Motherhood… don’t miss it for the world.

I want to share today on a particular matter that I find to be discouraging. I know that it is one of the unintended matters or, rather, the message is unintended, but when a mother leaves her home so that she can pursue “meaningful work,” or “have real conversations with real people,” or to “not waste” her life, she is saying to her children: you are not as valuable as ______, or spending time with you is not fruitful, relevant, important, or fulfilling [to me!].

I’ve met many young mothers who work outside their homes in careers or what have you because they say they needed to be with “real people” and have “real conversations.” Shame. This happens everyday all over the world. Women leaving their homes to be something they weren’t created to be to do things they weren’t created to do to spend time with people other than the people they were created to spend their lives with — and for. Their husbands defend them… saying their wives are stuck at home all day and need some real conversation…
When I hear men say that their wives need an outside job bcz they need a break from “the kids” or when I hear women say they have to work bcz they can’t take staying home with “the kids” and that they need to be with real people and have real conversations, I feel sorry for them… but really, I feel more sorry for their children… regardless their age.

I know I’m going to botch a word here, but the REALIST people around are children! They are the treasure and gift of the LORD. They are not encumbered with the nuances of life… the subtleties of the corporate ladder, prestige, backbiting, leveraging — the phony exteriors that people present in order to make an appearance of ability or worth. Children love and live unconditionally and aren’t trapped into the plastic bigger-better-more world. Unless they’ve been educated otherwise. They know when a mother is misguided into thinking that where it’s at is out in the world. They know when they are not the priority of mother’s life.
I have never met a mother yet who said, “Owow… I sure wish I’d worked [at a j-o-b] more!” They always wish one thing: they wish they had spent more time with their children. Always. And you know what? I cannot recall a time when talking to an older mother that she didn’t wish that she either had more children or wished to be able to hold and care for a baby again. The Word of God *is* truth. (prov. 30.16)

Women are trying to “have it all” by taking a job and trying to keep house and raise children and on and on. That isn’t having it all. It is a life of holding down a job and trying to keep house and raise children and on and on… that’s what it is. A mother with a babe in arms sitting in a rocking chair with the intent to train up that child in the Ways of the LORD has it all. A real conversation is happening there. And unless a woman/mother is educated otherwise, it will only be a matter of time before that conversation proves to have been the best use of time in the world. A child taught of the Word and trained up in the ways of the LORD is proof of time well spent. Anything else a mother attempts to do in order to have a “real conversation” misses the reality of God’s design for mothers.

Women scoff at mothers and their menial work… thinking that it’s of little value to stay home and nurse babies, tend to the children — playing with and training them. But isn’t it ironic that they will search our and pay top dollar to individuals or care centers for the quasi nurturing of their children. See, intrinsically, they know that care is imperative; but, sadly, they miss that it’s care from them that’s needed – not from a substitute. [This from personal experience over 25 years ago; my husband managed a large preschool center, I received my in-service certificate as a preschool teacher in Seattle and we both saw day after day the sad results in hundreds of “working” families.] Children don’t get real conversation in preschools or in other schools, for that matter. They get real conversation from mothers – and unless they fall into the snares of the world, mothers get *real* conversation from children.

I can’t think of anything more REAL than molding clay. And children are the clay in a mother’s hands. The home is the wheel and mother is the potter. All the day long the mother is working there… she is molding and shaping, filling and conversing… with the children. They see it, they know it and they’re internalizing all that’s going on. That’s really living! What a gift to her husband, the mother who humbly takes her “job!” very seriously and molds the children well. What a blessing, children who are trained up in the way their father has set before them.

And to think some miss it for the world.