Against my better judgment, I decided to write about the thing everyone has been talking about, the fiery commencement speech at Benedictine College. (I only focused on the part when he was talking to the women, but yowsa there’s lot to explore.) I haven’t kept up with all the online fighting debate, mostly because I have better things to do, but I did decide to say something.
The reason I decided to comment is because what he was talking about when he spoke to the women is so very important to me.
I’m a mother and the primary caretaker of my three young children. The work of the home and of caring for children is work that’s foundational to our society, and in the desire to uplift women, feminism1 has denigrated it to the extent that many women don’t desire to do it (or if they do they don’t feel capable). In our modern feminist consciousness, caring for children and a home is conceived of as oppression, something that holds women back. This, to me, is a massive issue and one I try to speak to in my writing.2
And yet, when Christians try to address this, I often find it lacking. As I said in my commentary:
“Like Butker’s wife, I’m ‘leaning into my vocation.’ I see it as holy and sacred and the most important thing. I’m a mother and a homemaker first. But leaning into my vocation as a mother doesn’t mean I don’t do anything else other than tend to my family and home. This is where his speech went south for me.”
I love that he used the word “vocation” (a very Catholic word that means “calling”) to describe his wife’s devotion to motherhood, but then he continued. He implied in the last line of this part of his speech that his wife chose one of two rigid paths (homemaker/SAHM or career woman/working mom): “Isabelle's dream of having a career might not have come true, but if you asked her today if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud, without hesitation, and say, ‘Heck no.’”
Sigh.
This binary thinking is just as much of a problem as the denigration of homemaking by feminism, if not moreso. As I said in my previous essay, we need to do away with this rigid framework around motherhood and paid work:
“We desperately need a reframing around the realities of work and motherhood. Our choices as mothers aren’t 1) be home and do no paid work or 2) go to a full-time job away from home. There’s a vast in-between to explore. And, you can always change it up. Motherhood and paid work can be fluid: it can shift as children grow or our circumstances shift or we evolve as women.”
I realized there’s more I’d like to say. So today, I’d like to share a bit about how our modern cultural ideas around homemaking/career have affected me personally and how I’ve (stubbornly) waded through the overly simplistic waters we’re swimming in.
I intuitively felt I wanted to be the primary caretaker of my children, at least in the early years. And yet, I struggled. I often felt like I was wasting my talent and/or my degrees. People also seemed to dismiss me socially—if I was a “stay-at-home mom” I was obviously out of the loop and probably uneducated and definitely unambitious (or maybe just kind of dumb). I sometimes got the sense too that people saw me as someone who thought I was better than other moms because HOW DEVOTED AM I TO MY KIDS.
I’m none of those things. I’m a woman with a double-major B.A. and a Master’s. I’ve always been an achiever. I’m pretty sure I’m reasonably intelligent. And I definitely not trying to prove anything about my motherhood—it just feels right in my soul to be with my children as much as possible in their first years on the planet.
The secular stereotypes of stay-at-home moms definitely made my life harder. But so did the rigid idea of “homemaker” in Christian culture. Because even as I felt called to be home with my young kids, I also desired to use my gifts out in the broader world. For a long time, this was an internal struggle. I had a blog since before I was a mother (RIP Alternative Grace), and I wanted to continue writing as the kids came, but I felt guilty taking time for it. Even as I started to write for pay, I heard messages like “you’re trying to do too much” and felt an insinuation that I shouldn’t be pursuing work outside of my kids and home.
This was your choice, the message seemed to be, and this is what that choice looks like.
The secular stereotypes of stay-at-home moms definitely made my life harder. But so did the rigid idea of “homemaker” in Christian culture.
I persisted. As I grew spiritually, I felt that God made me who I am, and that I can bring all of myself to my vocation as a mother. For me, that looks like reading and writing voraciously. If I’m not reading or writing, I feel crazy. Like I’m not being true to who I am.
And so I kept on. Opportunities came as I continued to prioritize my kids but also stayed open to what life could look like.
