The world has told so many lies in regards to Christian wives, mothers, and homemakers. Those lies have now become the common beliefs among many. One of the common myths about the Christian homemaker is that her job isn’t important. Here’s why I think that’s completely false.
There’s a lot of things that make my blood boil. One of the biggest things is how the world views the Christian woman, wife, mother, and homemaker. They’ve strung up so many lies that the majority of people now look down upon women who choose to prioritize their home. The worst part is that many Christians have believed those lies as well. It’s gotten to the point where judgment towards those women comes not only from the world, but also from the Church.
That needs to change. Especially because its Biblical for wives and mothers to prioritize their homes and their families over a job outside of the home. But as of now, most people look down upon women who don’t work full-time.
The feminist movement has been around for close to one-hundred years. It’s changed multiple times throughout that time, but it’s done a great job at tainting our culture nonetheless. It’s changed the way our society views women. Even the views of the people who don’t consider themselves feminists have been changed.
There are a lot of lies the feminist movement has made popular. Many of them surround the idea that homemakers, wives, and mothers are less than the full-time, working, corporate business woman. No matter how many times feminists say they support women no matter what life path they choose, it doesn’t change the fact that they always look down upon and judge the women who choose to be wives, mothers, and homemakers.
five common myths about the christian homemaker
I came up with five common myths about the Christian homemaker that are prevalent in today’s society. I was going to write about all of them in this post, but I ended up writing more than I thought I would for the first one alone. So I decided to split it up into five parts.
The first myth is that what the homemaker does at home isn’t as important as what she could do at a job outside the home.
It’s obvious that this view came from the feminist movement in America. For most of history, women were in charge of the home and in taking care of the children. But that wasn’t good enough for them. They wanted to do the big and important things that the men did out in the world.
I think that was due to many things. Women weren’t treated very well and there were definitely things that women didn’t have access to just because they were women. I also think they didn’t find fulfillment in homemaking because they didn’t see the importance in it anymore. As the country became more and more progressive and less and less Christian, feminism became more and more prevalent.
societal progression
The progression of the country made it so that homemaking was no longer a necessary job. Wives and mothers no longer had to cook dinner. Instead, they could just warm up frozen food in the microwave. They no longer had to work long days in the garden. Instead, they now either had tools that made it easier, or could just go to the grocery store down the road. They no longer had to educate their children. Instead, they could just send them to public school.
Their role as homemaker literally did lose its importance because the government, stores, and technology stole their jobs right out from under them.
But instead of looking for new things to do in their homes or ways to go the extra mile in the jobs they still had to do, they looked to the men and said, “we want to be like them and do the things they do.” Their job inside the home was no longer fulfilling because they didn’t view it as important anymore.
turning away from christianity
The biggest reason why homemaking lost its importance and fulfilment was because the society was turning away from Christianity. The very fact that homemaking is a job that God placed on women makes it countercultural. The Bible promises that the world will hate Christians and will not desire the ways of God. That includes homemaking. So it only makes sense that as the culture became less and less Christian, it also began to no longer see homemaking as a real and reputable job.
For the most part, our flesh desires the things of the world. That’s another promise the Bible gives us. We don’t naturally desire God, nor do we desire His will. His will is that women prioritize their homes and their families. It’s obvious that women were created for the jobs of wife and mother. Everything about our nature, biology, and psychology points to that fact. Even more, it’s the reason why God created Eve. That fact alone should be enough to convince us that that’s our purpose as women.
When you turn away from God, you also turn away from His will and no longer share His desires. If His desire is for women to primarily be wives and mothers, then the world will hate that idea. So when a society turns away from God, it will hate the idea that women were created to be wives and mothers. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing now.
the world has a strong influence on us
The liberal and progressive ideas of our culture have seeped into the Church and changed its views on a lot of things. Some of the biggest things being feminism and egalitarianism. Even though it’s very Biblical for women to be wives, homemakers, and mothers, the world has done a great job at convincing Christians otherwise.
Just like the world, many Christians now believe that women were “created for more” than just being a wife and mother. They also believe that women and men are the same and were created for the same purposes. Both of those things have brought on the idea that the things the homemaker does isn’t as important as what the “working” woman does outside of the home. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
why homemaking is important
The world doesn’t see how laundry, cooking, cleaning, and all the other aspects of homemaking are important in the grand scheme of things. But in reality, those things are more important than anything else in the world.
