In Defense of Stay-At-Home Motherhood

One of the differences between housewives who are happy and those who are unhappy may be how they plan and use their time at home. For those of us who like structure, homebound motherhood carries an additional challenge. Our time is our own. We are self-employed, with varying amounts of required tasks depending on our homes and the number/ages of children. When all our time is consumed by direct parenting - with newborns, for example - it's clear that our work and our presence in the home is vital. When we have time left over, we alone are responsible for how we use it.

Those who claim sexism for stay-at-home moms hold several underlying, unspoken assumptions: Contributing economically to society is more important than ensuring the development of healthy, intelligent, moral, socially responsible people. Raising children well is neither challenging nor important. Nothing important can be done from home. What these arguments don’t acknowledge is how many things women can do and what an important contribution they can make as they make the home their primary focus. J.K. Rowling, for example, is a stay-at-home mom. Community building, raising awareness for important issues, building relationships with friends and neighbors, relieving suffering, gaining an education, beautifying the world, winning nobel prizes - you just have to be a more responsible self-employee. Also, you generally can’t make as much money. Having a two-parent home, in general, prevents at least one parent from having to worry about their activities being profitable, and can instead focus on developing themselves, their family, and their community. The issue is whether we as Americans increasingly measure our self worth in exculsively economic terms, and whether our issue with being stay-at-home moms that it’s not fun, or that it’s unpaid?

When we're willing to let go of the extra income and see our lives and our goals for what they are, we may find that unpaid, volunteer mothers with a husband supporting them have the greatest possible opportunity for self-fulfillment and the greatest freedom to impact the world. Neal A Maxwell mused: "When the real history of mankind is fully disclosed, will it feature the echoes of gunfire or the shaping sound of lullabies? The great armistices made by military men or the peacemaking of women in homes and in neighborhoods? Will what happened in cradles and kitchens prove to be more controlling than what happened in congresses?" We know this! We believe this! Then why don't we as a society place more value on the activities that shape our society? Why don't we let this desire circumvent our desire for more stuff?