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working moms

New Job for Laid-off Moms: Stay at Home Motherhood

by Kelly Crawford March 13, 2009

written by Kelly Crawford

Jess in Peru sent me this interesting article peppered with sadness as well as pleasant reflections. And as always, blessings often come in disguise:

“Lucas and other laid-off women like her are involuntarily experiencing the life of a stay-at-home mom, and they are getting to know a lot more about the details of their children’s daily existence. They are also discovering some of the things they have been missing.”

“…when she (Lucas) went to the pediatrician’s office, the nurses were so used to seeing the nanny that they didn’t recognize Lucas.”

“After years in which her husband was the main caregiver, she is finding the time off with her children to be an unexpected blessing.”

But unfortunately, the blessing of being home isn’t enough to most…

“I can’t say I’ve seen any mothers who see being laid off as a positive thing,” says Jessica Polsky, a career counselor at New York’s Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. “Even if it’s $10 an hour that they made, it’s something, and they really needed it. They need to get out and get new jobs.”

“She also learned something from her brief experience being laid off: Financial pressures aside, she prefers working.” (emphasis mine)

This commentary–and I hear it all the time–is sad to me because it encapsulates a common mentality…”What I WANT to do is really all that matters.” There is often no real thought about what is best for my children and family…about sacrificing my desires for the good of someone else. (Disclaimer: A general mentality, not the one of every mother.) And it’s so easy to camouflage our wants behind the facade of necessity.

In an effort to be sensitive to real financial pressures (of which I know much), there are still almost ALWAYS alternatives to the financial crunch. (The first of which is living on less.)

The real issue, I think, is that at the core, we think it doesn’t really matter either way. That if a woman wants to be home with her family, great. If she doesn’t, no harm done. (This is our hard-fought freedom, right?) In the name of choice we have come to see motherhood as a peripheral activity, children as options to raise, despite so much evidence that families thrive when Mom is home. Motherhood ceases to even be considered a profession, much less a preferred one.

Despite all the criticism I get for my stance on this issue, it’s not about my trying to exert “an old-fashioned ideal” over women; it’s about urging us to think about what is best for the family, for our children, for society. It’s about caring for women. Urging them to understand that home is not a prison, but a haven through which the world is changed. If it ever sinks in how important raising our children is, we would sacrifice almost anything to do it.

Yes, I know, there are rare instances when a mom has to work outside the home. But I’m addressing the attitude of “optional child-rearing” here.

I think of an analogy…suppose you were hired as an ICU nurse. But, you felt stifled in those tiny rooms, despite the fact your patients needed your constant care. So, after a strike, the nurses in your unit gained the freedom to take a second job in addition to their ICU position. They still had to come check in a couple times a day, but they were now free to go find a more exciting job.

Goody. The nurses have been freed. But what about their patients?

The truth hasn’t changed…when the family suffers, we all suffer. The voice of feminism says, in essence, “we don’t care about the consequences…we only care about ourselves–our rights–our freedoms.” It is cloaked in good intentions–“Fighting for the rights of women”–when all the while, the children are the ones who have suffered from our “freedom”. And that’s no small thing. Those same children are becoming who we are as a nation.

May the Lord use this difficult economic time to remind us of the most important things.

Full article New Job: Stay at Home Motherhood

March 13, 2009 53 comments

French Fries are Bad…There, I Said It

by Kelly Crawford November 27, 2008

written by Kelly Crawford

“Don’t be afraid to say, “This is my starting point…this truth is a good thing.”

Why do I talk about women’s roles? Education? Submission? Children? It has nothing to do with wanting to interfere in others’ lives. It has everything to do with wanting to help make your lives better.

I blog for one reason…to present what I believe God has given Christians as a guideline for living–truth that will make us free and shine as lights around us. But we have to recognize that truth as our starting point.

Could I compare myself to Dave Ramsey? He speaks emphatically (with no apologies) about debt and money. He’s even willing to hurt people’s feelings out of his concern for their freedom. He has “been there and got the t-shirt”, and he wants to help others avoid the same pitfalls.

And people have generally accepted a universal truth that it is *good* to use money wisely, and that debt carries problems, even if they are not living according to that principle.

