The Worldview: Career Before Kids
The other day, Mom, Travis and I were watching an episode of a CBS show called Undercover Boss, in which the CEO or owner of a company goes undercover and works with their employees to see how their company actually runs. We started an episode about the CEO of Great Wolf Lodge Resorts. The CEO, Kim Schaefer, highlighted the world's view of motherhood perfectly. Sadly, but accurately. When they shot personal clips of Kim with her stay-at-home husband and two teenagers, this is what she said:
"If it were up to me, I'd probably work all the time. When I had Max, I had him on a Friday, and I was back to work on Monday! I travel a lot. I probably travel about 75% of the time. There are always reality checks with the kids, that they're sick of you being gone. You know, it's hard. But I've always felt I need to work, that I need to have my career in order to be a better mom. It's hard to describe why it's so important to me, but I feel like I have to have both."The world says that mothers need to work. In the world's eyes, if a mother actually stays at home and raises her children, well, she's simply throwing her life away. Wasting perfectly good potential. As Kim Schaefer, so deceived by the world's view of motherhood, said, "I've always felt I need to work." She feels that way because the world has told her so. And, in the meantime, she has clearly (maybe unknowingly, yet still obviously) sacrificed her kids for her work. She has chosen a career over her kids. Now, I recognize that there are definitely some situations where a mother must work and should work (e.g. single mother) but, if a woman usurps her husband's authority and leaves the home to work, letting her husband take care of the kids and run the house, well then, gender roles and motherhood have been terribly misconstrued.
The Biblical View: Getting My Priorities Straight
The Bible portrays a mother much differently. The biblical view comes down to what a mother's priorities are. The world teaches that I am number one. I look out for my interests and what I want best. Then, the world tells me, my career comes next. And then, after my work, I can have my family. The world says, "Fit your kids around your career." But the biblical view completely twists that around. The Bible says that God is to always come first in a mother's (and in everyone's!) life. God before me. Then, the Bible says, a family is to come next, husband and then kids. A career is somewhere near the bottom of the ladder for a woman who's priorities match up with the Word of God.
So what are some priorities that a mother following God has? Titus 2:3-5 says, "Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled." Those are the qualifications for a biblical mother. They're pretty high standards, but we should always be striving to achieve them - even those of us who aren't moms! Because, one day, when my time on earth is done, I want it to be said of me as it was said of the godly Proverbs 31 woman:
"Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."
(Proverbs 31:25-30)
