Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E37: The Truth About Stay at Home vs Working Moms

Transcript

E37: The Truth About Stay at Home vs Working Moms · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
You can't put a price tag on the value of a mother.
0:03
My 'cause my primary cause is in front of me.
0:06
It's these children that God has given me and me alone.
0:09
You could find a cure for cancer, but if you sacrificed
0:12
your child's life for that cure for cancer, you've missed it.
0:15
You've missed the primary focus of what you should have done
0:18
with your life. For most women, myself included,
0:21
I have important contributions beyond raising my kids, which is
0:24
my most important contribution. And that is a good thing.
0:32
Hey guys, welcome back to the Lila Rose Podcast.
0:35
Thank you guys so much for those that have been listening,
0:37
commenting, sharing the content. It's wonderful.
0:40
Thank you for being a part of the community.
0:42
And those that are new Patreon supporters, thank you so much
0:45
for making the podcast possible. Your funds fuel what we do and
0:49
we couldn't do it without you. So thank you very, very much.
0:51
Today we're going to talk about working and being a mother.
0:54
Working moms, the importance of motherhood.
0:58
Basically, if you go on the Internet and type in anything to
1:01
do with mothers and look at any kind of chat room or the comment
1:04
sections of any videos having to do with working mothers or stay
1:07
at home mothers, you're going to see battles.
1:09
You're going to see a battleground.
1:11
Because there's this ongoing tension in our culture.
1:13
And we're going to talk about why between the value of
1:17
motherhood and what it means to be a good mother versus the
1:21
value of a woman competing in the workplace and following her
1:24
dreams and pursuing her career and all of the things that come
1:27
with that. And so there's a lot of
1:29
extremes, but I want to boil this down to core principles
1:32
that I think should guide us. And if we follow these core
1:36
principles as a society at large, I think women would be
1:39
healthier and happier, our children would be healthier and
1:42
happier for those that are married, our marriages would be
1:45
healthier and happier. Men would be better off.
1:47
I think we'd all be better off personally.
1:50
This topic is something I'm very passionate about and it's
1:53
because I am a working mom. And I'm going to make the caveat
1:55
that all moms are working moms because being a mother involves
1:59
tremendous work and we're going to talk about that.
2:01
But I also have obviously a full time job.
2:04
I work for live action. I do speaking and writing, I do
2:07
this podcast, I do a lot of different activities.
2:09
And so one of my focuses as a young woman was seeking out in
2:15
my work, building out habits so that once if I was blessed to
2:19
get married and have kids one day, which is what I wanted, I
2:22
hoped for that I could build a sustainable rhythm for my life
2:26
and a sustainable schedule so that I could be a mother and be
2:29
a present mother. Quality and quantity times with
2:32
my kids, putting them first while still maintaining my work.
2:36
And obviously, there's a lot of give and take care.
2:39
There's a lot of nuances here and I'm not doing it perfectly.
2:42
And I'm learning as I go, but my guiding star is my children.
2:46
My children are my priority. They're given to me by God as a
2:48
gift. I alone have been given them to
2:50
mother them. And so they're my priority.
2:53
Now. I'm very, very blessed.
2:54
And I'm going to make this caveat 1st 2:00 because I am
2:57
very blessed with the job that I have.
2:59
And so I say this in a way from a position of yes, privilege,
3:03
because I am blessed to have a flexible job.
3:06
I work for a pro-life organization primarily.
3:08
I'm self working, working for myself with my show.
3:11
And so I have this blessing of getting in large part to set my
3:15
own schedule. Now, it's very demanding, the
3:17
work that I do. So I'm not trying to say it's
3:18
easy work, but I would never pretend to say, oh, every woman
3:22
should be able to do what I do because obviously we're all in
3:24
different circumstances and we all have different desires and
3:27
callings. OK, with all of those caveats
3:29
said, let's dive in. This message is also really
3:32
important, I think for young women because I mean, when I was
3:36
young and I was growing up and I was looking at, OK, didn't want
3:39
to get married. If I got married, what kind of
3:41
marriage did I want to have? What was I looking for in a
3:43
husband? What kind of woman did I want to
3:44
be? If I was going to get married,
3:46
how would I want to be a mother? How could I be a mother?
