Dear daughter,
As you grow older, you’re going
to hear a lot about what you should and shouldn’t do as a woman.
You’ll hear it from your friends, on the TV, radio and you’ll
read numerous opinions all over social media (or whatever you’re
using by then). You’ll probably hear a lot of things said
about being a mother, particularly a mother who stays at home with
her kids. As the one who freely made that choice, I’d like to
share with you my honest thoughts on that life, and I hope they can
be a help for you as you grow older.
Being a stay at home mom is not
easy but, no matter what you may hear, neither is any type of work.
Every job has difficulties and frustrations. No matter what work you
choose, there will be days when you just don’t want to do it.
Being a stay at home mom can be lonely sometimes, but everyone has
seasons of loneliness; that is just part of being human. Being
a stay at home mom has its share of exhaustion and feelings of being
overwhelmed, but these are periods of life that everyone must face.
Being a stay at home mom is quite repetitive at times, but every type
of work has its repetition. Repetition is a part of life, no
matter what wishful thinking you may hear to the contrary. In
fact, repetition is built into the very world we live in; the sun
rises and sets the same every day, the moon pulls on the tides the
same way and the cells of our bodies grow and divide in the same
manner every time.
As you grow up, you may hear that
staying home with your kids is not good enough. You may hear
that you should be doing more with your life. You may hear
that, by “just staying home with your kids,” you are not doing
anything to advance the cause for women. You may hear that by
choosing to stay home, you aren’t contributing to the family. You
may hear that by staying home and raising your children, you are
advancing and defending the patriarchy. You may even hear that
stay-at-home moms aren’t busy and are just lazy. Please, my
daughter, allow me to offer a different view for your consideration.
You see, in every type of work,
there are many different roles. Not every person does the exact
same thing, but these differing roles complement each other.
Each role may have its own set of unique tasks, but each is vital to
the other’s success. The delivery driver for a restaurant
does not keep the establishment running solely through his role as
the one who brings in the needed supplies. Are he and his role
important? Absolutely, but without a chef, servers, and
dishwashers, just to name a few, there would be no restaurant needing
his delivery services. Do police officers and firefighters
perform the same work? No, but I’d hate to live in a world without
both of them present.
Your dad works hard for our
family, and he earns the money, which provides us with a home, food,
and clothes, among other things. But, my dear daughter, who do
you think is the one that manages all those resources? In our
family, who is the cook, housekeeper, laundress, bookkeeper,
secretary, and (as I chose to homeschool) educator? This is my
special and, I believe, God-given role and I can’t imagine a more
dignified, worthy and weighty cause than to be the one responsible
for managing all the resources of our household. By choosing to
stay home, I have chosen the empowering role of being the one who
holds our house together, by combining many different types of work.
If I had chosen to do any one of these same jobs outside our home,
that sadly would be seen by some as being more honorable or worthy
than doing all these jobs for my own family. Both a provider of
resources and a manager of those resources are needed for our
household to not only function, but thrive.
I am thankful that I have the
opportunity to know that you, your brother and dad are fed well, have
clean clothes and live in a clean (most of the time) home because I
am the one taking on those responsibilities. I have been
blessed with the chance to teach you and your brother about the
amazing world that was made for us. And let me tell you, there
are days when it is quite empowering to think through the variety of
unrelated tasks that I have managed to accomplish in one day.
There is nothing subservient or weak about such a feat.
Now, I know that you may not
choose this course. I also know that not every woman is able to
make or wants to make this choice. But I want you to know that
it is a dignified, honorable, and strong choice! Does it
require sacrifice? Most certainly! But anything worthwhile and
lasting in life will require sacrifice. Sacrifice, in and of
itself, is not a bad thing. You and the rest of our family are
worth sacrificing for. And through those sacrifices, I have
discovered strength I didn’t know I had. Thank you for giving
me that opportunity.
