"Passionate Housewives," pt 8

Embracing Your Sacred Calling

Today, in even Christian circles, a homemaker’s vocation is viewed as optional, replaceable, and more like a hobby to fulfill her own needs than as a vital asset to the family…

Professional Mommies and Disposable Homemakers

[Speaking about women who give up their outside careers to be home, and run to the “experts” for advice on how to be “professional” stay-at-home moms]:

The well-intentioned professional mother dotes over her children, seeking to be the ever-attentive and educationally focused super-mom.  Unfortunately, many times, without a scriptural model, the “professional mom” creates a child-centered home – a fantasy household that is best described as the ultimate playground…

Finally…the exhausted “professional” stay-at-home mom burns out and goes back to work where at least she was appreciated and life was “easier.”

But never fear! If motherhood proves too taxing, for a competitive price, you can hire expert launderers, specialized teachers, trained cooks, certified daycare workers, and professional organizers for your household.  Who needs Mom?  We live in the age of the professional!

Young women are no longer trained by Mom to run the household because it would rob a girl of the “best years of her life.”

Being trained for homemaking is truly a think of the past; a girl who learns these skills is considered old-fashioned and dull.

[Stacy McDonald goes on to describe how offended she was that the hospital would not let her newborn go home with her until she had gone through the hospital’s mandatory “diaper-changing course,” where she had to watch a 19 year-old candy striper bathe and diaper Stacy’s infant before she was considered “fit.”  And this was Stacy’s SEVENTH child!  Sadly, she realized the reason for this procedure was because so many women today don’t know how to provide basic care for their babies.  So many can’t boil an egg, much less care for an infant and run the house.]

[In answer to the question, “how hard is it to push a vacuum and wipe a nose now and then?”]:

This is where we need fresh vision, because our work at home does so much more.  Rather than burden the wife and mother at home with a myriad of educational “musts” for her toddler or create a ridiculous picture of a daycare-flavored home life for her to emulate, why not give her a vision for what is real, what is industrious, and, most of all, what is important to the kingdom of God?