Return of Wonder Woman

I'm not sure how I got here.

I've just been working the problems before me, taking care of home and family. Just doing what God and the day demand.

Suddenly, when I show up, people look startled, like I just appeared out of an invisible airplane. They ask me, "How do you do that?" with disbelief in their voices. And I'm thinking, "Do what?" They wave their arms and sputter.

I check myself for dangerous objects and social faux pas. Wrist-rockets? Rolling pins? Curlers? Spinach between my teeth?

Then I realize that I have arrived with a three-course meal, a book in-search-of-proofreaders, an invitation to participate in a college campus ministry effort, a baby gift, an original arrangement to practice for next week's worship service, a mural design for the church nursery and three highly-effective, infectiously gracious, relentlessly positive teen-agers.

Oh... that.

But their question intrigues me. It is just dawning on me that this is unusual. I've never owned an energy lasso or even a star-spangled leotard and red knee-boots. I struggle with headaches, middle-age spread, dying lawns, teaching the fine points of cell division and difficult relatives just like everyone else.

So, I intend to tell my secrets...

Just as soon as I figure out what they are.

Professional Mothers: Renee 2

As promised, my interview with Renee...

Here's my attempt at reflection on a peaceful night in the eye of the hurricane (where I've always chosen to live). My path did not lead to marriage and motherhood directly but took a decade of running the carreer track, more and more frenetically. Don't mistake me, I loved the teaching career I was given: the students, the discipline, the opportunities to grow my skills in a real world application that college never prepared me to do. I loved the class discussion and travel with students, the missions opportunities, the theatre program I cultivated single handedly. But with this career came thousands of papers to grade, seven classes a day with six different preps, an inner drive to do the next production bigger and better than the last, and a passion to never repeat anything I'd ever done before. The single life was a place to focus heart, mind and strength on the sole job of pleasing the Lord...no distractions, no breaks, no excuses. I also began to add more and more to my plate until I was teaching full time, directing a musical with 200+students, grading 75 research papers, performing in a play in which I had to memorize 125 pages, co-leading a singles Sunday school class of 300, and directing three one-act plays for a competition. That was the month I discovered there was a reason I had been drinking 36 oz. of water every 45 minute class period... I was a type I diabetic and my health was broken. It was from this hurricane that the Lord rescued me and gave me a husband who introduced me to grace, and rest. We married and moved to teach in China where I went from teaching/directing 14 -17 hours a day to teaching 15 hours a week. Then came children.
Mother-Lode: Did you purpose to become a mother? Why or why not?
Again and again I had resigned myself to the single life since I was 29 with no man on the horizon. But after marriage, the thought of children was a welcome delight and I never realized just how important all the teaching I had done would be to my confidence as I looked my own children in the face and knew I wanted to pour the wow of learning into them.


Mother-Lode: When and how did you begin to prepare yourself for this life's work?
I never prepared myself for this work. Fortunately God did. Shaping, winning and disciplining the belligerent, the dear, the talented and the devious student every day in class molded my pedagogy. All along I took mental note of successes and struggles of my siblings and the parents of great kids at school. When our first girl came along, I found Mike and Debbie Pearl's books, George MacDonald, and scriptures set to music all refreshing resources.


Mother-Lode: If you went to college, do you find that your college degree has been a help to you in your work as a mother? What would have been lacking in your home if you had not pursued college?
College was the necessary means to the end (a piece of paper so I could teach) but no help in and of itself unless the discipline of study counts. Most of what I learned, I gladly dropped as useless or worse. What it gave me were books, records and resources for my own study and a love of Shakespeare.
Mother-Lode: In the course of your work as a mother, what kinds of things have you done?
Things I never dreamed existed. I've floated polymers in water, alcohol, vinegar and oil; examined lip and teeth prints, and experimented on mystery powders all to get one girl ready for a crime lab competition. I've critiqued a brief for one daughter (using her competitive speech skills) to give to the state congress opposing a bill. I've taught all three girls to speak the Gospel in Spanish for the yearly family mission trip to Mexico. I've planned and executed a six month study abroad for our family through 12 countries in Europe visiting professors in Scotland and gypsies in Slovakia making all the history, literature, art and music live. For the last five years I've run a two week Shakespeare Camp for kids age 3-18 with a full blown play at the end to benefit a local crisis pregnancy center that last year raised $2000.00. And I've made a gingerbread castle cake with my three year old.


