Applaud This Special Career Choice

Which of these options are better for your soul, better for your personal development, and expected of faithful Christians?

(a) Serving or (b) Being served?

(a) Giving or (b) Receiving?

(a) Benefiting long-term or (b) Benefiting immediately

If you answered (a) to these options, you are counter-cultural in that, unlike most of the secular population, you understand these selfless and thoughtful actions are expected of us faithful Catholics. In addition, if you are a married female and answered (a) to these options, you are either already a fulltime homemaker or should strongly consider becoming one right away.

God creates everyone with a purpose, a mission that is known as one’s vocation. The all-encompassing vocation of every Christian is a calling to holiness and a mission of evangelizing. Within this fundamental vocation, each of us is called to follow a specific path in life such as, from choosing ministerial priesthood to choosing to serve the church in lay ministry, from living celibately single to living a married life, or from working for a corporation to working for one’s family. 

The traditional model finds the dad as the family’s breadwinner, but it’s essential to note that in this model the mom who does not work outside the home is also crucial to the family’s finances even though she is not bringing home a paycheck. She is making other substantial contributions of skills that save her family money, from home-schooling to child-care to housework. Females who choose the homemaker vocation and adopt this traditional formation of a family are well aware of the financial value of their contribution to the family and are even prouder of the positive value they bring to their children’s development and well-being. Homemakers find fulfillment in the hard work they do even though the “breadwinner ribbon” isn’t affixed to them.

The term “housewife” actually appeared in writing as far back as the 13th century, and the overwhelming majority of families lived in this arrangement from since the recording of history until the latter part of the last century. Up until about 50 years ago in America, approximately 75% of families had a husband/father who worked full-time outside of the home and a wife/mother who worked full-time inside the home and around her children. 

But then came the sexual revolution and radical feminism movement which were in full force by the end of the 1970s, and American society started seeing a dramatic change in having more and more women join the workforce and families becoming dual-income. The number of families in the United States in which both dad and mom worked outside the home doubled from about 21 million in 1970 to about 41 million in 2019, or from 25% of families to 61%. 

This whopping increase in moms working outside the home not only had a significant impact on the way families lived, but created a culture where “housewife” became a derogatory word. To be a housewife was deemed patriarchal and demeaning. “Stay-at-home mom” became a commonly used descriptive label, but I would argue the term is insufficient as it implies that a woman’s primary job is to do nothing but “mother.” A woman who doesn’t work outside the home undersells herself by simply labeling her vocation as a stay-at-home mom. I contend that the more accurate and positive term is “homemaker.”

Homemaker is the better label because the stay-at-home mom term doesn’t begin to incorporate the extensive role the homemaker vocation plays – from cooking to cleaning, from budgeting to purchasing, and from school and church volunteering to family event planning. Homemakers do so much more than “stay home” and “mother.” They are unpaid chefs and nutritionists, unlicensed child psychologists and medical advisors, and non-union teachers and educational specialists. They shape a family. They partner in raising children. They make a home.

The enemy of the traditional family model with a working husband/father and a homemaker wife/mother is the current generation’s radical feminist movement.  The initial feminist movement of the 19th century and early 20th century was admirable, as it pushed for basic rights for women, such as to be able to vote. It was a common sense crusade, unlike the second wave feminist movement we find ourselves in now which is radical and maniacal.

A hundred years ago, Catholic thinker G.K. Chesterton recognized the reality of women’s oppression at the time and the need for the first wave of feminism, but warned against the dangers of feminism if it goes too far. His prediction and worry about a second wave of radical feminism came true. Chesterton objected to extreme feminism’s methods of remedying oppression to females if it ends up creating feminists who “dislike the chief feminine characteristics,” and as a result, seek to “destroy womanhood.”

This second wave of feminism which started during the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s is maniacal in that it seeks to “equalize” men and women through the abolition of sexual difference and, in doing so, to erase women’s unique qualities and roles, making them imitators of men. Radical feminism attempts to keep women out of the home and away from their children, and that is why it is supported by governments who have a desire for more workers since it means more production and higher GDPs. Their focus is to get more bodies in the workplace so to generate more income, and bureaucrats and bean-counters don’t care that there are negative outcomes for families.

More mothers in the workplace create more young children passed along from daycare to school to after-school programs to latchkey isolation, resulting in the parents not being the ones raising the kids. Babysitters and after-school care workers try their best, but they are no match for the love, nurturing, moral development, and concern that mom and dad provide their children.

