Homemaker's Response

See more about this painting here.

One important aspect of full time homemaking is the support and comfort of family and friends.

 Some homemakers find themselves feeling more and more isolated, as family members undermine them and friends begin to make cutting remarks about the life of a homemaker.

 "You are wasting your life," they say, or "What are you going to do if your husband loses his job?"  Later, they say things like, "Now that all your children have grown, are you going to get a job?"

 The Internet is full of lures to get homemakers into college and careers. One advertisement for student loans said: "Obama wants homemakers to go back to school." Thinking this is the desirable thing to do, some  women have gone into debt for college courses that will lead them to careers, where part of their salary will be taken to repay the loans.

 One question to ask back, is "What does the Bible teach women to do?" Titus 2 and First Timothy 5:15--as well as other texts, have not changed. People have attempted to alter the meanings of these teachings to suit the changes in the current culture.

"What does God Want Me to Do?" should be the ultimate question. The answers are found in His Word.    For one thing,  being "keepers at home"  (Titus 2:5) would free the Christian women from the dictates and restraints of the prevailing culture.

   A worker at home can get the rest she needs, in order to think clearly and prevent ill-health. A woman at home gets to obey her own husband, rather than everyone else in the work place. Even if a woman works as a manager over other people, she is still accountable to customers and others in her employ, and suffers many stresses because of it.  Working at home frees her from the pressures of the outside world. Many women have written on this blog to make a testimony to that fact.

 Working at home makes it possible for her to be the master of her own destiny. She can work hard and have success in her home management. She can be ill for a period and let it slide, but it is hers, and she can control how it will be looked after.

 Being a keeper at home means that she can delegate jobs to her own family members. It is the way God set it all up. It gets her out of the eye of the public, so that she can have privacy and develop her skills at her own pace and style of learning. At home she is free to educate her own children in the manner she wishes. At home, she can stop spending the money on the clothes and transportation and rent that it takes to have a job somewhere else. 

In the early 1900's, 80 percent of American women were rural, either on farms or living in country settings. Today, there are less, but there is still a large number of us who live far way from the cities where employment would be. It would not make sense for us to travel back and forth to places of employment, as the travel alone would just about eat up all the money earned.  Add to that the cost of daycare or other conveniences that enable working women.

Eve was not told to work by the sweat of her brow to earn bread for her family, as Adam was. Rather than restricting women, God's commands for them to be keepers at home are a protection from them. They are protected from other people prying into their business. They are protected from other men. They are protected from the world's taint, with its social pressures and gossip.  They are given a private place that is not open to the public.

 A lot of younger women, having grown up in institution where they are constantly around other people, may not fully understand the need for privacy. When they decide to take on the role of homemakers, they find it lonely. Others are not doing it, and they have very little fellowship. Adding to this, the cutting remarks against homemakers can be a real blow.

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