Those things build a home. A home builds a family. A family builds a society. And a society builds the world.
As mundane and unimportant as those household tasks seem, they are the foundation of the world. The way we view our homes will greatly affect the way our children turn out and, therefore, the way our society turns out as well.
Most people don’t see those tasks as being important because “the American dream” has brainwashed us into thinking that money is the most important thing out there.
But the Christian homemaker knows how important the home is. Not only because of the things I listed above, but also simply because God says it is.
“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” – Titus 2:3-5
This verse tells older women to teach the younger women what is good. It then goes on to list some of those good things, half of which are centered in the home. “Train the young women to love their husbands and children.” “Working at home.” “Submissive to their own husbands.” There are many things throughout the Bible that God would consider to be good. We can find several lists that are essentially lists of good qualities that Christians should have. Think the fruits of the spirit. Or the opposite. They’re lists of bad things that Christians shouldn’t do or shouldn’t be, and so we can assume the opposite of those are good.
So, out of all of those “good” things, God chose to mention the woman’s jobs at home three times in this passage. I’d say that shows it’s importance. It’s good for her to work at home, love her husband and children, and be submissive to her husband. Those are all jobs of the homemaker.
He could’ve chosen any number of actions or virtues to command older women to teach the younger women. But he chose actions that center around the home because those are the most important things a woman can do in her lifetime. Whether or not her society sees it as such or not.
That doesn’t mean that women can’t work outside the home as well, but the reality is that it’s hard to do two things at once. You can’t prioritize your house if you aren’t there for most of the week. Being a homemaker (and doing it well) takes a lot of time and effort. It’s essentially a full-time job itself.
Nobody would ever think of having two “real” full-time jobs, so why do we expect most women to have two full-time jobs just because one of them isn’t usually labeled as such?
Colossians 3:23 says: “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” We are to do everything we do with all of our hearts and to the best of our abilities. This may not be Scripturally sound, but in my opinion, I think that should be even more true for the things God directly calls us to do in the Bible. And for women, two things God calls us to and literally created us for are to be wives and mothers.
A huge part of being a godly wife and mother is being a good homemaker. I’ll get into the details of that another time. But for now, my point is that we should be homemaking with all of our hearts and to the best our abilities. Like I said earlier, it’s nearly impossible to do two things at once. And it’s even harder to do two things well. Women can’t be a great career woman and a great wife, mother, and homemaker. She has to choose. Either do one of them really well. Or do both of them, but not as well as she could if it was her only job.
I’m not saying this to judge women who have full-time jobs. It’s just the truth. We need to stop getting so offended when people speak the truth. And if you are offended, I would argue that it’s because you know what’s being said is true, but you’re not happy to hear it. That doesn’t mean you have to do exactly what I’m saying. But you do need to fix your heart surrounding the issue if you’re so quick to be offended.
The fact that God so obviously views the home with such high regards should be reason enough for us to consider it important.
And because it’s important, it should be done to the best of our abilities. That’s why women chose not to work outside the home. Not because they’re lazy (as I’ll get into next week), but because they know how important the home is for their family, their society, and for the Kingdom of God. And, most importantly, because they’re being obedient to God.
I’m not naïve to the fact that not all women can stay home and not earn an income. For those women, being a homemaker to the best of her ability will look different. Part of that may mean she needs to help her family financially, and that’s okay. But we also have to be able to admit that that situation brings along its own consequences.
the fruit of homemaking is more valuable than the fruit of a full-time job
The world judges and mocks homemakers because the feminist movement told it that working a full-time job was more important than the work a woman does at home. But God’s word says otherwise. I pray that we start seeing it the way God sees it. And that we stop judging the homemaker for “not doing something as important” as the woman who’s earning a full-time income.
Is more money and more stuff really more important than a healthy home, well-educated kids, a godly family, and a productive Christian household? I think not. And I think most Christians would agree with me if asked that question outright. But the world has a strong influence over us. So the fact that the opposite answer is thrown at us at a young age makes it so that we don’t know what we believe anymore.
Let’s change that one family and one household at a time.
resources
Before I sign off, I wanted to share a few resources with you. I have a few blog posts with some great resources in regards to Christian wifehood and womanhood, and Christian marriage in general. The next post I publish will be a roundup of my favorite resources specific to homemaking. I will link that here as well whenever it’s up in the next few days!