Mother-Lode: Have you found your work as a mother narrows your opportunities or confounds your work for and in the community?
Hardly! (See above)


Mother-Lode: How have you dealt with the feminists' view that a career is all-important for the full development of women, and with the pull of careerism in your own life?
Career was an intensely wonderful, awful slave master. How's that for an oxymoron? It was not until I met my husband who is to me "grace on legs" that I began to measure myself NOT by my productivity but by the quality of my relationships. And it was not until recently that I've begun to see that rest in the One Relationship means that all my work is a joyful reflection of His creativity...redeemed and full of purpose ...Not a frenetic attempt to be super-woman.


Mother-Lode: How would you advise a young woman about to graduate from high school?
Get a degree in something. It opens doors of credibility and opportunity you would not otherwise have. Be careful where you choose to go if you want to be able to hold what you learned as valuable.


Mother-Lode: What have been the returns of your labors as a mother?
The sweet smell of soft baby hair cuddled under my chin; the gleam in the eye of our youngest with every creative engineering project done to ease someone's load; the courage and cheerfulness of our middle girl who overcomes her physical pains of hydrocephalus shunt failure and a broken back that brought her ballet to a halt but her spirit to a place of humble care for others; the awe of watching our oldest make serving her glory on the volleyball team, the babysitting job, the mission trip, or counseling peers to make right choices in the context of abstinence; the excitement of launching educated, entertaining, engagingly articulate and caring girls into the culture with a positive visions for changing it.


Mother-Lode: If you had it to do over again, would you make the choice to be a professional mother?
It's the best of joys! It's the "break your heart beautiful" reason to pour myself out! It's the reward behind every effort. It's purpose behind so many questions. It's the best pay I've ever had.

Professional Mothers: Renee

Today, I'd like you to meet one of Linda Hirschmann's most dangerous "threats to civilization", my friend Renee. She is a real "team drop-out", leaving a ten-year teaching career to become a wife and mother. Instead, she's just slouching around raising three lovely daughters,
administering & teaching in a metropolitan educational cooperative,
spending her vacations working in Mexican orphanages,
training young lobbyists and reproductive responsibility advocates,
helping to run a national-level debate tournament for 200+ high school students,
directing a summer stock theater company for homeschoolers,
while keeping a gracious house and entertaining weekly.

But perish the thought that Renee is just a collection of jobs and accomplishments! She will be the one in the group to whom everyone will tell their troubles. Her determined cheerfulness has bouyed many a sinking heart. Her faith and courage has been an inspiration to those who know her personally, for one of her daughters has hydro-encephalitis.

When Renee was pregnant, her doctors assured her that this child would probably only live a few hours, if "it" could survive to birth at all. They showed her the ultrasounds revealing a sac protruding from the base of the baby's skull, where they speculated the baby's brain tissue would be - if there were any at all. They told her that death would be a mercy for this child, who should be a vegetable if "it" lived. They told her to abort.

But Renee and her husband refused to be the instrument of their own child's death, whatever the cost. They reasoned that as God had given, it was His prerogative to determine when and how their baby would be taken back to Him.

When Hope was born, God's miraculous Providence became evident. The sac at the base of her skull had filled with the extra brain fluid, so that her brain had developed normally inside her skull. Stunned doctors were able to drain the fluid and install a permanent shunt to protect Hope's brain from future damamge. They remained pessimistic about Hope's development. "She'll never sit up. She'll never walk. She'll never talk. She'll never read," they said. Renee never gave up.

Today, Hope is twelve. Not only does she sit up and walk, she dances the Nutcracker with a local ballet company. Not only does she talk, she just smoked the competition at this weekend's NCFCA National Open tournament, taking first place overall in her age category (Jr. Sweepstakes), and qualifying to the National Finals in three events. Not only does she read, she writes movingly, and she makes Shakespeare come to life in Renee's summer stock theater productions - which benefit the local crisis pregnancy center.

Not bad for a vegetable. Next time, Renee's interview.

