Staying Home Is Easier than You Think (with this one thing)

As someone who occasionally relies on Reddit for reviews and/or instructions for common homemaking systems, I often see, for better or worse, recommended threads near the one I may be perusing.

A recent such thread titled, “How the hell are we all OK with this scam?” was both enlightening and extremely sad, and I thought it should serve as a wakeup call to families who haven’t figured out how in the world they can overcome the seeming forces keeping them stuck in the hamster wheel. Because in my humble yet, OK fine, dare I call it “privileged,” opinion, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Before I go on, let me expound a bit on what I mean by “privileged” because it’s a term I’ve been called before for this exact reason: It simply means that I’m able to stay home. Years ago, a mom who seemed jealous that she had to work outside the home called me privileged thinking I’d be insulted, but I went along with it because most moms who have to work outside the home and who are jealous (of those who don’t) simply assume those who stay home are “privileged” as though we’re waited on with a silver spoon all day.

So if you do count yourself among those who think moms like me are “privileged” even though it’s not a very accurate way of looking at our honest work, then please stop reading right here if you do want to sleep well tonight because you won’t like what I’m going to say next.

What makes me privileged isn’t that I married into the right family (most of his relatives ignore us), or that I was born in the “right” class (my family started from scratch when we moved here), or that I got lucky and met a man who from the get-go said he wanted a woman at home (that wasn’t what he thought when we first met), or that I’m above anyone (because we’re all wonderfully made “but not equally in ability or proclivity”), or that this blog affords me the chance to stay home (not in the slightest).

“By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.” – St. Thomas Aquinas

What makes me privileged is twofold: (1) My husband values me being with the kids all day and does everything in his power to ensure it; and (2) I wouldn’t settle for less. I know God had a huge part in all of it, too. For instance, I know He gave me a man who’d respect me changing my mind to decide to stay home, and so on, but I can’t recommend anything about something one can’t control, like God’s Will. Instead, I’m addressing the parts that you CAN control.

There’s a lot of power when a man, your husband and your kids’ dad, trusts YOU to not only raise those souls but also educate them, learn alongside them, and instill in them a love of God, family, and learning that will sustain them for the rest of their lives. Such a man is a treasure because he sees you as a treasure to be forever cherished and valued. There’s no one better than you (hopefully, if he chose right) to mother his kids and to educate them into fine adults and citizens.

Why more couples don’t get that is beyond me. When a man sees the invaluable gift he has at home, he does everything he needs to to ensure the harmony his wife’s fostering stays untouched, always. He doesn’t jeopardize it by making her work, letting her work at the kids’ expense, or merely suggesting that she should get a job. When he knows the kids are better off at home with her and not at some random institution where a random care provider (don’t you dare call them “teachers”) is half-watching them while they’re having to compete for misplaced affection and resources.. then he’ll do everything in his power to ensure his kids are home with their mom rather than make her earn an income to pay said stranger to care for those kids.

Then when I say that I would settle for nothing less, I was referring to the fact that once I decided a few months after we started dating that I’d stay home once the kids came, we wouldn’t have stayed together had he wanted otherwise because it’d shown me he’s not willing to be a Man and rise up to the occasion of protecting and providing for his family. As Jud and Prudie from Poldark (which I’m re-watching) would say,

T’int Right, T’int Fair, T’int Fit, T’int Proper.

I’ve known of men who say they want a woman who works, or who care that she works (so they can, what, afford more things like daycare? go on more vacations? get in more debt?) as though a full-time mom’s work AT home was worthless at worst or unimportant at best, or as though she had an unlimited bandwidth to cheerfully deal with the demands of Corporate America, along with his, those of the kids, and those of their home.

I don’t know scientifically, but I think valuing that is selfish and short-sighted, and that men who engage in this behavior of not trusting the women they married without reason or only caring about how much another man thinks she’s worth monetarily lack a backbone.

(Of course, if he chose poorly and she really ought to NOT stay home because she’s more prone to idling or wasting time than properly manage it or raise the kids well, then sure, my point is moot.)

Conclusion: You don’t have to stay on the hamster wheel if you don’t want to. If you want to stay home with your kids, it’s easier than you think to find a way to do so, starting with not settling down with a man who wants otherwise.

Staying home is easier than it seems when you have that one key thing.

But back to that Reddit post

I’ll quote the post below mixed in with my commentary after a paragraph or two. By no means do I want to shame anyone. Instead, my aim is to show you that it CAN be done and it doesn’t have to be THAT hard. Additionally, I want to show those of us with a stay-at-home parent how good you have it.

“How the hell are we all OK with this scam?”

I feel like borderline every parent I know (except maybe two generationally wealthy families) has to work. Dual-income households just to stay afloat. That’s not exactly breaking news. But what is insane is what that actually looks like day to day.

Social circles are a curious thing because most families we know (none of whom are “generationally wealthy”) do have a spouse at home with the kids. A very dear family to us where both parents own a business and work from home actually homeschool, but they prioritize time with their kids, with Mom and the kids meeting us for playdates regularly, and Mom and Dad taking the kids out in the early afternoons.

We work full-time jobs, which means waking up insanely early, rushing through one or two hours of morning chaos just to get everyone out the door, spending the entire day away from our families, then racing home to grab the kids, make dinner, and power through the nightly routine — cleanup, baths, bedtime, repeat. And somehow, in all of that, there’s basically zero time left for actual family connection.

