Stay-At-Home Moms vs. Working Moms
Hi Crystal, I don't know if this is the right place to post my comment, but your goals and this topic brought up a point I had regarding your takes on being a stay at home mother versus working mothers. From your website, your new position with The Homeschool Magazine as a Marketing Manager, and this blog, you seem to be driven to being business savvy and entreprenurial (apologize for spelling if incorrectly spelled). I'm not saying that it's bad or wrong, but I would like to know how much of the business Jesse does and how much you do.
Hi, Meme!
Also, how does this differ from mothers who work at an office? A mother who works at home is still a working mother. She still takes time away from her family to deal with the business matters and you still have to make sacrifices to meet the demands of the consumers. A business is a business, no matter what the product being sold is. Is this something you intend to continue as Kathryn gets older and you have more children? And when Jesse gets his own practice or professional job being a lawyer?
I am only curious because I am researching whether or not I should start a home business when I have children or a family of my own rather than working from an office. But is staying home and working enough? -Meme
Thanks for your question. Some of these are issues that I grapple with on an almost weekly basis. Yes, I am probably what you could call "business-savvy" and am definitely entreprenuerial-minded, though this is mostly just by nature, not something I neccessarily set out to be. Ever since I was a young girl, I've always found various creative ways to earn extra money. When Jesse and I got married and moved to a completely unfamiliar town and he began law school, things were extremely tight financially for us. We had committed to doing everything possible to stay out of debt, but we had no idea how we would survive three years of law school on Jesse's part-time income. I began praying for the Lord to give me ways to earn extra money from home.
Since then, I've learned a lot (and continue to learn!) , done a lot of different things (some which flopped on their face!) and God has opened up a lot of doors. I know it is only God's blessing, not anything that I have done or am. God has been so faithful to provide for us and take care of us -- way beyond my wildest imaginations!
I am now at a point where I have more from-home job opportunities than I have time for, and, I confess that it is often hard for me to sort through what is God's will for me to do and how to have proper priorities. I love being a wife and mother and always want that to be my top priority. But, at this point in time, I am able to help relieve a huge burden off of my husband's shoulders by contributing to our family financially.
My husband and I pray about this and talk about this a lot. I want his priorities for me to be my priorities. I don't want my family to suffer in any way. As soon as Jesse is through with law school and begins his "real" job, I will definitely be cutting back on working from home. I enjoy what I do, but I know that continuing on in the same capacity that I am currently in with our business and The Old Schoolhouse Magazine is not possible. I have much more time right now to be doing these things since I only have one young daughter, but as we have more children and they grow older, my time and energies will be needed elsewhere. I'm not exactly sure what the future holds in this regard, but I trust the Lord to lead and guide me through my husband!
My encouragement is this: If the choice is between you working from home or working from an office, definitely choose working from home. With the internet, the possibilities out there for working from home are almost limitless and the income-earning possibilities are amazing! You can earn a much better income from home than a traditional office job and you will also save a LOT of money in the process, too (if you are wise in how you spend your money.). If you are willing to put forth the time and effort, you can have a very successful business.
That said, women need to especially be careful to not develop a "career mentality" even while working from home. It is so easy to get side-tracked and lose our focus. Don't let a home business do this to you! Continually be going to the Lord and your husband for counsel and direction. This is one reason I am a strong promoter of family businesses instead of a woman having her own independent business. This is the direction Jesse and I are hoping to move in, especially as our children grow older. We'll see where God leads.
Let me know if that fully answered your questions or not. I'll be happy to share more if you or anyone has any questions regarding this.
posted by Crystal Paine at 12:14 PM
18 Comments:
Good thoughts, Crystal! It's neat that you've learned so much in this area while you've had the chance. I've always been interested in home-business as well and think it would be neat to have one where the whole family could work together.
But as the children have come along pretty close together (3 under the age of 6 and one on-the-way), I've had to realize that I just don't have the time or energy to start much of a home-business right now. Even a good thing can be bad if done at the wrong time.
So, I'm sticking to a little selling here-and-there on eBay and am excited and trying to be patient for what God may have in the future! :)
I think the proliferation of home businesses these days is interesting and unquestionably a good thing for women (notwithstanding my obvious disagreement with the notion that women should shy away from careers outside the home).
As a prosecutor, I usually worked from home 1-2 days per week-- whenever I had no meetings or court. I got a lot more done at home and it cut down on commuting and dry cleaning bills. And what with e-mail, faxes, and telephone, the work didn't suffer at all. Now that I'm at a law firm, however, I feel that I need to physically be AT the office just because perceptions are so important to one's advancement, so face time is important.
I am incredibly biased toward working at home and probably shouldn't post because I have such strong feelings about it. I am praying as I write this that I can express myself without being hard core about it.
The call to be busy at home is a bibically based call. I have found we can rationalize ourself out of it by criticizing others who are at home. One, they are not doing meaningful work impacting society at large or contributing to the family economy. Two, some criticize work at home moms as being no different than work out side of the home moms. In some cases there may be no differences. However, a biblically sensitive woman will make a difference between being busy at home and working outside the home. Here is how:
Work at home moms can be family centered and support a family economy. The home busines can become a family focused business and be a great tool for home education.