3:49
What about this pro-life mission that I was so dedicated to?
3:51
What about my organization? What about my other creative,
3:53
creative work? All of these were questions that
3:56
I was navigating in my even late teens and definitely in my 20s.
4:00
And it, I, I think whether we do it consciously of subconsciously
4:06
young people today, Gen. Z years today I'm a millennial.
4:08
So my Gen. Z buddies, my Gen.
4:10
Z friends, I, I think you guys are awesome.
4:12
We're figuring this stuff out and there's not really a clear
4:16
road map because there's so many different paths.
4:19
There's so many different paths. And there's also, so we don't,
4:22
you know, which one do you choose, right?
4:24
And in addition to that, there's a lot of woundedness, quite
4:26
frankly, because some of us had parents that or, or maybe raised
4:31
by a single parent and there was some traumas or neglect or just
4:35
wounds from that. And so we were like, we don't
4:36
want to do it that way. And maybe in our reaction to how
4:39
we were raised were maybe overcorrecting to go the
4:41
opposite direction, right? So if we were raised with a
4:44
parent that was really absent, right, maybe we're say, well, I
4:47
don't even have kids because you know, it's childhood is
4:50
miserable, it's miserable. Or our parent was really absent.
4:53
So we're like, well, when I have kids, I'm going to be just 1000%
4:56
there for my kids. I'm not going to do anything
4:57
beyond just trying going to be there for my kids.
4:59
I'm not going to work. I'm not going to do anything
5:00
else. So I think there's a tendency in
5:02
our humanity to react, react instead of respond.
5:06
And so my hope and the difference between react and
5:08
respond is react is we go, you know, it is a form of response.
5:13
But we're not really intentionally evaluating our
5:16
childhoods, our belief system. We don't really fully aware of
5:20
our own belief system, how we are making choices, why we make
5:24
the choices that we make. So we're not really operating
5:27
with full wisdom. We're just kind of operating.
5:29
And the problem with that is we have less ability in that, in
5:33
that case, to optimize our life and to make the best choices for
5:38
our own lives and for the lives of other people that we can make
5:42
choices for, like children or choices that impact our spouse
5:45
or choices that impact other people.
5:47
So all that to say, let's get into it.
5:49
Let's get into the principles. OK, So I have 6 points on work
5:52
and motherhood. And so the, and some of these
5:55
are principles. So the first point is this, our
5:57
society at large tends to prioritize work over motherhood.
6:02
And let me break that down. We go to college, we pursue
6:07
training at universities that educate us, supposedly educate
6:12
us, right? And we spend maybe hundreds of
6:14
thousands of dollars for this education so that we can go get
6:17
jobs, so that we can go make money, so that then we can go
6:19
pay off college debt, right? But there's no like education.
6:23
There's no educational system for how to be a parent today.
6:26
Think about that. There's no training for how to
6:28
be a mother. We don't really actively focus
6:31
as a society at large on setting people up for success in their
6:33
relationships. We focus on setting people up
6:36
for success in work, in productivity, in economy, and
6:40
making money, basically. And even then, right, there's
6:43
issues because people go to college, they get this degree
6:45
and they're like, shoot, I can't even pay off my school now,
6:48
right? I can't even get a job and I
6:50
certainly can't buy a house, right?
6:51
So Gen. Z Ers and even most millennials
6:53
feel like I will never be able to buy a house or it will be
6:56
really hard for me to ever buy a house because of college debt.
6:59
And I just can't make enough money.
7:00
So already the economic stuff is a mess, but our society so
7:03
heavily prioritizes money. It prioritizes material things.
7:07
It prioritizes developing your career.
7:09
It prioritizes your education, meaning your like career
7:13
education, right? Not your education for the
7:14
purpose of being a good mother or father or spouse or friend.
7:19
It's more your education for the purpose of learning things so
7:22
that that you can go then get a job, right.
7:24
And so there's not an emphasis on your relationships and the
7:29
value of them. And in a in a society that's
7:32
healthy, relationships are healthy.