I wake up insanely early to exercise, get ready, finish to-dos, and have my Me time before the kids get up. I could NOT imagine getting them up earlier than their normal time just to get them ready, fed, and out the door. All for what, so they can in a desk for eight hours rather than jump around, play, and move for that same amount of time at home (excluding an additional hour or two outside!)? That seems cruel to me.

However, though they don’t wake up very late, our children do love their rest, and I’d hate to sacrifice it for my sake, or so that my husband can breathe easy that we can afford more stuff. We prioritize family time above all else, and believe it or not, you can, too. It all starts long before you get married. If you’re already long past that, read on.

Never mind the people with hour-plus commutes each way (which used to be my life). Especially for full-time working moms — we barely see our kids during the week because someone has to make dinner and keep the house running. Yes, I know: meal prep. Blah blah. We do that too, and it still feels like we’re barely holding it together.

Why husbands don’t help out more–and why women don’t choose men who don’t mind helping out more–is beyond me.

Here’s what I mean: As wives, we must never think that our husbands aren’t able to handle something, and therefore, we must get it off their plates. Men are built tough and if they lack a mission, they become, well, not tough.

Overtime, that’s a muscle that won’t get exercised and will atrophy. Young boys need to move a lot, have goals, be challenged, and utilize all their muscles for proper development, and this doesn’t change as they age: it becomes even more important, especially once these men go out into the world and start families. If moms (and later wives) prevent the opposite sex from exercising their God-given abilities, these men will flounder.

So when a wife decides that she, too, will work full-time outside the home for his sake (and/or that of their debt), the message she’s sending is, “You’re not a good enough provider so I’ll provide as well.” Then he won’t have to work as hard and who will this help, exactly?

We live in these hyper-organized, tightly scheduled lives just to survive, and it’s exhausting. Daycare costs a fortune, it’s closed constantly, kids are always sick, and the stress is relentless. Some days I just want to… hang out with my damn kids.

You CAN just hang out with your kids. I give you permission. Take the day off and take more days off throughout the year. Kids are delightful and if you feel this push to be with them (more), let me let you in on a little secret: that’s God speaking. I know it’s not what many like to hear, but that is your God-given biology telling you to slow down and be with your kids. They need you and you need them because you were created to nurture them and they to want to be with you.

When you disrupt nature and tell it to F-Off, you get all kinds of disregulations and problems in children (and their parents), and start to, among other things, get sick more often (from those filthy daycares and children not moving much), then you all become like roommates and not the domestic church God created you to be.

Who decided this was the model for the American family? Because I have some words for them.

It’s not the model and those promoting it as such are lying.

In fact, Democrat Elizabeth Warren and her daughter warned against the dangers of dual-income households decades ago apparently to deaf ears. (Their book, The Two-income Trap, is a Must!)

Having both parents earn salaries makes everything more expensive (because if both Mom and Dad can now earn money, then economics dictates that the Market should catch up to that increased spending power even though many families don’t function like that); both parents are unavailable in case of emergencies, neither parent is available for the kids’ most important times during the day (include. nap times, mealtimes, but also appointments); and no one wants to be around each other due to the constant tedium and stress.

WHAT KIND OF LIFE IS THAT?!

This sucks.

I don’t blame this poster for believing that because she’s right.

But it doesn’t have to be that way: YOU DON’T HAVE TO BOTH WORK and put your kids in daycare.

You don’t have to homeschool if you’re not called to do that, of course, but you certainly don’t have to think that you have to join the rat race for your family’s sake when your kids would rather have you home.

If you need ideas for how you can make it work, I have some right here, as well as more guidance from previous Popes. If you’re Catholic, then that’s for you. If you’re Orthodox or Protestant, and even if you’re not religious, then I trust you’ll still find those Pope’s words convicting and convincing because they use reasonable societally and economically based arguments that one can’t easily disagree with.

As I touched on a previous post, dads used to go to work every day to provide for their families. Never would they have imagined that their wives would have to supplement their income so they could afford a “nice” living. Instead, Dad would take on another job or extra opportunities to make it work so that Mom could stay home with the kids. (Or Mom would pick up a side hustle, but never while the kids needed her.)

But that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. In some cases, families dug a hole and now use the excuse that the hole is too deep and Mom MUST work to make ends meet because Dad can’t possibly work more than the minimum 40 hours he should. And I don’t think this is right.

I strongly believe that Dad should prioritize having Mom at home, and that he should do everything in his power to make it so. Before I veer too much into “telling men how to be” territory, I’ll switch gears and instead argue how the fairer sex should behave.

If staying home matters to you, make it known: in your dating profile, tonight on your date, before you get engaged, you name it: the time is NOW. Your boyfriend/future husband deserves to know.

If you don’t yet know you’d like to stay home but are considering the idea, then explore a career where you’ll be able to do just that without a huge hit to your professional track.

Don’t become a neurosurgeon to have kids and then wonder if you can quit right as you get started. (I don’t believe full-time+ work outside the home is conducive to raising a family. You’re more than welcome to become a neurosurgeon, but don’t complain when you find that lifestyle doesn’t let you be around your kids much.) Don’t become a nurse who works four ten-hour days and then wonder if you can change your schedule post-baby as though you hadn’t realized how expendable you were.

In other words, think ahead. You’re not valuable to a company; you’re replaceable. But you’re NOT replaceable at home. And let the man actually provide while you do what God intended you to do: your life and that of your family’s will be better off for it.