Professional Mothers: Charissa

You might be interested to know that The Washington Times is declaring a victory in the "Mommy Wars". According to their editorial page, children are winning!

Last time, in our series of introductions to real-life 'Professional Mothers', we met a woman whose wisdom and energy are impacting both the present and future generations across the nation as a result of her work with her own children. Today's Professional Mother is one of the principal organizers of an annual speech tournament which is open to homeschoolers from the entire nation. This tournament is held at one of our country's most respected and most liberal college campuses - Charissa's alma mater. Charissa does it to give her own children opportunities for skill-building and networking, but an unexpected fruit of her labor is that the highly feminized young women from the college are forced to "re-evaluate their negative ideas about stay-at-home wives."

Charissa is a stay-at-home mother of four, who lives in a mountain community in rural Colorado with the requisite chickens, etc. From home she not only administers a lively homeschool for her own children, but coaches speech and debate, and teaches a rotation of in-depth literature courses for other homeschoolers from several isolated communities. Annually, her family organizes and directs theatrical productions for their town through their church.

Mother-Lode: Did you purpose to become a mother? Why or why not?
Not to begin with. I grew up in a feminist-leaning home and was groomed to go on to career. I intended to work in the foreign service and then changed my mind and planned on law school. It wasn't until after I'd met my husband, who brought me to faith in Christ, that I considered motherhood as an option. As the idea of staying home to care for babies, and subsequently to homeschool grew, I had a difficult time overcoming the societal and family expectations that I go on to do something bigger than JUST raising kids. I struggled with competing ideas of who I was and was to be. I was a Truman Scholar, and as such was encouraged--no, expected--to go on into something significant in government service. Each year, I received a questionnaire from the scholarship foundation about what boards I was a member of and what public service positions I held. Finally one year I wrote them a dissertation explaining that I had a greater influence on the lives of my four children than I could ever have on the lives of anyone if I were out working in any of the fields they expected me to be in--that raising responsible citizens was, in fact, public service in its strongest form. They quit sending me the questionnaires.

Mother-Lode: When and how did you begin to prepare yourself for this life's work?
I don't know that I was prepared when I went into it. Rather, God has been faithful to send me people who gave good advice and who were good examples at each step along the way. My husband have made a number of somewhat counter-cultural decisions in the raising of our children without really knowing what we were doing, but later have been able to see the benefits of our choices and been grateful for God's leading in these directions.

Mother-Lode: If you went to college, do you find that your college degree has been a help to you in your work as a mother? What would have been lacking in your home if you had not pursued college?
Though I have never actually worked in my degree field, college was a time of growing up for me. It was a time of learning how to think clearly, find information I needed, and move forward even when I wasn't sure how to do something. All of these have been a huge part of my handling of my home and my children. Mother-Lode: In the course of your work as a mother, what kinds of things have you done? How can such a question be answered in less than 100,000 words? I have changed diapers, gone for walks, looked at bugs, read thousands of stories, cooked tens of thousands of meals. I have planned school, revised the plan for school, adjusted the plans for school, and taught by the seat of my pants. I have encouraged, corrected, scolded, hugged and loved. I have tickled, laughed hysterically, cried for hours, regretted, and tried again. I have learned that no two children are alike and what works with one will be an utter failure with another. I have planned programs for many children because I wanted them to happen for my own. I have grown up as they have grown. I have seen them move on to things that I can no longer help them with. And one day soon, I will watch them leave.

Mother-Lode: Have you found your work as a mother narrows your opportunities or confounds your work for and in the community?
NO! A narrowing of my opportunities might be welcome! Rather motherhood has led me into forms of service that I would never have found, nor considered if it weren't for my children. I have met many people because of something my children were involved in and had many opportunities both to share and learn from these people.

Mother-Lode: How would you advise a young woman about to graduate from high school?
I would advise her to think carefully about where she is going and ask God constantly for His guidance. No two of us have the same path before us, and we have to listen for direction. I would suggest that she consider marriage carefully--and know beyond a doubt that it is a permanent decision.

Mother-Lode: What have been the returns of your labors as a mother?
I have grown and learned more than they have. I hope that each of my daughters has the opportunity to be a mother, as I doubt anything else can possibly mature and grow them as much. The only problem with this job is that it’s a little low on vacation days and sick leave.