7:34
If your relationships are sick, if families are broken, if men
7:37
and women are at war with each other, society is going to be
7:40
broken. And a lot of the societal ills
7:42
today are directly from broken relationships.
7:46
Abortion as an example. 2500 abortions every single day,
7:49
children killed by abortion. Why?
7:51
The most fundamental relationship between a mother
7:54
and her child is broken down to the point of violence and death.
7:58
That's what an abortion is. Why did that situation even
8:01
happen? Well, because that woman, that
8:03
mother, there's a father too in the picture, maybe not in the
8:06
picture, but there was a father too of this child.
8:09
And there's a couple clearly that are having sex and being
8:13
intimate and they're not ready to be parents.
8:15
They don't want to be parents. They're not ready to be parents.
8:17
They might not even like each other.
8:18
They might not even be in a committed relationship.
8:21
And now there's a baby dead because of it.
8:23
And there's two people that are wounded in addition.
8:26
So that's all broken. It's broken into between men and
8:28
women, brokenness between women and children, brokenness between
8:31
men and children. It all stems from a lack of
8:33
valuing relationships as a society.
8:36
So our society tends to prioritize like girl bosses,
8:40
right? Like you're going to put the
8:41
girl boss or the famous model or the famous actor on the cover of
8:46
magazines. What do we value women for in
8:48
our society? Sexiness.
8:50
Not like sexiness to have children, but just like sexiness
8:53
to be a a sex object for men. We value women for being like a
8:57
girl boss like Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In.
8:59
So she was the COO of Facebook. She wrote the New York Times
9:03
best selling book Lean In, and it's all about how women belong
9:07
in the corporate office. They belong in the boardrooms.
9:10
Sure, I don't think they should be stopped from entering because
9:12
of merely being women, but this idea that we need to take a man
9:17
and a woman of equal skill and value and always select the
9:19
woman because somehow it should be 5050 in every room that you
9:23
walk in, 50% women, 50% men. It's just illogical.
9:26
It doesn't even make sense. It's basically being sexist for
9:29
women. It's bad to be sexist against
9:31
women. It's also bad to be sexist for
9:33
women in the workplace. That being said, that's our
9:35
society today, right? It's all about get women in
9:38
STEM. It's all about women need to
9:40
work. It's all about women need to be
9:41
sexy. It's all about women need to be
9:42
powerful. I mean, it's not really a
9:44
surprise to me that so many young girls today even struggle
9:48
with gender dysphoria and struggle with anxiety and
9:51
depression and struggle with body image issues because the
9:54
image of a woman in today's society is given to us in terms
9:58
of overt aggressive objectification, sexual
10:03
objectification. It's the Kardashian image.
10:06
Literally inflate your breasts and your buttocks to be a sex
10:09
symbol. Not for the purpose of being
10:11
healthy or for the purpose of being a mother.
10:13
You know, have healthy bodies so you can carry life and nurture
10:16
life. No, it's for being a sex object.
10:18
That's wrong. It's wrong and it's extremely
10:20
toxic and it's harming a generation of girls.
10:23
So I think it's a wonder that some girls are at war with their
10:25
bodies. They're like, well, if that's an
10:26
image of womanhood, I don't want that.
10:28
You know, that was what Chloe Cole said in my interview with
10:30
her. She was saying she didn't really
10:32
identify with these like super sexy makeup made-up girls.
10:35
And so she was like, I don't belong.
10:36
So maybe I'm a boy. And it's just a, it's just
10:40
tragic that we've let it get to that point as a society.
10:44
But that's what happens, right, in society as we go to excesses,
10:46
when we don't have principles, when we lose principles.
10:49
So the first point here is that our society tends to prize
10:53
productivity, the material things, physical beauty over
10:58
relationships, over especially the relationships of marriage
11:03
and the relationship of a mother and her child or even a father
11:05
and his child. So now that we know the what
11:09
we're swimming in, right, and we know what we're operating in,
11:12
we're going to have more clarity of, of discerning what are the
11:14
problems in our society and how do we rediscover the correct
11:18
principles about how we should order our lives.