These principles are addressed in Scripture, though they are not hard and fast “thou shalt nots“. Still, regardless of the personal choices we make with our finances, we still all pretty much agree that there is an “ideal” involving finances, and that ideal is always a good starting point, no matter where we are. I can be (and have been) up to my eyeballs in debt and still acknowledge that being debt free is the ideal. Believing that may not change where I am at that moment, but it moves me toward that ideal goal.

This is how I view marriage, children, the role of women, education, etc. I think the Bible has laid forth principles–some straightforward, others less so. But I believe we can find direction for every area of life there. And I think these principles form ideals that we need to recognize as “a good thing”, a starting point for our thinking.

So often we try to formulate “truth” around what we want it to be, or what makes us feel better about where we are. Is there absolute truth? If so, where does it come from? Who determines it? How much is left up to my own determination? These are questions we must seriously ask.

Think of exercise and healthy eating. I can either recognize that it is better to exercise and eat healthy as my starting point for life choices–regardless of whether or not I choose it, or I can ignore evidence of that truth to feel better about my lack of discipline and poor eating choices.

I’d much rather hear someone say, “I am too lazy to walk and too apathetic to cut back on the french fries; I’ll probably die early”...than “I don’t believe that garbage about exercise being good for you, and french fries being bad…if that works for you, fine. But it doesn’t apply to me.” Obviously, we all differ somewhat on methods of health, but we still agree that health should be pursued for the most optimal life.

Do you get my point? I don’t have any desire to make people feel condemned or angry; I am walking through this life, or limping, rather, in daily need of repentance. I haven’t “arrived” any more than you; I’m not better, more godly or more spiritual. (Just ask my family and closest friends if you have any doubts 😉

I speak ONLY because I believe there is truth that brings healing and freedom to families. And I want that healing and freedom for my family and yours! I have an intense concern for women and their families. That’s all. Whether you are “there” or not, matters less than where your starting point is. Our thinking determines our direction.

In His sovereignty He gives us freedom, but with boundaries. He gives us choices and yet tells us what is best for us. Let’s be careful, as Christians, not to buy into the humanism of our culture (truth is what I say it is). We do have a guide. We were given the blueprint for joyful lives and peaceful families. Don’t be afraid to say, “This is my starting point…this truth is a good thing.”

November 27, 2008 20 comments

feminism motherhood/family/parenting working moms

Feminism: Throwing Logic Out the Window

by Kelly Crawford August 14, 2008

written by Kelly Crawford

Hope you don’t mind a slight deviation from our topic…thought some of you could use a rest 😉 I’ll continue our series, don’t worry.

Disclaimer: The following post is a reaction to something I read today. It is a reaction to a whole trend of feminism, not just one incident. It may offend. No personal injury intended.

A newspaper article jumped out at me today. I wasn’t even past the title: “Mayor’s chief of staff COPES, despite expecting triplets”…oh boy.

The illogical conclusions were screaming all through the article. Let me quote a few (names have been changed):

“Since Smith became pregnant with triplets, she has not slowed down in one of the most fast-paced jobs there is–working for Billy Johnson, the city’s mayor. The 38-year old has emerged as a powerful figure in the new administration as the mayor’s right-hand woman. He calls her his “alter ego” at work and the only woman besides his wife who seems to know what he is thinking.”

Didn’t God already give him a right-hand woman? Why is she so inadequate as a help meet? And I bet the “powerful figure” would shudder to be called a help meet…but that is exactly what she is. A help meet to her husband would be “foolish”; a help meet to the mayor makes her a “powerful figure”.

“Smith, who says she never saw herself as someone who stays home, plans to return to City Hall. Why wouldn’t she?” (!!!)

(Um…because there are helpless, newborn babies who need the constant care of the one from whose womb they emerged? From the only one, who, once upon a time, could even give them life-sustaining nourishment?)

‘Not one person has asked my husband if he’s going back to work after the babies are born,’ Smith said.

Could someone pass the blood pressure meds? I wonder if anyone asked her husband if he was going to go natural or have an epidural? If he was going to breast feed or bottle feed? C’mon people! She’s mad because someone had the AUDACITY to suggest she might be the one who takes care of these little gifts! We’ve “educated” ourselves right out of a brain!

“Dave Hammond, the mayor’s chief of operations, said he knew Smith would return to work. ‘She is passionate about what she does and passionate about bettering the city’, he said.

The mayor said, ‘the triplets will have more love than they will know what to do with if Smith is even half the mother to them that she is to her older daughter.’