I continued to write my little blog.
I started to write for other blogs and websites (usually unpaid, but sometimes paid a little—I remember my first paid essay was for $25 and I was so excited).
I freelanced 10-30 hours a week writing content for businesses for a while.
I worked on a book (and then set it aside after some discernment).
I started writing more boldly on Instagram3 and grew my readership one follow at a time.
I got tired of writing for companies and started doing by-lined writing (for places like Business Insider) so I could talk about things I cared about.
I did a part-time teaching job for a year that aligned amazingly with my teaching background at the elementary school down the street.
I learned about a program that teaches young girls about their (amazing) bodies and decided to become a certified instructor.
I recently landed a great freelance gig from a connection I made way back then—actually from that very first paid essay!
(And for some of those years,4 I was doing no paid or creative work at all, just attending to the work of homemaking.)
I’m grateful for the work opportunities that have happened for me alongside caring for my kids. But they didn’t happen without my stubborn insistence that they could. Writing, too, felt like a calling, just as much as motherhood. And so I continued to fight for it,5 as much as people in my life—myself sometimes included—questioned me. And I’m starting to see the beautiful fruit of this no label, in-between-the-extremes motherhood and work life.
I’m grateful for the work opportunities that have happened for me alongside caring for my kids. But they didn’t happen without my stubborn insistence that they could.
In her book One Beautiful Dream, Jennifer Fulwiler writes:
“There’s a tendency with anyone who loves any kind of work to fantasize that if you just had endless time for it, you’d be able to achieve perfection. Yet what I’d discovered is that when you put love first, not only does your life improve, but your work improves. I faced interruption after interruption in my house full of babies. And, in the process, I finally learned how to write a book.”
I hope to write a book someday, too (don’t all of us writers?). Meanwhile, I’ll be homeschooling my kids—I quit my teaching job to do that—and continuing my other writing work (including this Substack). Soon I’ll also be starting to teach 9 to 12-year-old girls about the wonders of the female body through a workshop called The Cycle Show.
You can be a homemaker and do meaningful work outside of the work of home and children. Don’t let the feminists—or the Christians—tell you otherwise.
P.S. In organizing my bookshelves, I recently discovered I have two copies of Jen’s memoir! The full title is One Beautiful Dream: The rollocking tale of family chaos, personal passions, and saying yes to them both. I’d like to give away my extra one! If you’d like to read it, let me know in a comment or DM. I’ll draw a name from a pot and send it to you in the snail mail. U.S. people only—media mail is cheap but it’s only available here. :)
P.P.S. If you enjoy my work here, I’m offering 50% off a paid subscription through the end of May as a celebration of one year of writing here. For you, it’s $25 for the year and access to all the stuff I put out; for me, it’s a vote of confidence that really encourages me to keep going on this writing path. 10 days left of May. Thanks for considering!
Modern American mainstream feminism.
I do think feminism needs a presence for women at home, however. At best, men can take for granted the work women do; at worst, there can be financial abuse.
My account is still pretty small and I have no aspirations to make it crazy big. If you’re there and would like to connect, my handle is @radical.homemaker!
As any parent knows, the ages and spacing of your kids really impacts your life from year to year. It was always in flux, depending on the specifics of our family at the time.
We actually moved states to relocate closer to my parents so that they could support us with childcare as I pursued writing work.
Great stuff. I think we need to start at the intellectually honest fact that the Industrial Revolution changed how the work / home / parenting triad effected an integrated and wholistic family life. The whole setup we have is a slightly new phenomenon! Haha I loved finally going through Mary Harrington’s book last week, as she explains pretty matter of factly that it’s…. normal… for many mothers to want to be with their young kids! Things have just gotten so complicated, but I’m glad we are able with technology to integrate some types of work back into the home. Bachiochi’s paper I shared in this week’s newsletter is so good on this concept. We just all really need to learn some history and keep doing our best. 🤍
I'd love to read One Beautiful Dream! I have her Blue Flame book, and it's fabulous.