Mother-Lode: If you had it to do over again, would you make the choice to be a professional mother?
Absolutely. But I might do a few things differently along the way. One hard thing about this job is that it takes 20 years or more to find out if you've got it right or not.

Professional Mother: Jeannette

Last time, we met Lucy, a professional mother who focused on training her high school daughters to impact local charities and local politics, while remaining firmly in touch with the urge to bake cookies for the little ones. Clearly an "unimportant and uninteresting" pursuit, not worthy of a highly-educated woman, according to Linda Hirschmann's feminist standards.

Today, I'd like you to meet Jeannette, one of the poster-moms for professional motherhood. A Truman Scholar with a B.S. in Family Relations and Child Development/Home Economics Education and Community Services and an M.S. in Family Resource Management, Jeannette had been one of those highly successful "I'm going to have it all" career moms. But when she saw that her children were paying for her success, she came home.

Now, years later, she has just launched her first (incredible) young offspring as the top National Merit Scholar of his graduating year, and is guiding her daughter toward graduation. Her teaching efforts were even recognized by the College Board, when they named her last year's Presidential Distinguished Teacher. Her outside interests may have decreased since her career-mom days (this is actually doubtful), but now she only takes on projects that directly benefit her children and their relationships together. For instance, she is on the board of Oklahoma Christian Home Educator's Consociation; she is the principal advisor for her daughter's project: the International Debate Society; she was her husband's campaign manager for state office, and continues to be his business partner. And, together with her son, she shares what they have learned in their successful bid for scholarships and college entrance, as conference speakers and college consultants in their new business venture, Aiming Higher Consultants.

Mother-Lode: Did you purpose to become a mother? Why or why not?

I honestly did purpose to be a mother at a very young age. I saw in my own mother a quiet dignity and a manifestation of the high calling of motherhood. She was an educated woman, who valued me enough to give up a career to nurture my siblings and I. I saw her sacrifice and realized as a young child that I was who I was because of it. When my friends were struggling, I was safe and secure in my mother's constant care.

Mother-Lode: When and how did you begin to prepare yourself for this life's work?

In junior high and high school I continually asked my parents questions about parenting. When I finally went to college, I remember the day of enrollment when I presented myself to the Department of Family Relations and Child Development. When asked what I wanted to study, I replied, "I want to understand what makes people tick." The woman smiled and said, "Well, that should take at least a Ph.D." I spent the next four years studying the dynamics of development and human relationships. I also conducted research dealing with adolescent television viewing that radically shaped my current parenting beliefs. After graduating with my masters degree, I spent 10 years with the Cooperative Extension Service teaching classes across the state emphasizing the importance of family. During that time, I was constantly watching the parenting style of the 4-H parents I worked with and learning from them. I also read voraciously about child development from the time I conceived my first child up to the present. I never did get the Ph.D. Instead, I started a family which ultimately taught me more than a dissertation ever could.

Mother-Lode: How do you find that your college degree has been a help to you in your work as a mother?

My degree, college experience, and early career experience trained me in many areas such as leadership, writing and speaking skills, the dynamics of group relationships, etc. that has helped me to better equip my children to enter the world. I believe it gave me the confidence to choose an ususual path in the rearing and educating of my children. The obstacles did not frighten me, just made me more determined to suceed.

Mother-Lode: What would have been lacking in your home if you had not pursued college?"

College definitely broadened my horizons, opened up possibilities to me that I never knew existed. Because of that, I had a vision for my children\'s future that far exceeded my own experiences. I am not by personality or temperament a visionary, but because I was stretched outside my comfort zone during my college and career years, I have developed the ability to speak vision into their lives and have the skills and courage to do battle when necessary to keep their dreams alive.


Mother-Lode: In the course of your work as a mother, what kinds of things have you done?

I have honestly gloried in baking cookies with my children and spending hours reading out loud. I have designed unit studies, set up scientific experiences, run political campaigns, founded speech and debate clubs, taught public speaking, run homeschool support groups, taught boy scouts, been a homeschool conference speaker, started a consulting company, and helped run a farm and construction business.