Smith said, “We complain as women that we want to see other women in positions of leadership or authority, and as soon as that happens, we either insult their competence or suggest that because they might be in the position that I’m in and pregnant, that I shouldn’t return to work.”

So let me get this straight: man hires another man’s wife as helpmeet; now husband has to hire someone as his helpmeet; Mom gives birth to babies, but since she loves her career so much, husband must hire MORE people to do wife’s job of taking care of babies. Now that would make a great news story!

Sorry if I sound agitated; I think it was the blatant “Don’t even suggest that I should be a Mom” attitude running throughout the article that riled me up. She wanted us to stand up and applaud her for “not missing a beat, despite being pregnant with triplets”, applaud her for being a powerhouse, for going back to work, and for “being a mom”. You just can’t have the whole cake.

This is the feminists’ gospel; Mrs. Smith is just a victim of faulty education. This is what our daughters (and sons) are being taught on every side.

Bottom line: God has a good plan; this is not it.

August 14, 2008 26 comments

feminism working moms

I Am a Women’s Libber–What Do You Know?

by Kelly Crawford June 30, 2008

written by Kelly Crawford

I get these comments from time to time, from someone who has obviously been indoctrinated by feminists thinking, and they are so adamant, and so sure that I’m absolutely crazy, and stuck in the dark ages, and who knows what else.

And it makes me sad. For one, they always have this picture–very different from what I’ve tried to communicate about women’s roles. And if it weren’t so sad, it’d be funny. It’s complete irony, from my point of view.

This comment for example:

“I need to be my own person before I can become part of a union with another,and at no point will I become a submissive wife. I might be a stay-at-home mom,I might have a wonderful career and no family, or if I marry, whomever I marry could stay at home. Instead of telling your daughters that they need to get married and have many children, tell them to follow their own calling, whether
it is to the home or not- and be open to whatever it is falls into place in
their life.”

I understand what the commenter is trying to say here…but it’s saturated in deception….take a step back. “At no point will I become a submissive wife”, she protests. Yet, she is fully willing to become a submissive employee, to a man that probably doesn’t care a fraction as much for her as her husband does. To be enslaved to his schedule, his demands, his time. Does anyone else recognize this faulty logic? This “protest” and fighting for “rights” to be who I want to be.

I can understand lamenting that you feel “stuck” working outside the home to make ends meet. But to say that being at home is being “stuck”? This anger at those who would raise daughters who believe that home is more than a house…but that it’s a beginning point, a place where, if we plant ourselves, we take root and grow, and flourish, and are met with more opportunities, more freedom and more avenues of production than we will ever be able to fulfill!

That’s oppressive? How?

It’s like standing inside a prison cell and wagging a finger at those on the outside saying, “You shouldn’t tell people they can’t choose this life…nor should you brainwash your daughters to think so.” ????

I really don’t get it. I really do desire to cast off this deceptive facade that stands in the way of women and home.

Hey, I’m a women’s-libber 😉

June 30, 2008 48 comments

working moms

Homemaker vs.Career—Sin or Suggestion?

by Kelly Crawford May 6, 2008

written by Kelly Crawford

Rebekah asked a very good and probing question…do the passages in I Tim. 5:14 and Titus 2 teach us that working outside the home is a sin? I wanted to get your opinions before I answered. PLEASE read these passages before you reply…and make your reply in reference to the verses.

“I have a question….

You said in a comment you left someone, that you don’t believe that the Scriptures say it’s a sin to not be a homemaker. Reading this left me with some concern, and with a question that I hope you will answer when you find the time.

Before I ask the question, I would like to point out some things from the 2 above mentioned passages (I Timothy 5:14, Titus 2:2-4). These passages teach that if these women are not homemakers, then the Word of God will be blasphemed. As Christians, it is clearly a sin to do anything that would cause God or His Word to be blasphemed, reviled, put down, etc. Therefore, this passage is teaching clearly that it is a sin to not be a homemaker. Secondly, in these passages, women are admonished or commanded to be homemakers. They are not given this possibility, or told that this would be the wisest plan for them. Rather, they are commanded. If we disobey the Lord’s commands, then we are in sin.

We have to keep our hermenuetic(method of interpreting Scripture) the same, no matter what passage we come to. I think it’s pretty clear in these passages that not being a homemaker is a sin(because it’s directly disobeying a command, and not being a homemaker would bring dishonor to God’s Word, His name, etc.).

