Just a Housewife?

            

                                                                THIS                      VS.                       THIS

    We talked this week about families where both parents work. Of course that led to a discussion of women in the work force... So thats what I wanted to talk about here.

          Obviously we know what the church teaches about women in the workforce. "The Family: A Proclamation to the World gives us guidance on the roles of women in today's world. President Benson said:

       "Since the beginning, a woman’s first and most important role has been ushering into mortality spirit sons and daughters of our Father in Heaven.Since the beginning, her role has been to teach her children eternal gospel principles. She is to provide for her children a haven of security and love—regardless of how modest her circumstances might be. In the beginning, Adam was instructed to earn the bread by the sweat of his brow—not Eve. Contrary to conventional wisdom, a mother’s place is in the home! I recognize there are voices in our midst which would attempt to convince you that these truths are not applicable to our present-day conditions. If you listen and heed, you will be lured away from your principal obligations. Beguiling voices in the world cry out for “alternative life-styles” for women. They maintain that some women are better suited for careers than for marriage and motherhood."

      We believe, according to church doctrine, that a woman's call in life is to be a wife and mother. Her place is to be in the home, raising the children while the husband provides a living. But there are a lot of women today that are a part of the work force. And a lot of those women are LDS. Now, we know that there are a lot of life circumstances thrown at families that create a need for the wife to go to work. The prophets have spoken about that too. And there are probably lots of LDS women out there that stay in the work force after children are born because they just want to be. It doesn't really matter to us what their reasons are. But this issue will probably affect all of us at some point. So what does matter is what we think, what we decide and how we decide to do that. The decision for a wife and mother to work is completely between her, the Lord, and her husband (unless she's a single mom... and then the decision is usually made for her by life!). So the thing I wanted to point out is the importance and sacred nature of the calling of motherhood. No matter what choice you make at whatever time in your life that you are faced with this choice, your job as a wife and a mother should take precedence over any job or career you might have. 

       This has been an issue I've been looking at lately... I want to have my photography business. But I follow a lot of photographer blogs of women who are also mothers and they talk about how busy they are all the time and how they have to juggle that with having children and being a part of their lives. And that is so important to me as well. I've always wanted to be a stay at home mom. But when I got into photography, I was thinking, this will be really good for a stay at home mom to do. But this could so quickly become a career for me. I could easily get carried away and so busy that I would have weddings every weekend and shoots during the week and then add in editing and mailing and advertising and consulting and .... phew. I've just lost my 'stay at home mom' title. Even if my business is in my house, I wouldn't be 'at home'. I would simply be in the house. So its just been on my mind lately. This is a situation I'm going to have to be aware of and careful of if I'm going to be doing this business thing. So just something to think of.

     One more comment. In reading the chapter on this for class, there was one section that really bothered me. It was the end of the chapter and they had been discussing ways that women who work can kind of take care of themselves even if they have pressures of a job and home life. Here is a direct quote from the book:

     "It is interesting to note that self-care strategies include giving oneself permission to be less than perfect as a housekeeper, wife, and mother."

       Okay this is what really bothers me. Now, I'm not saying that we should be so hard on ourselves and beat ourselves up for not being perfect--no way! We should give ourselves some slack. But what bothers me is that these 'self-care strategies' were for working mothers. So what are the areas that they are supposed to give things up? The ones that are most sacred and that are their divine callings. So the self-care strategy that I think we need to use is to give ourselves permission to be less than perfect as an employee. How important is that job? Obviously you need to keep your job, but if you are giving some anywhere, it shouldn't be in the role that is most eternally important for you to fulfill.

     So remember the pictures at the beginning? How about neither on of those and we can do this instead?

                    

        Then we don't have to be crazy stuck in the kitchen wearing pearls and dresses (although wouldn't that be FUN? ...sorry, I love the 40's and 50's) with no rights and just smiling happy for our husbands constantly. And we don't have to be totally driven, focused career women who have no time for their families. We can be in the home like we should and make decisions outside of that with the Lord