We find ourselves in a bizarre time in history where moms of newborns and toddlers admit they began searching for daycare options before their babies were even born. Pregnant moms in their final trimesters are thinking more about the joys of going back to work than of the joys of motherhood that will soon be upon them. The negative outcomes of moms working full-time outside the home is that their children are worse off as evidenced by increases in children’s obesity, sexually transmitted diseases, mental health problems, and use of psychiatric medication.

Women are worse off as well. A 2009 study issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research revealed that women are not growing happier as they embrace extreme feminist ideals, and other studies since then show even worse numbers for 21st century women being depressed and even suicidal at higher rates than any other era. The radical feminist movement pushes against our human nature, and so the result is unhappy women who aren’t able to do what comes naturally to them – to love their masculine male partner, to combine their feminine talents with his in raising their families, and to make homemaking their priority job over any other career.

Since the human race began, women were made to care for young children as for the most part they are naturally more nurturing, and men were made to be providers as for the most part they have been naturally more competitive and physically stronger. These distinct, complementary differences were built into who females and males are as distinct images of God.

Of course, marriages and the family unit formation involve openness to some fluidity. We don’t want either extreme – the maniacal feminist side that desires women be just like men, or the other side that has oppressively rigid sexual stereotypes which ranks women inferior to men in value, intelligence, and/or worth. The side of feminism-vs-masculism that makes sense is in the middle of these extremes and is what the Catholic Church promotes – complementarianism. This is the belief that men and women have separate, though equal, roles in marriage and family life. The word “complementarianism” derives from the word “complement.” Just like complementary colors work well together to create beauty, males and females complement each other for a more beautiful whole.

It is a fact that men and women were created to be united in one flesh, to exist for the other, to work together for both their good and the good of their sons and daughters. Radical feminism does not recognize and appreciate the purposefully designed gifts of both sexes but aims to eradicate gender roles, and thus is cannot be endorsed by authentic Catholics.

This promotion of the homemaker vocation is not to say that wives/mothers who choose to work full-time outside the home are thoughtless and horrible. For a variety of understandable reasons, many women choose to or need to work outside the home and are not able to be full-time homemakers. There is the obvious example of a single mom who must work full-time in order to put food on the table for her kids. There is also the example of a young woman with a new college degree and a new husband who might be wise to put her degree to work at this particular point in her life before having children; however, once the babies come, there are less reasons for working that outweigh the benefits of switching to being a full-time homemaker. Perhaps in this example, the woman returns to the workforce a couple of decades later – after her kids have matured into young adults and left the nest.

Loving parents who want to give their children the best life possible often erroneously believe both mom and dad need to work outside the home so that they accumulate more money, since more money means they will be able to move into a bigger house, buy more fancy gadgets and the latest computers, enroll their kids in expensive sports league, and save for future college tuition. But if you were to talk to any senior-citizen-age parents who did just that when their children were young, none of these wise moms and dads would say now in their golden years that they regret not working outside the home even more so to accumulate more riches. Rather, they would say they wished they would have not been so tied to their careers and would have spent more time with their sons and daughters focusing on family life. Yes, this might have meant fewer gadgets and sports leagues for their kids and altered choices such as settling for community colleges or vocational schools instead of overpriced universities, but tightening the family budget belt would be a sacrifice worth making.

God created the family unit, and our godless culture sees as its job to destroy it. Every angle is being played by the enemy in their effort to destroy our Creator’s beautifully designed families – from radicalizing feminists to confusing people into thinking they can choose their genders to encouraging adultery and promiscuity. The homemaker is the first line of defense against this enemy. What a critical and significant role! As a homemaker, the wife/mother is the family member predominantly responsible for forming her children into little disciples and helping them grow up counter-culturally, as she is able to spend a considerable amount of time training up her youngsters’ minds and souls. If mom spends 40 hours a week outside the home, she will have to turn over the training up of her kids’ minds and souls to potentially unprincipled daycare workers, corrupt educators, and demonic immorality beaming through her children’s screens and electronic devices. 

To you wives and mothers who have elected to be full-time homemakers, congratulations on choosing a vocation which gives you authority over daily family decisions, presents opportunities for creativity and nurturing, and allows you to use your God-given feminine gifts directly for the good of your husbands and children. May God bless you and your families abundantly!