Interestingly enough, the part of Questions for Wives that has stirred the most questions is “Am I content to hand over the car keys to my husband and stay home all week?”
So let’s take some time to talk about car keys. Please take the time to read this entire article and its subsequent posts before making up your mind. Although the question in the original document was listed under the finances section, it has implications for other areas of living.
Perhaps some of us remember back to the days of our youth when we first acquired that important document called a driver’s license. Many of us remember asking our dads for the car keys, hoping for some independence. What a thrill it was to have access to those wheels that could take us anywhere, remove us from home – and in some sense authority, and do our own thing. Those car keys were the ticket to new places, new products to purchase, new uses of time, and new relationships. It one sense, those car keys to this day are representative of what can be made available to us in our society.
The answer to the car keys lies in three areas: defining the stay-at-home mom and family, understanding several biblical concepts, and having a vision for the reward of staying at home. Let’s start with the definition of staying at home.
With the industrialization of our modern world, gone are the days when the family worked and planned together, educated and entertained together, and lived and loved together. Recently there has been talk of men returning home to integrate their families and businesses, but one thing that we could get right today among home educators is that women can fully return home since they are already somewhat there. So maybe there is a little something to those car keys and what they represent.
Overall, I think there is a myth surrounding the “stay-at-home” mom. While it is true that some women have chosen to leave an out-of-the-home career in favor of staying home, do they truly stay at home? And while home schooling mothers would claim to be stay-at-home moms, in reality do they really remain at home and create a home that is bursting with family life? As I listen to mothers talking, few could give up the car keys and stay at home. They have enrolled their children in co-op or enrichment classes, they shop ‘til they drop, they sign up for a steady run of women’s Bible studies, they consistently participate in the local city programs in the library and recreation centers, they keep their social calendars full of visiting, and rarely do they spend an entire day or two (never three, four or five) at home. Without analyzing these activities as to whether in themselves they are right or wrong (which is not the point of this article), these things do beg the question of where the focus is and exactly where is the heart of the matriarch.
Every time we leave our homes, we have to decide if we are trading personal responsibility for outsourcing or abandoning home living skills for creating dependency on others. Is the activity we are pursuing taking the place of parental education? Are the items we are shopping for necessary for godly living? Is the entertainment we are seeking truly refreshing and satisfying and obedient to God’s commands? Is the thing we are pursuing outside of the home of great value to building the kingdom? Are the activities we are involved with leading us to worldly pursuits and materialism?
Are our priorities in order as we leave our home? Have we ministered to the saints and extended hospitality in our homes before we seek outside activities? Have we read our Bibles and prayed today before leaving home? Have we given financially to true needs in the church before we spend hours shopping for ourselves? Have we taken some of the burdens off of our husbands, such as home chores, so that he can have more time to study God’s Word and build relationships with our children? Are there things we can be doing at home to enable our family and others to more fully serve the Lord?
Have we invested the hours needed today into our children to give them well trained hearts, minds, and hands before we leave our doorstep? Do we have a nutritious meal prepared for the return of our husbands in the evening before we leave to spend the day outside of the home? Will he return home to a peaceful, ordered atmosphere? Could we save more money and teach our children more skills if we stayed home for lunch?
Are the outside influences worth the time and effort it takes to leave our home? Are the people we visit examples of godly speech and conduct or do they tempt us to gossip or acquire bad attitudes? Is our time with others purposeful and productive? Do we want to immerse ourselves and our children in the music and sounds (noise) of our culture for several hours today? Do we want to be bombarded visually with what we are see out there in the world… billboards, storefronts, telephone poles, concrete, frantic drivers, and so forth? Are the activities and educational programs we seek for our children free from peer influence and secular ideas? Are the things we are pursuing outside of the home an effort to keep up with what everyone else is doing? Are these things part of the world’s definition of living or do they line up with God’s ideas and design detailed in His Book? Have we spent enough time in His Book to discern these things?
Are we training our children towards the desire to be “on the go” all the time and creating a restless spirit in them? Or are our daughters developing a contented home spirit and are our sons developing skills necessary to maintaining a home over their lifetime? Or do our children register boredom when at home?
And here is a good time to mention the internet. In this age of technology, we can now leave our homes without the car keys and from a desktop we can search the entire world. Perhaps this is the area that needs the most serious evaluation. Do we know the companions we are linking to on the internet? Are these people we really know and are confident that they are believers that love God’s Word and apply it? Are the sites we visit so worth our time and attention that we would be excited to share them with Jesus Christ if he visited our home today? Would He find them valuable in redeeming the time? Are we feeding materialism as we shop in hundreds of internet storefronts? Are internet shopping and relationships causing us to say to our child who needs our attention… ”just a sec ‘til I’m done?” Do those seconds add up to minutes and hours? Are we in practicality doing the same with the needs of those in our church? Are we too busy to make a meal for the mother who just gave birth or have we neglected being on top of things so that we can arrive to church early to help with preparations, but instead have spent hours on the internet this week? Although a useful tool, the internet can be our car keys to areas of independence, to wasting time, to developing worldly appetites, and to temptations that we should flee.
Today might be a good time to take the toothpaste test. When our first two daughters were eight and ten, we realized how much time outside activities were taking and how our home life and our finances were being eaten up by running around. One evening James gave each of us a paper plate and a new tube of toothpaste. He instructed us to take off the caps. Then he asked us what things were the most important in life and how many resources they took up. First we listed priority items like reading our Bibles, praying, and serving the saints. With each item we had to squeeze out toothpaste on the paper plate. Then we listed the important things that were non-negotiable like meals, laundry, and school. More toothpaste filled our paper plates. Our next group of activities was those things that embellish and enrich our home life. More toothpaste came out of the tubes. Very quickly we were running out of toothpaste with hardly any left, yet there were many activities remaining that needed time and energy and finances. It became quite real to us that there were things that were just going to have to be laid by the wayside because we were out of toothpaste. All of those activities were ones that were out of the home. There was not one home activity that we needed to cut out of our schedule. In order to truly put the important things in life first and do them well, we would have to stay home more.
Home educators might want to get their own tube of toothpaste for evaluation or keep a log of what happened and where they went this past week or month. A wife could hand her log over to her husband for evaluation or a couple could go to their church elder for counsel on their weekly usage of resources.
Car Key Question #1 is: Have we biblically evaluated what we are doing in our lives?
Car Key Resource #1 to help us evaluate is: “24 Hours is All You Get” by Susan Bradrick of Family Discipleship Ministries.
Stay tuned for Part Two…..
