Just a few weeks ago, we celebrated Labor Day here in the United States. It’s a holiday I never really gave much thought to, and honestly thought was a bit of a joke, but this year, I was privileged to be reminded about the beauty of work and labor.
It was a particularly laborious day for me and our family as we moved into a beautiful new custom home. We were in a rush—school started in just three days in the new school district we were moving to—and making sure we were in time for school also meant doing all the final cleaning before the backbreaking (figuratively, thankfully) work of moving all our possessions into our home. Aside from the realization that I really do have too many things, this weekend provided a good reminder to me of the beauty of work.
There is a hotly contested debate about work and particularly about work in motherhood. The internet is full of videos of Trad-Wives, Girl-Bosses and never ending critiques of what is work, how much work should be completed and who should be doing said work. A decade ago we had the “lean-in,” girl-boss era, ensuring women that their value and their self-worth was to be found in the boardroom, in client meetings and breaking glass ceilings. Staying at home with your kids? You will lose your identity and stuff all your dreams and desires deep down inside because you could never be fulfilled simply at home with kids. Women worked hard to make sure you didn’t stay at home!
The culture screamed this at us every day, but never mentioned the guilt of leaving your children, the endless balancing act, the constant running list in your head of the things you have yet to do at work or at home. Enter, the Trad-Wife.
This phenomenon grew on social media as women across the globe sought to rebel against the constant mantra of “leaning-in” and climbing the corporate ladder. These women do not work out of the home, cater to every need of their husbands and children, spend much of their time cleaning and cooking and frown upon any woman working outside of the home. Women should flaunt their femininity and focus only on their domesticity. But notice I wrote “do not work outside the home.” Make no mistake, these women still work. They do the work of the home—the work their spouse would need to do in addition to their work outside the home if there wasn’t a woman at home doing it for them.
Neither of these images—and they are images portrayed for views on social media and reactions at dinner parties—are a complete picture of what a woman is or what a woman can do. And I’m not going to answer what a woman is or what a woman can do because, surprise, surprise, we are all individuals with unique souls and unique needs and unique families that all need something different.
The Covid pandemic opened employers to the benefits of remote and hybrid work. And honestly it can be a godsend for many working mothers. No more commuting, some optional child care, the opportunity to be with our little ones when sick but still make our commitments to our employers—it has helped ease some of the guilt and search for balance. But not all of it. It’s still hard. Someone always needs you and it’s hard to determine which need should surpass the other when you can’t simply say “my work day starts now and ends now.” Those little ones need care all day long and that often means not answering an email at 2pm and instead at 9pm after they’re all in bed.
This week as we moved into our home, my oldest said to me how much he actually really loves the new house. This was after almost five months of complaints of how much time we spent up at the construction site, how much of the work my husband and I took on ourselves, how we had no time for him between working our day jobs and working on the house. It was a lot and there were a lot of sacrifices made. But this gave me the perfect opportunity to look at him and say “see, wasn’t all that work worth it?” It doesn’t matter if we work remotely from the home or out of the home in an office or fill our days entirely with the work of molding little souls and cleaning floors. By working, in any and all forms, we show our children the importance and dignity of work. Working shows we care—for our family, for our home, for our employer, for our customers, for our Lord.
“Whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for others, knowing that you will receive from the Lord the due payment of the inheritance; be slaves of the Lord Christ.” – Colossians 3:23-24