11:21
One more thing to say about that.
11:23
There's a long history to why we are where we are today.
11:27
We're not here accidentally. We're here in large part because
11:31
of aggressive ideologies, particularly the sexual
11:35
revolution and aspects of feminism post original feminism.
11:40
So a lot of original feminism was about equal treatment under
11:43
the law, which is good. Men and women should be treated
11:46
equally under the law. Today's feminism is about
11:48
abortion, is about in many ways hating men, is about destroying
11:53
the things that make us woman, our motherhood.
11:55
It's very toxic and I want to point it back to a very famous
12:00
book called The Feminine Mystique, which was written by
12:02
Betty Friedan. He was a feminist.
12:04
The Feminine Mystique was written mid century, 20th
12:07
century. And Betty Friedan is talking
12:09
about the suburban housewife, so basically the 1950s
12:12
stereotypical housewife whose children are going off to
12:15
school. She's puttering around the house
12:17
and she's like making dinner for her family and she's wearing a
12:20
little cute dress and has the cute curled hair, right?
12:22
That's kind of the stereotype, right?
12:25
Well, Betty Friedan is commenting how these women are
12:27
actually miserable, how they're lonely, how they're miserable
12:30
and they feel this, this deep sense of meaninglessness.
12:34
And they need to be empowered by being freed from the home, which
12:38
is oppressing them, and from the gender role that they have,
12:41
which is oppressing them of being in the home and going out
12:44
in the work and competing with men.
12:46
Betty Friedan identified something that was partially a
12:49
reality. It was a, it was a truth, which
12:51
is that it is possible to be a mom and to be lonely and to feel
12:56
unfulfilled. That is possible.
12:58
And I think a lot of it has to do with broken community.
13:02
It has to do with a lack of understanding of the value of
13:05
what you're doing and raising your kids.
13:06
So we're going to talk about that in a minute.
13:08
So she kind of sensed something that was real.
13:11
I think she exaggerated it, but her solution was all wrong.
13:14
To say the solution to feeling unsatisfied in your motherhood
13:19
or unsatisfied working from home is to go out and reject those
13:23
things as bad and to go out and compete like a man.
13:26
It's just stupid because first of all, men, in addition to
13:31
women who are out in the workforce or whatever, they
13:34
should be doing that in service of others and especially in
13:37
service of the relationships that they've committed to.
13:39
If they're married, they should be working to serve their wife.
13:42
And if they have children, their children, they shouldn't just be
13:44
working for their own selfish pursuit, right?
13:47
So that's applies to men equally.
13:49
Women, of course, have a unique role because they alone can be
13:52
mothers. And we're going to talk more
13:53
about that, but I think it's very important to call out Betty
13:56
Friedan because her book The Feminine Mystique has huge
14:00
consequences and was a really impactful for a generation of
14:03
women. And then with the sexual
14:05
revolution and this idea that sex doesn't belong in marriage
14:08
and with contraceptive ideology, that, you know, sex shouldn't
14:12
lead to children. It doesn't lead to children.
14:14
Naturally, we can divorce sex from children.
14:16
And all of these ideologies that were just pummeled at us and we
14:20
started to accept them. Good.
14:22
Normal people accepted them because they're like, yeah, I
14:24
guess that kind of makes sense, that every woman should be, you
14:27
know, boardrooms should be 50, fifty, 50% women, 50% women.
14:31
Doesn't matter what the personal decisions are of those people,
14:33
like, as long as they want to be there and it's half women, Half
14:36
Men, it works. Or yeah, women should be out
14:39
working and just drop their kids off at daycare.
14:40
That's normal. That's what everybody should do.
14:43
I can see why that's the mentality for some people, but
14:46
I'm here to say it's broken. All right, So what are the
14:49
principles? So my first point is that
14:52
society tends to prioritize productivity and fame more than
14:55
relationships. So this has huge impact on
14:58
mothers. Second point, stay at home moms
15:02
are working moms. It really bothers me when I hear
15:06
people talk about stay at home mom versus a working mom.
