The following is an excerpt from the book Quit Your Job! You Really Can Afford Stay at Home Parenthood! by V. Jeanne Gormick.
In The Working Mother's Guide to Sanity, Elsa Houtz reminds us, that "what we are doing is important because God has given us the task of preparing a new generation for life."
Raising our future leaders takes men and women who will seek the Lord to help them with their families. It takes an act of will to make our homes into sanctuaries of the Lord. We must be diligent in our walk with God. It was only through my own search for the Lord and then growth with Him that produced the family we have today.
Keep in mind that parental rule in the family is actually a symbol of God's authority. "If children are not taught to obey their parents, they often find it difficult to obey God. If their rebellion is not curbed early in life, they will continue to rebel against all authority. Children must have their will broken, but not their spirit." If children are left to their own, they won't accept God's authority in their lives.
There are other important reasons to consider how your children will be raised and by whom. A Guidelines for Living article on marriage issues the following warning to parents, "Dr. Urie Bronfenbrenner, a noted authority on family living, sees a definite relationship between juvenile delinquency and troubled behavior among children, and an absent mother whose presence is taken from the home because of her job."
Evaluating The Real Cost of Returning to (or Remaining at) Work: Remember that things like work clothes, cosmetics, hair/nail care, dry cleaning, transportation, eating out, purchasing convenience foods, child care, etc., all reduce your income. Your tax bracket may also change, taking a huge chunk out of your hard-earned income. Your family may even be denied certain home loan programs or college scholarships for your children because of your income. Qualifying income amounts do not always reflect your usable "take-home" pay. These loans and scholarships can add up to thousands of untaxed dollars. Then, there is the unknown cost of lost nurturing to your children. It might surprise you that your final salary isn't really worth the price.
Find a calculator online to help you determine if you can afford to give up your job and stay home to raise your own child.
One Mother's Story: This young mother went through a struggle similar to mine. She says it best,
"My husband had always been used to me working and bringing in at least as much money as he did. It was very strange, though, that we never had anything to show for it. This is when I learned that it isn't how much money you make, it's what you do with the money you have. I really struggle a lot because I had been used to having my own money to spend. I was afraid to let my husband be in control of the finances. I didn't feel that I could trust him. What I didn't realize was, that by having a job and taking care of the money, I was robbing him of his self-esteem. I wasn't letting him be the head of the family. I had to learn to be content where I was and let God take care of my needs. I realized that if we could not live on what my husband made, we were living beyond our means."
The Truth About Working Mothers: The Working Mother's Guide To Sanity by Elsa Houtz has important gems of wisdom for working mothers, but her common sense attitudes are valuable for all mothers. Stay at home moms, mothers with a homebased business, mothers working outside the home, single moms, married moms, mothers of just one child and mothers with many children all face stress and pressure in rearing their children. Houtz makes a good point. "... the expression 'working mother' is so odd. Being a mother is work, period. It's happy work, sad work, satisfying work, exasperating work, tiring work, energizing work--but it's definitely work."
I think Houtz's comparison between the woman's job at work and her job as a mother is interesting. "Of the two, the one for which we receive a paycheck is probably the easier one. The rules are pretty clear. There's someone there to tell us how to do the job. We know what time to show up and when to go home. When we make a mistake, we find out right away, and there are ways of gauging how well we're doing; we don't have to wait 15 years to find out whether we did a good job or not. Either we get a raise or we don't. Either the contract is renewed or it isn't. Either our annual review is positive or it's not. Pretty simple compared to motherhood, isn't it?"
I know this had a lot to do with my decision to run away to the job market and then to start my own business. It was clearly an attempt to escape from motherhood. Houtz goes on to explain the reality of an outside career, "The perks, the strokes, the recognition, and the paycheck can all be awfully appealing, especially on a day when your 13-year-old daughter says she hates you, your dog has to go to the veterinarian, and the plumber has had the water in your house turned off for two days. Motherhood is not an easy job; in fact, if you're like (Houtz and me), your job outside the home is probably infinitely easier and more manageable than your job at home."
I love this gal! She confirms what I've been saying all along...relax. "Let's be more reasonable about our expectations of ourselves. If we know there's no way we can pick up that suit at the cleaners, let's say so and make some other arrangement. If we snap at a child or spouse, let's apologize to them and then forgive ourselves, knowing it's bound to happen from time to time. If the house isn't straight out of Better Homes and Gardens all the time, so be it. Let's set some priorities we are comfortable with and stop criticizing ourselves for our failures."
Houtz has a chapter entitled, "The Three G's: Guilt, Guilt, Guilt." She explains them as "I-Should-Be-Doing-Something-Else Guilt"; "But-I'mSuperhuman-Guilt"; and "No-Win-Guilt."
Sound familiar? As I said, you don't have to be a working mother to relate to her book.