Mother-Lode: Have you found your work as a mother narrows your opportunities or confounds your work for and in the community?

Suprisingly, my work as a mother has opened up many experiences to me that I would never have sought out for myself. I am naturally an introvert, but because I know my children need certain experiences to stretch them, I walk alongside them and am stretched myself. Being a good mother routinely calls you outside yourself. In my drive to make my children better people, I become a better person as well.


Mother-Lode: How have you dealt with the feminists' view that a career is all-important for the full development of women, and with the pull of careerism in your own life?

Even though my degree was in a traditional field, I found that the feminist viewpoint was more pervasive there than most fields. They did acknolwdge that cookies needed to be baked, but maintained that you could hire someone to do it for you so the children would have homemade treats! It was pretty incredible. In total, I spent 15 years working with and for such women and had many friendships there. But there was something unspoken in their stories, a deep seated pain that would flash out occassionally in their eyes. I began to see through the ruse. I saw the fatigue, the marital strain, the children suffering. By the time I left the professional world years later, my health was shot, my marriage in trouble, and my children struggling. It was a horrible time.

But the Lord, in his mercy redeemed the years the locust had eaten. He renewed my marriage and restored my children. Life is good again. Not easy, but good. We have paid a high price financially for me to be home to minister to my family, but my husband and I both know now that life becomes hopeless when someone is not there to keep the home fires burning.

I can now look feminism straight in the eye and not flinch because I've been there, done that. I know without a doubt that the grass is not greener on the other side. Some of my acquaintances, who were denied that opportunity for growth as young women, have entered middle age with dreams of a glamorous career and all they've missed. I've seen them leave husband and children in pursuit of a lie and I grieve for them.

After my experiences, careerism holds absolutely no allure for me. There have been moments when a friend is recognized professionally and there is a catch in my throat for what I could have been, but then I look at my children and what they are because of my choices. And it is a choice. You cannot have it all. And then the dust clears and I take an analytical look at what I have become after leaving the career world and realize that my experiences have shaped me into something far more than the narrow confines of a professional career could have done. My skills are more highly developed, my experiences much more varied, my world much larger. It is then I pity my friends who settle for the straight jacket of professional recognition.

So, as I enter middle age, I do not feel the call of careerism, but do feel the call of creativity. I am almost finished with the creative aspect of teaching my children and something new is forming in the depths of my being. I know the Lord is not finished with me yet. The sacrifices have been doing a refining work in me in preparation for the next phase of life.


Mother-Lode: How would you advise a young woman about to graduate from high school?

I advise all young woman just as I advise my daughter. Give yourself time to mature. Dare to be stretched. Follow your dreams. Being a woman, wife, and mother will take incredible intellectual, spiritual, and physical reserves. We need to press hard to learn all we can, to develop a deeper walk with our Lord, to exercise and take care of our bodies.

I have encouraged my daughter to continue her education in a field that she loves that could support her well if she never marries or is widowed some day. I feel it is very important to be realistic about potential salary and, if you have the ability, choose a field that will pay you well. She is exploring career fields that could provide part-time employment or would be easy to re-enter. Through all her searching, she is looking for practical training that is realistic. For example, training to be an astronaut, a foreign diplomat, or an international consultant does not fit in her paradigm of valuing family. They may be exciting fields, but could not nurture those she hopes to care for someday. There is not a "right answer" for young women, but too often they limit themselves and their futures (or parents limit their daughters) by not taking rigorous classes in high school and pursing college in challenging fields.

Mother-Lode: What have been the returns of your labors as a mother?

Certainly better than any stock-market transaction! I have personally grown and been blessed, but the real joy is to see my almost-adult children approach the future with much more maturity and wisdom than I had when I launched out on my own. I believe the real rewards (while I am living) will come as I watch them parenting my grandchildren. But the true return on my labors will hopefully reach out across the generations to bless my lineage.


Mother-Lode: If you had it to do over again, would you make the choice to be a professional mother?

YES!!! Only I would have chosen it sooner. The one regret I have in my life is that my children ever knew what it was like to have a career mom. We all suffered from it.