15:09
I get the distinction and I get the easy ease of use with that
15:13
vocabulary, but the problem is it has this presumption in the
15:17
language that a a stay at home mom is not working and that
15:22
somehow a working mom is working more than a stay at home mom.
15:27
And I want to clarify for anyone listening and everybody, I think
15:30
if you're listening, you already know because if you're a stay at
15:32
home mom and you're listening, you're like, you got it.
15:34
Which is that if you're a stay at home mom and you're
15:36
responsible for managing the household, you're responsible
15:39
for meals, for laundry, for errands, for chores, and you're
15:43
responsible for the most important job of them all, which
15:45
is caring for and nurturing your children day in and day out.
15:50
That's a ton of work right there.
15:51
That's actually, you could argue multiple jobs right there.
15:54
And actually, economists have done studies to evaluate the
15:59
economic value, the monetary value of a stay at home mom
16:03
who's doing all these different things, has all these different
16:06
roles and looked at, well, what if you had to outsource it all?
16:10
Outsource the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, the home
16:13
organization, outsource the errands, outsource the child
16:16
care. What would it cost to physically
16:19
outsource all of those things for a family household?
16:24
It would cost up to $200,000 a year.
16:26
I think the number was 170 to 200.
16:29
So the economic value of a stay at home mom is like $200,000 for
16:33
all the things that she's providing for her family.
16:36
Now, all those things in monetary terms, yeah, that's a
16:39
lot. But what she's doing is far more
16:42
significant than $200,000 worth of work.
16:45
And that's my Third Point, which is that for a mother, your
16:48
children are your most important work.
16:52
Your children are your most important work.
16:54
You alone are the mother of your children.
16:57
For those listening, if you're even, this goes for adoptive
17:00
parents, of course, those of parents that are fostering and
17:03
you're entrusted with those kids and absolutely biological
17:06
parents who may be listening. You alone are the mother of your
17:10
child. You alone.
17:12
And by the way, if you're a father, you alone are the father
17:15
of your child. And focusing on mothers here as
17:17
a woman, but some of this can be applied.
17:20
A lot of this can be applied to men too.
17:22
But you alone are the mother of your child.
17:24
Your child needs you. Your child needs you uniquely.
17:28
It needs your presence. It needs the quantity of your
17:31
time so that you're there throughout the child's life.
17:34
And the child knows that you are the psychological core and root
17:38
of their new existence that they're developing.
17:42
And you're their you're their teacher and nurturer.
17:45
You're nurturing them, you're teaching them, you're guiding
17:48
them into maturity. And it's such a priceless job.
17:51
You can't put a price tag on the value of a mother.
17:55
You can't. And that's why being a mother is
17:57
the most important work. You can find a cure for cancer
18:01
as a mother, which would be absolutely amazing.
18:04
But if you sacrificed your child's life for that cure for
18:08
cancer, you've, you've missed it.
18:10
You've missed the primary focus of what you should have done
18:13
with your life, which is help your child develop into maturity
18:18
and be there for your child so you can pick the most important,
18:22
the most humanitarian career. I mean, my work.
18:27
I get the privilege of doing work that can directly help save
18:30
lives. And I'm so grateful for this
18:32
incredible privilege that I have to do this as part of my day
18:35
job. But what's more important than
18:37
that is raising my kids that I've been entrusted with.
18:40
And why is this? Because in natural law and
18:44
morality, our responsibility is to the people we've been
18:47
entrusted to 1st, not the people that are continents away.
18:52
This is why naturally it is more important for someone to care
18:58
for their child that they've been given, then leave and
19:01
abandoned their child and take a flight, you know, to another
19:06
developing country where they're suffering starving children and
19:08
abandoned their their child to go and make sure that those
19:10
children are OK. And yeah, there's a tragedy in
19:14
that because my heart and I know people listening.
19:16
I don't know actually where you're at with this, but for me,
19:19
I, I, I stress a lot or I think a lot about all the people I
19:22
want to help and serve, the causes that I care about.
19:26
But I have to always rework that to remember my 'cause my primary
19:30
cause is in front of me. It's my son, three years old,
19:34
asking for attention. It's my one year old.
