, Micha.<\/b> Read Micha’s blog<\/a>. Follow her on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A week ago, the blogosphere began buzzing about a debate that, to be honest, I thought maybe we’d moved beyond. Turns out I was wrong. The whole situation was about whether or not it was OK for Christian moms to work outside the home. Seriously. And people got really mad. I have an opinion about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-guests"],"yoast_head":"\n
\njoked <\/a>about John Piper’s video-stance<\/a> in which he “discourages” most mothers
\nfrom working outside of the home. Not only did Turner’s blog flame up with
\nangry comments (from both sides), but several of the blogs I follow couldn’t stop
\ntalking about the topic on Monday. While Turner’s wife Jessica<\/a> continued the
\nconversation, Nicole Wick posted a History of Women’s Suffrage<\/a> and Rachel
\nHeld Evans questioned whether women are really satisfied<\/a> with the choices
\nwe’ve been given. Among every conversation I came across, I found angry
\nmothers: Stay-at-Home Moms shouting Titus 2<\/a> at Working Moms (and Working
\nMoms pointing stubbornly at Proverbs 31<\/a>).<\/p>\n
\nwhile my two-year-old son ran around the dining room table, T. Rex in hand,
\nsinging, “Dinosaur Train!” I’m a SAHM who formerly worked full-time for a youth
\nparachurch ministry. Though I’m grateful for the opportunity to be home full-time
\nand though I’m in love with the life I share with my son, I often ache over the loss
\nof my life in ministry, a season when my gifts and passions so beautifully aligned
\nwith my God-given calling, One year into my son’s life, I chose to stay home, not
\nbecause it was necessarily the most biblical option, but because 1) I could, and
\n2) it was right for our family in this season of our lives.<\/p>\n
\nbig bloggy maelstrom I encountered was surprising…and disappointing. Call
\nme naive, but it simply hadn’t occurred to me that the same young, progressive
\nChristian population willing to read Turner’s edgy humor could be so convinced
\nthat God always calls women to stay home.<\/p>\n
\nhusband-made Caesar salad. (Authentic dressing with raw egg and anchovies?
\nHeck yes!) “I can’t help but think we’re having this discussion simply because we
\nlive in a society privileged enough that some women don’t have to work,” I said
\nwith a little strand of romaine hanging from my lip. “We can quote scripture about
\nwomen in the home all day long, but what does it even mean to work? And what
\ndoes it mean to be in the home?”<\/p>\n
\nchanged drastically in the past 100 years. There was no reason to ask if it
\nwas biblical for mothers to work before World War II. Mothers simply “worked.”<\/p>\n
\nfollowing the war, servicemen were given the chance to get an education<\/a>, which
\nled to better-paying jobs, which led to a move from rural farmland into cities, and
\nsubsequently to suburbs. Young, married women from rural backgrounds were
\nhanded keys to shiny, new three-bedroom homes. The existence of suburbia led
\nto a new concept: the homemaker. The “American woman” who had always lived
\namong extended family and shared mothering tasks with sisters and mothers
\nand aunts while working on the farm or making ends meet in the factory, found
\nherself in a brand-new situation. She was isolated in her home, caring only for
\nher immediate family. Her work had downsized considerably. She no longer
\nneeded to garden or butcher or collect the eggs. For the love of Betty Friedan<\/a>,
\nshe had a washing machine!<\/p>\n
\n30’s, raising young children. Were they SAHMs? Well, yes, and no. Of course,
\nthey raised their kids, hovering nearby while their eight children played with each
\nother. But they also worked. They worked as hard as every farmer’s wife in the
\nhistory of the world has worked. They planted gardens and milked cows and
\nstacked firewood and canned vegetables for the winter, all while raising babies.
\nTheir kids played around them on dirt floors while they tore cloth for diapers.<\/p>\n
\nchicken for dinner instead of playing catch with her very tall sons (those Johnson
\nboys had the longest legs in Oklahoma according to my Memaw)?
\nNo. Because everyone knew she had to feed those boys. And because it
\nwould be an absurd question to ask of someone in that situation and culture.<\/p>\n
\nabsurd. In fact, it’s vital. The Bible is clear that being a mother is holy business.
\n(Ask the Proverbs 31 woman.) The Titus 2 passage that came up so often in
\nthis week’s discussions simply states that a woman is to “love [her] children
\nand husband…and to be busy at home.” If we want, we can read that through
\na feminist lens of rage. But whatever we may think of Paul’s feelings toward
\nwomen–and I can be as conflicted as the next Christian feminist–it seems to
\nme that Paul is simply saying we need to love our families and fight against
\nlaziness. Among the women I know who struggle with their choices to work or
\nstay home, I can think of absolutely zero who are besieged with laziness. And
\nin that sense, this passage is a really an act of grace to those of us who daily
\nquestion whether or not we’re completely screwing up this motherhood thing.
\nProfessionals or not, we’re all busy at home.<\/p>\n
\nfor a biblical reason women shouldn’t work outside the home, it would be that
\nGod longs for us to know actual rest, something our culture doesn’t have the
\nability to give us, especially when we can so easily agree that we’re run ragged.
\nI’d have to argue, for the same reason, that women shouldn’t work as hard inside
\n<\/i>the home, either. Do you know any stay-at-home moms who get much rest? I
\ndon’t. Between PTA and carpooling and volunteering and homemaking, there’s
\nstress at home, too. And that’s also a cultural issue.<\/p>\n
\nwas whipping hers into shape (I would have been a terrible beheader of
\nchickens), I also regret that our culture lost our sense of balance when we shifted
\nfrom shared work and motherhood into the either\/or lens of our modern society.
\nWe’re all talk about “options” for mothers; but really there are only two: work forty-plus hours a week or don’t. I could list the problems with the choices we’re given:
\ntoo few options of flexible part-time work or work at home, the ridiculous cost
\nof childcare, the lame six-week required “maternity leave” that forces working
\nmothers to spend half their professional days pumping at the bathroom sink.<\/p>\n
\nminister I am called to be. But, whether it’s a cultural problem to be remedied
\nor a fact of life, whichever path a mother takes, she will bear the burden of loss.
\nNeither choice is easy because neither choice is whole. Both require immense
\nsacrifice.<\/p>\n
\nJohnson, digging in the garden while the kids run around us, I don’t think there’s
\ngoing to be an easy answer. Being a mother is always hard. Being a Christian
\nmother means we get the rare calling to offer each other grace in the midst of our
\nchoices.<\/p>\n