The question always makes me cringe, but even I was surprised by the deprecation in my voice. As the insurance agent makes her way to the dining room table, sometime after commenting on her long day and our home decor, she asks me what it is that I do. It shouldn’t, but the question catches me off guard. I stammer, give a little laugh, wave my hand in the air nonchalantly, and blurt out ‘nothing.’ After a few awkward seconds I add that I stay home with the kids, and wonder why I thought these two answers were the same.
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Typical of her age, my six year old daughter likes to dream about what she might be when she grows up. The occupation is always changing and she’s covered a lot of territory. From ballerina to zookeeper, to princess and now artist. I ask her if she’s considered being a mommy and her answer is always the same. She’d like to be a mom, but not just a mom. Her answer is a punch in the gut, but maybe it shouldn’t surprise me.
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Judging by the abundance of literature that exists to encourage mothers in the work they do, I am not the only one prone to doubt. It’s not uncommon for homemaking to be reduced to the sum of its menial tasks, and it can be difficult to see the big picture in the mist of such repetitive demands. The concept of giving up income and career for a job with little recognition or praise is foreign at best.
I don’t write much about mothering. I often feel that since so much of my time and energy is spent in this role, I want to reserve my words to explore other areas of my life. And while this is true in some sense, more often than not the driving force is pride.
I am a thinker. I love to read and learn and research. And somewhere over the years I placed a high importance on the accumulation of knowledge and education, and began correlating these with my own personal worth. My passions lean towards writing, teaching, and the study of God’s Word, and I find myself grieving my lack of education in these areas and the resources I don’t have time to obtain. And on those days when the girls have taken turns crying for what feels like hours on end, there isn’t a clear inch of counter space for the dirty dishes, and the clothes I’m wearing can double as pajamas, I tell myself that I should be doing better than this. That I am better than this. I want to learn about biblical languages and the craft of writing, not about homeschooling groups and Dora the Explorer.
Pride.
Certainly it is God himself who has given me these passions and for the personality I possess. These pursuits are good and he delights in them. But when I create a hierarchy of work and place staying at home on the bottom rung, I am denying that what he has called me to is good. I begin to have thoughts of discontentment about where he has placed me with these gifts and where the boundary lines have fallen for me (Psalm 16:6).
Tim Keller says that, “our work can be a calling only if it is reimagined as a mission of service to something beyond merely our own interests.” I love my children, and the choice to be home with them is my own. And while I don’t regret it, that doesn’t negate the struggle. Christ requires that we die to ourselves and lose our lives to follow him. This is a battle.
God is our portion. Wherever he has placed us, that is the work he has called us to. The value in our work lies in this calling.
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