19:37
It's these children that God has given me and me alone.
19:40
So value that, cherish that. If you've been blessed with the
19:43
gift of children, just double down on on enjoying the blessing
19:49
and serving those beautiful children that you've been given.
19:52
So for a mother, your children are your most important work,
19:57
more important than any career. But next principle, my 4th
20:02
point, a woman has contributions to make beyond motherhood.
20:06
Think this is very important because we can tend to go to
20:09
extremes. You can say, well, I just I'm a
20:12
mother and I value being a mother so much.
20:14
So I'm just going to give my give it 1000% to being a mother
20:17
and I'm not going to do anything outside being a mother to my
20:20
kids. Everything's about my kids.
20:22
That's not. Necessarily healthy either now
20:25
maybe there's some rare cases depending on your situation in
20:28
life or that makes sense for you maybe because of things that
20:31
you're working through, health issues you have, I don't know,
20:35
you've, you've really thought it through and you're like, OK, I'm
20:37
really not going to do anything outside of just raising these
20:40
kids. And maybe you have like a
20:41
boatload of kids. You have a lot of them.
20:43
So you're, you're tapped out. This is no way to judge what
20:47
you're doing. And I said I would celebrate and
20:49
commend you because you, you're being intentional and thoughtful
20:51
about how you're spending your time, where you're putting your
20:53
skills and your gifts. But for most women, myself
20:57
included, I have important contributions that I am making
21:02
beyond raising my kids, which is my most important contribution.
21:05
And that is a good thing. So don't feel like if you're
21:09
working outside the home, you are in any way doing something
21:12
bad. Now, if you're working outside
21:14
of the home to the degree where your children suffer, and
21:17
especially if there's not an economic necessity to it, that
21:20
would be a problem, right? And I'm going to say that again,
21:23
if you're working outside of the home to the degree that your
21:26
children suffer because you're not getting quality and quantity
21:28
time with them, you're not really in tune with them and
21:31
helping them develop, right? And especially if you're doing
21:34
this and there's not an economic necessity, and I mean a severe
21:37
economic necessity, like you're the sole breadwinner.
21:40
You guys are going to have a roof over your head or food to
21:42
eat if you don't do this. But if that's not the case, then
21:45
I do think it's a problem. And I would tell that to any
21:48
woman. I would encourage her to put her
21:51
motherhood first, but having a flexible job or finding work
21:56
outside the home that you can do in tandem with being a mother,
21:58
where you can contribute, where you can bring an income for the
22:01
family, where you can use your very valuable skills and gifts
22:05
to make an impact in the world. I think it's a beautiful thing.
22:08
I think it's an inspiration to other people and I think can
22:11
ultimately help make the world better for your kids that you're
22:13
trying to raise and be an example to your kids.
22:17
So don't let anyone shame you for being a working mom and
22:20
certainly don't let any fundamentalist strains of
22:23
Christianity, because these do exist, say that it is somehow
22:27
evil or sinful for a mother to do work outside the home.
22:30
I kind of laugh when I see this because you look at Scripture
22:34
when a lot of these people say we'll look at the Bible or look
22:36
at the history of the of the church teaching on this.
22:39
And you look at the woman that's praised above women, except for
22:43
the Blessed Mother. But in Proverbs anyway, she's
22:45
play praise as a woman of praise, a woman to be praised.
22:49
And it's Proverbs 31 woman, most of the description as about her
22:53
working outside the house. She's going and selling goods.
22:56
She's going and surveying real estate to purchase it.
22:59
She's working really hard to bring in income for the family
23:03
and to care for her household and to also serve the poor.
23:06
She's doing works of mercy and charity outside the home.
23:08
So I just think it's funny when we have these like rigidity, we
23:12
have this rigidity in our thinking where we say, well,
23:14
women are mothers, so therefore they can't work.
23:17
First of all, they're working by mean mothers, period.
23:19
And second of all, they probably can and they, they absolutely
23:24
can work and many of them will work.
23:26
And that's a good thing. It's in, it's a good thing.
23:28
It becomes a bad thing when it harms the kids.
23:32
And so the next question is when does it harm the kids?
