Our work in the home looks hidden. Much of it only we see. It is overlooked and invisible even too those who live with us, who benefit from the work. Therefore, it’s tempting to look at the chores to be done and think, “No one will even notice if I get another day behind on the laundry. No one will even notice if I shine the sink. No one will even notice if I clean out the fridge or not.” And then it’s just a short hop to, “So why should I?”
The world today is not short on conveniences, on technological wonders, on methods for instant gratification of nearly every whim. The world *is* short on meaning, and those two trends are intimately tied. When your own hard work is required for yourself and others to survive, you don’t struggle with meaning. This is why, historically, cultures operating at the thin edge of subsistence don’t produce art, free governments, or philosophers.
Indeed, leisure is the basis of culture, as Josef Pieper’s little book reminds us. A society must have enough food and goods for at least some of the population to think beyond today’s needs, to expend energy not on survival but on beauty and justice and truth. It is basic economics. Leisure isn’t laziness. Leisure is the attention and energy of your mind being directed to higher things beyond survival. As my husband likes to tease me, “Your leisure sounds a lot like work to me.” It’s true. It is. It’s just work of a different kind.
Today in the West it is almost as if we have come full circle on that economic necessity. We have so much cultural wealth and luxury, so much beyond bare substance, that we are numbed to work itself and therefore have neither satisfaction in necessary work nor in contemplative leisure. Both seem beyond our reach as our needs are easily met and our minds are easily distracted. What is left? Numbness. Thoughtlessness. Meaninglessness. Psychotropic prescriptions and psychoactive self-medicating abound in alarming numbers. It’s no wonder.
Humans were made for a purpose, and because the culture has denied that there is a God, the culture has denied both purpose and humanity itself, since both come from God alone. Hence, all things unravel, including even the basic morality that was supposed to be inherent in humanity itself with or without God. Oops. Got that one wrong, didn’t we?
So how does this tie back to our everyday chores and being behind on the laundry? I promise, it does tie back.
For the last hundred years, feminists have painted housework as mind-numbing, menial, meaningless work that women must be liberated from. Many women have liberated themselves at least from caring much about it. Some of them have freed themselves of it entirely by hiring other women to do it for them. Are women happier? No, not at all. In my experience, the happiest women I know are stay-at-home moms.
However, I’m not saying, not by a long shot, that *all* stay-at-home moms are happy. Many moms stay at home yet still struggle. They assume the work they chose was the easy, mindless path — that’s what they were told. Then it turns out to be hard, but all it is is laundry and cooking and dishes. How could it be hard? Why is it hard? Something must be wrong.
Such women are still caught in the trap of feminist assumptions, even while rejecting feminism with their mouth and lifestyle. Their hearts and minds are not yet free.
Everything worthwhile comes from hard work. Man (as in, mankind, both men and women) was created for work, was created to take dominion, not to take it easy. That dominion work was already work before the fall. After the fall, it all got harder. Our creational purpose, however, did not change with the change in circumstances. We’re not supposed to undo the fall — that’s what Jesus does.
We are supposed to still work, and work hard, with humility, taking dominion and increasing in the land. When we work with that mindset, in knowing accord with that design purpose, the exact same work that was once dull and mindless becomes infused with meaning and even delight. The work doesn’t change, but we do.
We can’t have either satisfying hard work or culturally productive leisure without living joyfully under the reign of our King, in the purpose He made us for. The more we understand and love that purpose and design, the more the work before us is transformed. It doesn’t change in its nature or essence, rather we finally perceive its true nature and essence and realize the reality is glorious — like Elisha’s servant going from terrified to confident when his eyes were opened to see the reality of God’s presence and control in his situation.
Stay-at-home moms, particularly when homeschooling, have an incredible blend of the life of both meaningful work and meaningful leisure. We are building little microcosms of society that will expand and radiate out in unexpected, unpredictable ways. If we leave our children to their own devices (particularly devices with screens), ignominy and shame will come hurling back on our heads. If we bring up our children and educate them into reasonable, charitable, thoughtful, knowledgable discussion, we will be both alarmed and blessed in the way God intends to use that in the world.
Culture starts in the home. Culture radiates out from homes. Just having an intact family and vaguely conservative feelings will not produce good fruit. That might be so much better than all you see around you, but it is not adequate. Without strong defenses *and* strong offense, your children will be captured by whichever corner of the internet they fall into. Your children will not stand with you at the gate just because you birthed them and fed them. They are likely to stand with the enemy at the gate unless you bring them up in the full and complete nurture and admonition of the Lord. God has told parents what they must do, and if we ignore His wisdom and His call, we will suffer shame and defeat.
Of course, God’s way of winning involves good men dying. So we’re not playing a safety game. Our mission is so much bigger than that. God uses the weak things to put to shame the wisdom of the world. The weakness of a lone mother at home, just doing the dishes and paying attention to the ways of her household—with intensity and design, even when it’s painful and difficult and messy—grows up into something no one, not even the mom, but only God, saw coming.
Dig in, mom. Your work matters. Keep your ears and eyes and intuition on alert and do not be numbed yourself by your screens. Pour yourself into real work and real people. Do not let your children be captured by any other culture than Christ’s. You and your children are Christ’s, you have His help in this incredibly challenging work. Accept the challenge and be satisfied in Christ, who gives us good work to dedicate our hands and minds to.