1983 July/August issue Part 1

Working Mothers

Sue Horner, wife of the president of the Barrington College in Rhode Island and herself the director of the Center for Women's concerns in that college, in a recent interview in New England Church Life, said, "Men have always been able to be involved in creative, self-actualizing work." She would like to see more women released from traditional women's work "to be involved in creative work." Creative work, in Mrs Horner's view,  does not seem to include homemaking a mothering. Why not? I would like to ask. And who, for heaven's sake, is going to do the homemaking and mothering? Mrs Horner says she felt confused and frustrated when she was doing it, and "struggled with fulfillment." Many women feel as she does. I meet them often. What i long to help them to see is that if homemaking and mothering are the tasks God has assigned to them at present, it will be in the glad offering up to Him of those tasks that they will be truly "creative" and find real fulfillment.

There's an eternal spiritual principle here. It ought to be enough reason for anybody. Is there any other reason why i'm telling young mothers to stay at home? Yes, two absolutely unarguable ones, and a third interesting one you can argue about if you want to. First, the Bible clearly tells me (an older women) to teach younger women "how to work in there homes" (Timothy 2:5 Jerusalem Bible), or to be "busy at home" (New English Bible) or "domestic" (Revised Standard Version).
Second, children need their mothers. They need quantity time. None of this "quality time" nonsense. Any time which a Christian mother who loves her children gives them should be "quality."
Third, it's very possible that a working mother's income is not nearly so "extra" as may at first appear. Take a look at a study by Wayne Coleman of Austin, Texas. I think his estimates are very modest. From weekly earnings of $175 subtract:

$17.50   tithe
35.00     withholding tax
11.00     social security
20.00     transportation (20c mile, 10 miles to job)
7.50       lunch (this will have to be dieter's special!)
12.50     clothes, shoes, dry cleaning
35.00     child care for one
5.00       hair and cosmetics
1.00       office collection, gifts, entertainment
2.00       coffee breaks, miscellaneous
10.00     extra for bring-home meals (pick up a Stouffer's casserole, along with eggs and L'eggs?)

Net income weekly: $18.50. If you subtract from this the things a women may buy which she would not have bought if she didn't have "her own income", or that she feels she deserves because she's working, how much "extra" is there for the necessities that convinced her that she needed the job?
Here's a testimony from a young women in Texas who has no children yet. "The struggle i have is that even though i work only part time there doesn't seem to be time to keep house, be with other women, reach out to the needy and the lost. I know the pressures of the world., pushing for'upward mobility ,'figure more into the picture that i realize, making my struggle quite a fight. A part of me wants to quit the job , another part of me isn't that free yet!"
Please- if your a mother of young children, considering getting a job, will you consider these questions first?
Will your income really be worth it?
Will it increase your husband's tax burden?
Are you giving your best to your family and/or your employer? (Golda Meir said that a working mother is torn apart- when in the office she's thinking of all she didn't get done at home, and when at home she's thinking of all the work she didn't get done at the office.)
What are your real motives of wanting to work at home? Could it be social pressure, boredom, acquisitiveness, pride, an unwillingness to do humble things? Are you trying to prove something?
I know some mothers of young children who in the face of genuine economic necessity have asked God to show them work they can do at home. Then they've gone to the library and read of business about business they can be engaged in at home, or they've been give an "original idea". It's amazing to hear the answer God has given. "Your heavenly Father knows you have need of all these things."