23:34
And this is where there's a lot of Gray area because every
23:36
child's different, you're going to have different circumstances.
23:40
My rule of thumb, I'll just share it is I don't want my kids
23:44
to be during their waking hours. So I do a lot of work when
23:47
they're sleeping, but during their waking hours, I don't want
23:51
them to be with someone else more than with me for my young
23:54
children. So I organize my schedule so
23:58
that I'm there for park, not every day, but many days a week
24:02
that I'm there for play dates so that I'm there doing lessons
24:04
with my son is learning his colors and shapes and, and and
24:08
words, his alphabet. I'm there and I'm part of their
24:12
daily routine more substantially than child care is, you know,
24:16
our child care is someone like family to us is very, very
24:18
trusted. So that's how I look at it and
24:22
I, I would recommend that because I do think children need
24:24
quality time, but they also do need quantity time, especially
24:28
very young children. I'm also, you know, I, I'm, I'm
24:32
a nursing mom, so I'm there for my son to nurse him and that's
24:36
very important. I don't like pumping.
24:37
I'm not saying pumping is wrong and sometimes pumping is
24:39
necessary, but I think the bond of nursing your child, if you're
24:42
able to do that, is really valuable and important for their
24:45
bonding. Those are just a couple things
24:47
so I do now I know there's probably passionate opinions
24:50
already bubbling up. People are having reactions to
24:52
what I just said. Share your opinions, I'd love to
24:54
hear. I'm not trying to say this is
24:56
like a an adamant creed for how you shall live, but I do think
25:01
our kids need us. Our kids need us and it's our
25:04
first responsibility. OK, next point.
25:08
Nurture and provider roles are an ideal in marriage.
25:13
This is controversial because our society today says there's
25:17
no gender roles. There shouldn't be gender roles.
25:20
Gender roles are a construct. And yeah, in that language, the
25:23
idea of a gender role, I think it's a very modern concept.
25:27
I would prefer to just say if you're a mother, you have a
25:30
certain responsibility. If you're a father, you have a
25:33
certain responsibility. So I think that's a little
25:36
better than saying if you're a woman, then you have a certain
25:39
role to play. Well, it has to do with more
25:41
specificity about your being a woman.
25:44
If you are a mother specifically, yes, you have a
25:46
role to play. So that's where gender roles is
25:48
a little wonky because not all women are mothers.
25:51
And it doesn't, it doesn't really get the specificity that
25:54
I think this topic needs and deserves.
25:55
So in a marriage where you have children, nurture, provider
26:01
roles are very valuable. What do I mean by that?
26:04
Nurture and provide. Both parents do.
26:08
Both fathers should nurture their kids.
26:11
Mothers should provide. But specifically for mothers of
26:14
young children, the mother being available for that child and
26:19
being there to nurture that child and being free to do that
26:22
and not have to leave to go work outside the home is an ideal
26:27
that we should fight for as a society so women can be there
26:31
with their young children. And for her to be able to do
26:33
that, it is ideal if she is married to the father of her
26:38
children who is empowered to go out and provide for his family
26:42
so that she's able to be there with her kids in the home.
26:48
I do think that isn't ideal. Now, that doesn't mean she
26:51
doesn't do any work outside the home.
26:53
That doesn't mean the husband is then a workaholic who's not
26:55
present to his family and kids and puts his work always says
26:58
work comes first because I'm providing for you.
26:59
So I'm always for work first. No, like that.
27:02
That is an excuse by the way some men use.
27:03
It's the excuse, their workaholism by saying I'm doing
27:06
it for you. Actually, what they want from
27:08
you more than your money is your presence.
27:10
And money is necessary for the necessities, but it's not
27:12
necessary beyond that. Don't forget that.
27:15
Right? So we could do a whole episode
27:17
on that, but I do think nurture provider roles are important and
27:22
are an ideal in marriage. And as a society, we should
27:26
value mothers more and their unique role of being the mother
27:30
of young children. Remember, only women can
27:32
gestate. Only women can lactate.
27:35
Only women can mother their very young children in the way that
27:40
they're biologically and emotionally designed.
