“But what do you DO?”
I was once asked what I did - what my job was. “I’m a wife and mother.”
“But what do you DO?”
The question wasn’t a curious look into what a wife and mother does; it was a condescending reminder that I would need to do more to be a valuable contributor to my family. The question was essentially, “What do you do, as in for work…. as in, for worth.”
The role of ‘wife and mother’ has been so devalued in our culture, that neither wife nor mother is apparently a job that actually needs to be done anymore; it’s just a bunch of tasks that can be outsourced. We love to outsource things, don’t we! Anything that can be done by someone else, well, I suppose it should, right? Anything mundane can be taken care of by a robot or a drive-thru and anything requiring skill or patience is really best left to the “experts.”
Teachers teach. Preachers preach. Doctors diagnose.
Over the last (nearly) century, we have really seen a shift from “jack of all trades” to “that’s not in my wheelhouse.” We once had the “village” to help moms overcome the knowledge gaps: how do I correct this, teach that, cook this, and diagnose that? We just don’t have that anymore. It seems like it should be easier to have a village because of how easily we can connect through technology, but the wisdom has been forgotten. Trying to do for yourself what the masses have outsourced is generally perceived as foolishness and you’ll likely get more ridicule than help.
One Christmas, my kids and husband had the flu. (Not mom – moms don’t get the flu!) We didn’t go to the doctor. We recognized the symptoms, monitored the fevers and insisted on plenty of fluids. “But how do you know it’s the flu?” people would ask. It was as though I wasn’t allowed to give a diagnosis or treatment without a doctor’s consent.
“Who gave you the authority to not go to the doctor?”
I am not at all saying doctors are bad or should be avoided, but I am saying we have crossed a line in outsourcing nearly all matters of home and family. For all the knowledge and information we have at our fingertips, I am amazed at how it only seems to count if it is a specialized knowledge, proven by a paycheck.
Check your heart on this one. It’s not just that mothers can do the things we’ve been outsourcing, it’s that we should! ‘Wife and Mother’ is a wonderful, God-given job! This calling is the rule, not the exception. Even the Christian family has gotten this one backwards. Most moms now think staying home is a special call, when in fact, we should be treating working outside the home as a special call. God has specifically chosen you to be the mother to your own children, the wife to your own husband. The decision to work outside the home, requiring the education and the care of the household to be outsourced, should be made with the same care and concern as a missionary would make before moving overseas. It should be prayerfully considered and confirmed by the husband and church.