Professional Mothers: Lucy

A picture is worth a thousand words. What does a stay-at-home wife & mother look like? Is she, as has recently been declared on Good Morning America's, Mommy Wars, "letting the team down"? Attorney Linda Hirshmann, quoted in the GMA series, excoriates America's stay-at-home moms:

"A good life for humans includes the classical standard of using one's
capacities for speech and reason in a prudent way, the liberal requirement of
having enough autonomy to direct one's own life, and the utilitarian test of
doing more good than harm in the world. Measured against these time-tested
standards, the expensively educated, upper-class moms will be leading lesser
lives."

Let me introduce you to a few of these "lesser lives". Meet Lucy. Leaving a career in banking, Lucy has become a stay-at-home mother of five. Currently, she not only educates her own children at home, but is also heavily involved with mentoring young, single mothers and women in crisis pregnancies. She is actively involved in local politics as a campaign volunteer and as a precinct captain. Lucy is one of the organizers of a homeschool support group and educational coop in rural Colorado. Lucy's eldest daughters are in high school, running their high school cooperative's newspaper and maintaining its website, respected members of their speech and debate team, following in their mother's footsteps.

Mother-Lode: Did you purpose to become a mother? Why or why not?
When I was working at my first “real” job out of college, as a municipal bond clearance clerk for a large bank, I listened to two women who were in positions of authority over me talking about their families. One of them was a VP of this bank, and when I heard her say that she could not stand to stay home with her children, I realized that there was something more difficult than being the VP of a bank. As an aspiring college grad, I had thought I would go for the toughest job out there, maybe Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, or something. Then I latched onto this concept that mothering was even more difficult than banking, and I wanted to go for it.

Mother-Lode: When and how did you begin to prepare yourself for this life's work?
I believe that God began preparing me for this job at a very early age. One summer when I was about eleven years old, I was asked to babysit all day every day for a single mom with two little boys. I was not a very good “substitute mommy” then; it might have helped if I had look at my responsibility that way, but I was still very young myself. After that I babysat every summer for single moms who needed help, until I turned sixteen and began working as a page at the local library. The babysitting pay wasn’t great, but I certainly learned a lot!
At about that same time, I began working on a bus route with our church, welcoming the kids onto the bus, leading the singing on the bus to help keep the kids occupied, and helping to maintain order. I certainly had no wild dreams then of becoming a mother, I was still just a little-bit-more-grown-up-kid myself, but God used the experience of dealing with small ones to equip me for the future.
God also led me to my husband of 18 years, Tom, and has been teaching me how to work under his authority, honor and serve him in my primary role as wife. God also gave Tom a real love of young people, as well as a heart for teaching and homeschooling.

Mother-Lode: In the course of your work as a mother, what kinds of things have you done?
Wow-- I might more easily answer the question what haven’t I done? At first my role was more that of physical provider for my small ones: I carried, nursed, spoon-fed, bathed, clothed, and sang to them. Then as they grew older I also taught, nurtured, discipled and disciplined them.
Besides my time with my little ones, I found it really important for me to stay connected with the adult world. I participated in a Great Books reading program with our local library, served on the Board of Directors at a local Christian day-school, played the piano accompaniment for our local church worship, served as leader of our women’s church group, and taught homeschool co-op classes. I helped two county commissioners run for office and be elected, and continue to be active in the political arena as a precinct chairman.
Recently we have started a homeschool support group for the booming area of Falcon, Colorado. Currently I teach piano lessons and serve as Kid’s Church co-ordinator for our local church. I also serve as a volunteer LifeSteps coach for our local pregnancy center, where I counsel and help equip young moms to be ready for the high calling of mothering their young ones, and help dispense material goods to enable them in that job. I have been blessed in the short period of time I have been doing this to personally guide two young girls as they accepted Jesus into their hearts as Lord of their lives. This, as well as hearing my own children profess Christ and begin to walk in His light, is truly THE most fulfilling work of my life.


Mother-Lode: How have you dealt with the feminists' view that a career is all-important for the full development of women, and with the pull of careerism in your own life?
I have observed that there is no more demanding or fulfilling job in the world than that of parenting. In what other capacity do you spend 24 hours 7 days a week impacting future generations for Christ? God has cemented in my mind the high calling, not accidental happening, of my roles as wife and mother. I have been given immense freedom by God and by my husband to exercise my God-given abilities within our home and our community, to try things, to fail sometimes and to succeed at others, but to continue to strive to please God and to glorify Him, with the promise of a “well done, thou good and faithful servant” when my work on earth is completed.