27:42
To final point, and thanks for staying with me through this
27:45
episode because I know it's kind of like petty all these like
27:48
ideas I'm spitting out. If I was doing a better job of
27:52
this, I probably would use more concrete examples.
27:53
So forgive me, but I just wanted to get this out there because
27:56
it's been something I've been really thinking about and I've
27:58
been on my heart a lot. Final point, if you're listening
28:03
and you're a single or you're childless, you don't have
28:06
children, maybe you're married or you're a single person.
28:09
Please do not think that you don't have a key role to play in
28:13
our society. And, and you know, by me saying,
28:16
if you're a mother, motherhood's your most important work, yes,
28:19
But if you're not a mother, you still have very important work
28:22
to do. And so I, I think that's a
28:24
really important point to make because I see sometimes people
28:28
feeling like they don't have value because they're not
28:30
parents. And that's not true.
28:33
Some people aren't called to be parents and they're called to do
28:34
incredibly important work that make it possible for the next
28:38
generation to have a great future, right?
28:41
Teachers, inventors, people working in business, people
28:44
working in ministry, You're doing work to help the next
28:48
generation ultimately. So thank you.
28:50
Keep doing it. And if you're single and you're
28:52
not sure if you're going to get married or if you even want to
28:55
get married or want to have kids, that's OK.
28:58
God has a unique plan for each of us.
29:00
But I do think that anybody listening, man or woman, is
29:05
called to a kind of motherhood or fatherhood ultimately, even
29:08
if it doesn't end up being lived out through having biological
29:11
children. Because I think the measure of a
29:14
woman or man in their maturity is when they can step out of
29:18
childhood and become fully an adult who then can go on and
29:24
nurture mother or father, help lead other people.
29:30
And that's going to look like a spiritual motherhood or
29:31
fatherhood. That's going to be maybe look
29:33
like a educational one. It's going to look like a maybe
29:37
a mentor. But I do think the measure of
29:40
our maturity as man or woman, I've said this before, you've
29:42
probably heard me say this before, is giving of ourselves
29:46
to those that are less mature than us, in need of us, more
29:52
dependent. The younger, the more frail, the
29:55
more needy who need to be mothered and fathered because
29:58
that's our unique difference between each other, mother and
30:00
men, women and men is women our ability to be mothers and men,
30:04
our ability to be fathers. And even if we don't live it out
30:06
biologically, we can and we should live it out spiritually
30:10
and psychologically for other people.
30:14
So society tends to prize productivity and fame and
30:18
status. Girl boss stuff.
30:21
Don't let them do it. Don't let them mislead you.
30:24
Stay at home moms are working moms.
30:27
For a mother, your children are your most important work.
30:31
That said, a mother has important contributions to make
30:33
beyond motherhood. And one other thing I'll say
30:36
there, it's not just your economic work or you're using
30:40
your talents. It's building community, it's
30:42
having friends. It's all of the things that a
30:45
human being does beyond having kids, which is you're building,
30:48
you know, you have friends, you're building relationships
30:50
with your extended family. I mean, women, our community
30:53
should be community leaders, right?
30:55
Men, we should be community leaders.
30:57
So you're doing more than just mothering or fathering.
30:59
You're being a leader in the community and building up these
31:02
relationships beyond the family. Nurture and provider roles are
31:06
an ideal in marriage. So let's fight for them and
31:09
pursue them. And finally, for singles or for
31:12
the OR those that don't have children, your role and your
31:15
work is incredibly important and you're called to a form of
31:19
motherhood and fatherhood too. All right, there we go.
31:23
Let me know what you guys think about this episode.
31:25
Thanks for listening to me. Thanks for coming along the
31:28
journey of this podcast. Don't forget to subscribe if
31:31
you're watching on YouTube or you're on podcast, don't forget
31:34
to subscribe so you can get episodes as soon as they're out.
31:36
We have some fun bonus ones that we are planning.
31:39
And also don't forget to join Patreon.
31:42
Any amount a month is going to help us be able to pay our bills
31:45
so we can keep producing great content for you.
31:47
Thanks so much and we'll see you next week.