Therefore, my question is this: how can you rectify what you said about not thinking the Scriptures say that it’s a sin to work outside the home, with the fact of what the above passages are teaching?”

May 6, 2008 44 comments

working moms

I Am, Therefore, What I Think

by Kelly Crawford May 4, 2008

written by Kelly Crawford

Long-standing readers of this blog know how I feel about the sacred calling of the homemaker. To me, God, in His infinite wisdom designed what He knew would be best for the family…a husband and wife team with the same vision and purpose, and distinctly different roles that work together to fulfill that vision and purpose. It’s that simple.

Being a keeper at home is an integral part of that design. It’s not oppressive, it’s not what the culture has come to think of and define it as. It’s wonderful when it’s embraced from a heart of obedience, knowing that God has our very best interest at heart.

It is the only true liberation of women.

“What can we do to remedy that?” “To bring her back to her family’s kingdom?”

I’ve come to believe something about this touchy issue…it has everything to do with what you THINK about it.

Admittedly, we’ve done things our way for so long, it truly isn’t as easy as snapping a finger, and all the women who long to be homemakers can quit their jobs tomorrow and come home. For some, it may be that simple. But many feel trapped in a two-income quandry.

But let me stress that the reason I write on this blog is not to make people feel bad about where they are; it is to overturn a destructive way of thinking.

See, if you are thinking in the direction of your role as keeper at home, your lifestyle will gravitate to that. You will make decisions and life choices that move you in that direction.

It will affect how you view your finances, debt, spending money, how you raise your children–everything.

It shouldn’t be so much whether a woman is working outside the home, as it should be what we THINK of that. Modern Feminism says that working outside the home is liberation….opportunity…equality.

We should see a woman working for another man, another cause, another “kindgdom” and say (as a Christian community), “What can we do to remedy that?” “To bring her back to her family’s kingdom?”

But if your thinking is “for liberation”, the negative consequences that have infected our culture will continue.

Why? Because you can’t fully embrace two places. Either you love and fight for your “rights”, or you love and fight for your home…but loving and fighting take tremendous amounts of time and energy.

Pick your battles.

May 4, 2008 15 comments

working moms

Why Working Outside the Home is a Stumbling Block…Marriage Part 5

by Kelly Crawford July 9, 2007

written by Kelly Crawford

I watched an episode of Dick Van Dyke last night. I was struck by the obvious distinctions in the husband/wife roles. Several things I noticed:

The wife made a conscious effort to “fix up” before her husband came home. She even mentions this point out loud.
The wife spent a great deal of effort preparing a nice, homemade meal for hubby, complete with candle light, and a well-set table.
She was at the door to cheerfully greet him when he came home from work.
She made an effort to have the house looking presentable for him, and I thought it was great that she had even laid out the newspaper beside his chair.

Most modern women are prone to view such a program and balk or laugh at such “unrealistic” events. And that, I find, to be very sad. For while our job entails much more than the few things I mentioned above, those things are a very important part (or should be ) of our job. It’s one way to help our husbands, to soothe his cares (as we expect him to soothe ours) and to create an atmosphere of love and sweetness.

In addition to those things, of course you know the myriad of other responsibilities we as wives and mothers must take care of. Add it all up, and our role requires absolutely 100% of our time, energy, emotional reserve and resources.

Without even touching the Scripture’s mandate for women to “be keepers at home”, it would not take a rocket scientist to realize that for a woman to do her job well in the home, she simply doesn’t have time to devote to another full-time career outside the home. Oh she may try to hold them both down, but I said, to do her job WELL, she doesn’t have the time or energy.

I am shocked when I talk to women who rarely ever cook a meal from scratch. The suffering her family endures just from a nutritional perspective is tragic!

I talk to women who change into their “grungy” clothes as soon as they get home from work. Hmmmm….what message is she sending to her family?

And cheerful? It’s hard enough to be cheerful when I have been at home all day. When I worked, I came home with my own set of “expectations”…I deserved a break too…I worked hard too…I don’t feel like washing dishes either…we’re 50/50 buddy…not exactly a picture of biblical womanhood.

Admittedly, there may be extreme cases, crises, temporary situations where a woman has to work outside the home for a season, but it is time for us to admit that a man has his full time job, and we have ours. And we would do well to “embrace our place” and flourish in our God-given roles!

July 9, 2007 10 comments

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