Should Mom Stay at Home?

In this episode of Wake Up Look Up, Pastor Zach explores the growing popularity of the "trad wife" movement and the cultural pressures many women feel around work, motherhood, and family life. He discusses what Scripture does–and does not–say about stay-at-home moms, emphasizing the freedom Christians have to make wise, intentional choices based on God's calling rather than social media trends. He also encourages listeners to seek God's wisdom for their families and build their lives around his purposes instead of cultural expectations.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Zach Weihrauch

Follower of Jesus who has graciously given me a wife to love, children to shepherd, and a church to pastor.

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Check out new episodes of our daily podcast, Wake Up, Look Up, with Zach Weihrauch as he interprets what's happening in our world through the lens of the gospel.

Hello everyone, and thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch, and in today's episode, we're asking the question, should mom stay at home? This is prompted by an article I read this week in the Atlantic about the called the Unglamorous Truth about the Average Trad Wife. If you're not familiar with the, phrase trad wife, it's kind of a social media trend glorifying women, who choose to live the traditional. That's where the trad comes from. Life of a stay at home mom, a mom who kind of takes care of her husband and takes care of her children and builds a kind of domestic, life. this trend has been big on the Internet for a while, glamorizing the life of a wife who kind of is always in a dress and the garden looks good and the dishes are done and the house is together. By the way, just FYI, if you look at the major tradwife influencers out there, most of them are coming from incredibly wealthy families. Like, one of the most significant, for example, is married to a guy who was heir to a fortune with worth about $400 million. Recently in an article, she admitted that she has a team of gardeners. So I say that to say that the tradwife trend on social media is really pushing women to stay at home. But the women pushing that are of significant financial means. They're not doing all the work themselves. The reason why that's relevant is because this article in the Atlantic was pointing out the fact that most women in America who stay home do so because the cost of childcare exceeds the income they would make from working. For example, 75% of American families with stay at home moms have household incomes under $50,000. Many of them make enough money to not be eligible for government assistance, but not enough money to be able to pay for childcare. So while they are living the life of a quote unquote trad wife, they're doing it for economic reasons. And the danger of that is twofold. One is the social media trend presenting a life that women really, unless you have a team of gardeners or a stay at home chef, you really can't keep up with. And ignoring the fact that for most families it's an economic reality, not really a lifestyle choice. Here's the point I want to make. the Bible often does not require any one choice of us in matters like, like this. There is no Biblical requirement for wives to stay at home. There are certainly things that a wife and mother biblically is expected to do to teach your children about Jesus, to raise them to be a righteous kid, at least as much as you can get a kid to make appropriate moral choices, to care for the home. But don't forget, Proverbs 31, which is often held out, is kind of the biblical view of a righteous woman. She's going to the market to sell things. She's working. The Bible nowhere says that wives don't have to work. In fact, in the context in which the Bible was written, the whole family worked. You participated in the family business, children, mom, dad, everybody. So the Bible doesn't impress upon women the trad wife concept. here's the bigger concern though, because you can make that choice. I mean, I'm married to a woman who at least right now and for a long time has stayed home with our children. It's been great. It's a viable choice if you want to make it. It's not the one you have to make. Here's the point I'm making, though. choose with intentionality the life you're going to live. You know, Proverbs says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. I think what that verse is saying is that Christians live the life that God has for us to live, dependent on his wisdom. For some women, they will feel a, calling by God to stay home. For other women, they will not. That matters to me more. You can't be influenced by social media by some depiction of who you ought to be as a wife and a mother or as a man and a father. social media influencers don't exist to bless you, but they exist to be blessed by you. As they push products and goods that they make money for, getting you to feel like you need to purchase, God is for you. So my question is, are you living the life you have fallen into, or are you living the life you've been called into? If you're staying at home but you feel a calling to work, in the end, your family won't flourish. If you're working and you feel a call to, to stay at home, in the end, your family won't flourish, at least not the way God has called you to. That's what Proverbs is saying, trust in the Lord. What is the life that God has for you? Husband and wife? Have you sat down and talked about what are our values? What are the goals? What are the things that 30 years from now we're going to look back and be glad that we decided? What are the things we're going to be okay with saying no to? this is also just a point at which I should push you again to get off of social media because so many women are feeling, in this case oppressed by a version of a mom, a version of a wife that doesn't exist and isn't what the Bible tells you you have to be. Listen, we need to enjoy the freedom that we have in Christ. Our righteousness is not in staying at home. It's not in going to work. It's in Christ. So instead, seek his wisdom. Seek his counsel. Make intentional choices that you believe in and not choices that you're forced into. Hey, thanks for checking out. Wake Up, Look Up. For more content, be sure to visit the Christ Community Chapel app or website cccchapel.com

Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at [e-mail]!