My young children learn math while helping me count change. The six and seven year old learned multiplication doing this. The twins, three, learn sorting and grouping.
We compartmentalize children as a socieity. That compartmentalization drifts into the home focused family too. Meaning you can work at home and do so with incredible intensity and involve your entire family.
I have had people criticize our farm ministry saying we are focusing on the farm and not our children. I sort of seethe with this because our children are involved in every step of our farm process. Many judge us based on their own need to compartmentalize children from adult interactions in everything. It is just as much their farm as it is our farm. In fact, we want them to be earning their own white collar living in their aspect of the farm before they reach eighteen. This implies they are involved from early early on. We do this based on their interests in the farm. My six year old loves flowers and is starting a potted plant business. My seven year old loves to make whey lemonade so he sells it to our customers. He also loves pigs and is going to start a hog operation. He will sell to our customers and earn the money.
Here are some other practical examples:
Jordan, three, helps me bag up customer orders on Saturday. He stands on the chair and puts the butter, cheese etc in the bag. Give him product labels and he places them on the product. Customers love it when our children put their very own kiddie stickers on the products. I put tape on the reciept and then he sticks the reciept on the outside of the bag.
All the children help load up milk and bags when we have a customer carpool. Even the baby will be allowed to carry a bag with bread or something in it. Customers get to see all the children work together to help them.
The teenager answers phone calls and takes orders.
The children love to help make butter. When I am churning, I often give them a small jar of cream to shake as I work. They can flip the switch of the butter churn and are often on chairs helping me pour cream in the churn. Sometimes when I am rinsing butter I will give the twins a small dish of butter, it has a tablespoon of butter in it. They will wash their own butter.
It takes a bit of creativity sometimes but they can all help in some way or be included.
Yesterday, the 18 month old helped move the pullets from the brooder to the hoop house. I had to hold her and then help her hold a chicken, but she beamed to be a part of the team.
When writing for our farm, my children have their own writing projects to work on. My teenager proof reads my work offering suggestions and corrections.
My children make their own products and sell them as well.
I had a career outside of the home, I am quite skeptical about women working as helpmeets for other people's husband's. Why not strive for the optimum and support your own helpmeet?
Yes, our farm is my career. Because it is a family farm, my career is my husband's helpmeet and my children's supervisor. It is my objective to strive to include the children on some level so they can feel important. Prayer often helps. All the younger ones aim to serve in the home business the way the older ones do. They can't wait to be big enough to load up customers milk by themselves.
Our nation is really struggling these days with children who don't know their parents and parent's who don't know their children. Husbands who don't know their wives and wives who don't know their husbands. I pray more women will stive to be busy at home. It has been an incredibly transformative experience for our family and for our community.
Hi Crystal and everyone else who was able to chime in! Thank you for your comments and answering my question regarding being a stay at home/work at home mom.
Crystal, I agree with you about having the time right now and how it may change as the demands of being a mother and wife may increase in the future. I spoke of this topic to my boyfriend's mother who is a mother of six (one passed onto the heavenly Lord at birth) with her oldest being nearly 26 and youngest just over a year old (and she's not creating any road blocks just in case the Lord blesses her with more). She is fortunate to be able to stay at home, but she also has engaged in small home businesses, but mostly they are tailored around her hobby (i.e. garage sale shopping and selling on Ebay, breeding Birman cats and Burmese dogs). I have repeatedly asked her on her thoughts of home businesses and she has told me that she does what she can without it affecting her abilities as a mother, wife, homemaker, and teacher (she homeschools all of her children). She has also told me to beware of becoming too caught up on the home business that we lose focus of our God given role as women.
Another point she made was that we can help our family financially not just through creative home businesses, but creative savings. Meaning, by shopping around for the best phone plans, using coupons for groceries, shop wisely, or garage sale shopping. In other words, we can actively help our own family financially by being wise about how we spend the money our husbands work hard for everyday.
I truly thank God for bringing her into my life. She is just a wonder to watch and learn from. Her own personal testimony has brought such encouragement in my own life. I hope to be as fruitful as she is and as many of you are.
I admire women like you all who are always seeking ways to be "help meets" to their husbands and family. I have so many questions since it was not a way that I was brought up even though I did have a stay at home mom. I was raised to be career oriented and so this is all relatively new to me.
Thank you again for taking the time to post my question and providing great insights on the topic.
A interesting thing my mom and I noticed recently was the librarian at the local library where my mom lives, who has her toddler at work with her. Mom said she has had him there with her ever since he was born, she nursed him and everyone just sort of helped take care of him and it was no trouble. She is expecting her second and we are curious to see if she will have 2 of them there! It is a small town, but it is too bad that more businesses are not as helpful to mothers of babies who have to work.