Mother-Lode: How would you advise a young woman about to graduate from high school?
God does not immediately call all young women to serve as wives and mothers, and some never receive that call. God does, however, long for the heart of each person He has created to turn to Him. His desire is for a personal relationship with each of His creatures. He has created each young lady with unique gifts that she can exercise both inside and outside the home. Seeking God’s face, listening to His heart, responding to His moving, obeying His direction--these all need to be facets of a young lady’s life, in order to be ready for whatever God has in store for the future for her. She needs to be able to say as Mary did “Be it unto me according to thy will.” Rather than pining away for a place where God has not put her, she needs to anchor herself in Her Savior and the calling He has for her now, and ready herself for the work He has for her today, resting assured that He will use today’s job for His own honor and glory in the future.

Mother-Lode: What have been the returns of your labors as a mother?
I begin to see my young people, although imperfect like me, beginning to acquire a hunger and thirst for righteousness. I watch them take up arms against Satan and his insidious designs, and do battle against sin and spiritual darkness. I begin to have other people observe to me that our kids are a delight and a joy to be with, and I rejoice in the work of God in their lives. I begin to trust them more as I see their hearts to do right and serve God.

Mother-Lode: If you had it to do over again, would you make the choice to be a professional mother?
Without a doubt I would.

Defending Home

So Betty Friedan is dead. But her feminist legacy as set forth in her seminal work, the Feminine Mystique, lives on.

Betty Friedan encouraged women to realize that there is more to life than a spotless floor, but she did so by denigrating the institution that could really liberate women: the home. Friedan's view of home as the place where women are trapped into a vicious "passive dependency" (The Feminine Mystique, Chapter 12) inhabited by:

"American housewives – their emptiness, idleness, boredom, alcoholism, drug
addiction, disintegration to fat, disease, and despair after forty, when their
sexual function has been filled"

leaves women with the notion that no intelligent, interested or even sane woman could hope to find useful employment, let alone fulfillment as a wife or mother.

Christians have rightly resisted the masculinization of women, but oddly, many have done so by characterizing the home in many of the same terms as Friedan did. Consider Friedan's description of a woman's life at home:

"Housewives are mindless ... ; They are trapped in trivial domestic routine
and meaningless busywork within a community that does not challenge their
intelligence. Housework is peculiarly suited to the capabilities of
feeble-minded girls; it can hardly use the abilities of a woman of average or
normal human intelligence."

And consider this Christian description urging women to stay at home in order to avoid sin:

"We need to be aware that we may be in danger of becoming a busybody. Is our
house clean? Are our children properly cared for? Is the laundry done? Is our
husband happy? Is that dinner carefully prepared or is it thrown together in a
mad dash to get something on the table at the last minute? Maybe we can get our
most honest answer from our husbands or our children. Will they say, "Actually,
Mom, it seems like you're on the phone all the time." Or "Honey, I asked you to
make sure my laundry was finished. But it seems you were on the computer too
long today because I have no clean underwear....A busybody goes from house to
house "tattling." We can go from "house to house" in many ways these days! We
have the telephone, fax machine, grocery store, homeschooling groups,
playgroups, church, and the most dangerous - email!!!! "

The difference is that Friedan thought it was a bad thing, and these Christians think it is wonderful.

While we can respect the patriarchal-Christians for their desire to obey Scripture, we must not simply take their interpretations uncritically. We will hardly entice women back home if they think the most challenging thing there is making sure her husband has clean underwear. Or if they fear that the normal commerce of life is the siren-call of sin, and that learning will make them proud, lazy busy-bodies.

Women today need a new liberation - a liberation from the idea of home put forward both by the feminist movement and by uber-patriarchal Christians. Defending Home will become a new series here, exploring the flawed pre-suppositions of feminism and scouting out the real scope of home. Along the way, we'll meet some more Professional Mothers, women who understand that in fundamental ways, home is the truest hall of power, the sweetest call to service and the loveliest work of art.

What are you doing from home?