It is hard to have a home business with children, but growing up we did it and it was a good experience for us. We also saw the failures of a business too and had to learn along with my parents mistakes. We learned how to answer a phone politely and how to be quiet when phone conversations were ongoing. Dad had a computer business for most of my teen years, mom did and still does taxes at home since I was about 12 as well as helping with a pizza business and being a taxi service for the Amish. '
I think it helped me learn that if you need something and do not have the money, it is not unattainable. You can work for it and earn it one way or another!
quote from meme:
"She has also told me to beware of becoming too caught up on the home business that we lose focus of our God given role as women."
This is a good thing to remember! (o:
I have a question.....before the internet, what kinds of home businesses did women do that were successful?
Mary Kay and Tupperware!!!! (just joking...don't want to offend anyone!) :-)
You're a hoot C.A.!!---when are you going to start blogging again?
Meme,
Hi. I just got through looking at your web page!! What a great job you do!!!!! I used to live in Washington State, only on the "other side of the mountain"....Spokane. We were stationed at the Air Force Base there for 3 years. What a great state!
Anyway, I just wanted to commend you on looking into your options before you get married and have a family. It is wonderful you are thinking ahead and considering the impact a career outside the home would have on your family/children.
I looked at your resume and you have soooooooooo many options open to you to work from home. I have a contact I used to work for in Spokane who lives in Seattle. Her husband is a well known surgeon in Seattle. This woman was an R.N. and started her own phase III drug study company and it became huge! I believe she sold it and started another company in Seattle (I'll find the name for you), but she would be a great resource to talk with regarding business, etc. She is very family oriented and could probably give you some valuable insight into your career field and the options that might be available to you.
I'll try over the weekend to come up with a valid telephone number and then I'll e-mail you.
Oh!! Mrs. B!!! Hey there! Hope you are doing well. I am going to start blogging again, hopefully over the weekend. I am in the process of setting up a new blog - since my daughter sort of "fixed" my old one.........hee hee. I will send the link to Crystal and maybe she will let me jump off her page to mine!! :-) I think I have your e-mail too???? I'll ring you when it is up and running.
Happy, Blessed New Year to you!
Hi CA:
I hope that you're doing well too!...glad to hear that you'll be back blogging again soon! (o:
I don't think you have my e-mail address but Crystal might(if she has one of my old e-mails I've sent her). I don't mind you having it but I don't really want to post it for the world to have.
Hope you have a great and blessed New Year too!
ps. Sorry Crystal for the personal conversation on your blog....I wanted to ask her a question and didn't know any other way to do it. (o:
I don't see what is so wrong with a career mentality. Maybe if I had one I wouldn't be without health insurance and could actually go to the doctor.
I would have to say that is a conflict. Becaue as you work at home unless you are able to balance the time with husband/kids/cleaning you will not be doing all of your homemaking duties. But if you an make the extra money and still be proverbs 31 woman great. The woman in the scripture actually was "business savy."
Some folks I know don't believe (religious grounds) in health insurance and make extra strides to avoid doctors.
With a large family we train our children to help in every aspect of home management. Even the three year olds help fold wash cloths and put away clothes. The eighteen month old empties the small trash cans in other rooms. We pair our children up with an older buddy to over see the chores and training. Many hands make light work. So everyone does team work. Also, this is approved and lead by the head of our home. He lead us down this path. Really, it can work to work at home bearing in mind that the career is husband approved, family focused etc. It is an incredibly fulfilling and educational thing. My career was actually all about ME before. It had nothing to do with the family. A wise woman builds up her house, but a foolish one tears it down with her own hands. God has a beautiful peaceful and freeing design in the keepers of the home or busy at home paradigm.
Even a good thing can be bad if done at the wrong time.
--------------
Absolutely, Anne! That's why I don't think everyone should have a home business, especially not for their entire lives. There is a time and season for everything. :) By the way, congratulations on your pregnancy!
I totally agree with you, Meme, that we should also be seeking to wisely manage the funds God has given us. Although my mom never had any sort of home business, she was excellent at teahcing me to be thrifty and frugal and wise steward -- I'll forever be grateful!
My encouragement is this: If the choice is between you working from home or working from an office, definitely choose working from home.
Of course, I agree with another poster that there are *some* other considerations here -- for example, health coverage could be very important, especially with a newborn, and your "home office" doesn't chip in toward that, nor for life insurance, retirement planning, or other such. I know that the "sparrows of the air" don't worry about such things, but I think it's reasonable to ask whether we're really taking a fully responsible approach to our families if we disregard such matters entirely...
Crystal
What if it is God's will that you only have one child. Would you then build up your business and use your full potential? Please do not misunderstand I hope your dreams are fufilled and you are fruitful and multiply. But what if God needs you for something else? He may tell you that He needs you and your husband for a ministry. In order to fulfill this ministry He may not want you to follow in your mother's footsteps. Remember if Paul had a family how would he have had the time to write most of the NT and travel. I think you grew up fast in some ways because you helped your mother raise your sibilings and did a lot of household chores. But on the other hand you are like a child because you have been isolated from everything outside your church relm. Don't put God in a box let Him determine how we use the gifts He gave us. ICorinthians 7 According to Paul God is giving options. Both singles and marriage are gifts from God and both are valuable in accomplishing his purposes. Please consider this because not everyone is called for children and family. That does not mean they are selfish.
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