Working Mothers

When mothers need to earn, the church should help them cope with family pressures.

In recent years it has become fashionable for many Christian writers and speakers to identify themselves as “profamily” and to decry the demise of the family in American life. Actually, this is not a new trend. In past generations the temperance movement and other reform efforts arose to counteract the fragmenting effects that industrialization and other forces were having on the family. In those times, the father was often seen as the culprit, and the mother was glorified as the only hope for saving the family from destruction.

Today, in the minds of many profamily advocates, mothers are the culprits—working mothers, to be precise, who have been induced by the feminist movement to abandon their first calling as homemakers. This view is succinctly summed up by Phyllis Schlafly in her analysis of the film Kramer vs. Kramer:

“It tells the unhappy story of a wife walking out on her husband because she wanted to ‘know who she is.’ She thought she was missing out on something because she was ‘only’ a wife and mother. She wanted to find ‘self-esteem’ as a ‘whole person.’ After consulting with a psychiatrist and landing a job paying more than her hardworking, faithful husband earned, she thought she had found what she was looking for.

“But it didn’t bring happiness. At the end of the movie, she was unhappy, the husband was unhappy, the child was unhappy. The marriage was irretrievably broken, the custody battle was bitter, and the child had only one parent. None of the usual causes of marriage failure was present.… The only cause was the siren call of women’s liberation which led the wife down the primrose path seeking her self-fulfillment above every other value.”

Similar charges have been made by well-known evangelical leader Beverly LaHaye, who writes in her book The Restless Woman, “The philosophy of rebellion and hatred underlying modern-day feminism has been largely responsible for the destruction of the American nuclear family.”

The concern and fear expressed by Schlafly, LaHaye, and others is not without foundation. The number of mothers employed outside the home has increased dramatically in recent years, with a corresponding increase in the number of day-care and latchkey children and a fragmentation of family life. It is likewise true that these changes have paralleled the rise of what we term the modern feminist movement. But is feminism truly the culprit? Can we blame feminism for working mothers and working mothers for family breakdown?

Equal But Different

Feminism is not an easily defined term or movement. Notwithstanding the oft-quoted quip of Alan Alda that “a feminist is someone who believes women are human,” the terms feminist and feminism are complex and multifaceted in their meanings. There are political and legal feminists who would emphasize equality of women in society above all else. There are social feminists who would seek to remedy the problems that are unique to women. And on the fringes are Marxist feminists, lesbian feminists, and antimale feminists.

The most publicized feminism in American culture is political and legal feminism, which manifests itself in the National Organization for Women and in the struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment. In emphasizing political and legal equality of women and men, it too often ignores the differences between them. Indeed, some people find it difficult to think in terms of equal but different. They argue that if women are to be equal with men in the work place, for instance, they must be the same. They must take on the characteristics and lifestyles of their male counterparts. They must enter the same types of work and be willing to commit the same time and energy to advance in the company. The fact remains, however, that women are different from men. In general, their needs and aspirations are simply not the same as those of their male counterparts. To be sure, some of these factors have been culturally conditioned. But the differences lie far deeper, and they color a woman’s outlook and role in life. Only women can give birth, and only women can nurse babies. These biological functions generally influence their attitudes toward the nurturing of young children.

Why Women Work

In the course of just one generation, a startling change has occurred in the role of mothers. In 1950, only 12 percent of married women with children under the age of six were employed outside the home; by 1987, that figure had grown to more than 50 percent, according to statistics published by the Population Reference Bureau. This rapid rise in the number of young working mothers has been accompanied by a shortened leave from work following the birth of their babies. In 1976, 31 percent of women returned to work within a year after their baby’s birth; in 1985, that figure rose to 48 percent.

What has caused such an emigration of mothers to the work force? This momentous social shift is due in part to the high inflation of the 1970s, which created higher living costs and lower real wages. One way families have responded to the resulting financial crunch is to add a second wage earner.

In many instances, women enter the work force not because of dire financial considerations, but because of what have become accepted as middle-class “needs.” Family vacations, a college education for the children, or the cost of private (often Christian) elementary and secondary schooling are frequently viewed to be worth the sacrifice a mother’s working may entail.

Housekeeping trivia

Personal fulfillment is another significant reason mothers work outside the home. For today’s mothers, full-time homemaking is a far different occupation than it might have been for their mothers and grandmothers. Modern conveniences and mass-produced products have stripped women of the time-consuming (and often creative) work that homemaking once entailed. Writes one author, “Without any outside interests, a woman is virtually forced to devote her every moment to the trivia of keeping house.” Without meaningful alternatives, many of today’s homemakers find themselves addicted to soap operas and game shows, overdosing on housework, or overmothering their families to the point of exasperation!

Other women have expended years in education and training and desire a role that allows them to use their competence in a particular field. This is the outlook of a growing number of young women today. A recent poll indicates that nearly two-thirds of young women aspire to combine a career and marriage.

Bare necessities

Perhaps the most compelling reason that mothers have entered the work force in recent years is the rise of single-parent households. By 1986, 10 million families in America—one in every six—were financially supported by a woman. This situation has been caused largely by the increased divorce rate and the escalation of teenage pregnancies, which have forced women into full-time work to provide the bare necessities for themselves and their children.

The high cost of day care and low-paying “female” jobs have led to what has become known as the “feminization of poverty.” This problem was underscored by a recent study in California, which indicates that after a divorce, women suffer a 73 percent decline in their former living standard, while men enjoy a 42 percent gain.

Welfare is an alternative for these women, but the stigma attached to being on the public dole and the low benefit payments make this option undesirable for most single mothers—especially those who have entered poverty via the middle class.

What does the future hold? Some experts predict that by 1995, 80 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 44 will be in the work force, and the majority of them will be mothers. Some of these will be employed in part-time positions. But for many mothers responsible for supporting young children, there will be little choice but full-time employment.

At the same time, women are equally suited to conduct matters outside the home. In jobs requiring physical strength they are at a disadvantage to men, while in jobs requiring nurturing care, they may hold the edge. Otherwise, in most types of employment, there are no measurable differences between men and women. Certainly no serious scholar today would argue that women are any less capable of being history teachers, medical doctors, or Supreme Court justices.

The Bible would seem to support both these contentions. The natural desire for women to have children is seen in the lives of such women as Sarah, Hannah, and Elizabeth, who were despondent because their wombs were barren. The natural impulse of a mother to care for her young is reflected in Paul’s likening his gentleness to “a mother caring for her little children” (1 Thess. 2:7, NIV) and in his admonition for older women to teach younger women to be “keepers of the home” (Titus 2:5, NIV).

However, Scripture also speaks of women who were involved in careers. Lydia was a seller of purple dye; Priscilla was a tentmaker with her husband; and the woman in Proverbs 31 was involved in a variety of money-making activities outside the home. And, though arguments from omission should be considered cautiously, it is interesting to note that Jesus did not define a woman’s place as in the home or say that the family and domestic duties were her primary responsibilities.

“Super Mom” Is Gone

Clearly, women have been involved in domestic duties as well as careers and activities outside the home since biblical times. These two spheres of life are both legitimate for women and should not be viewed as necessarily incongruous. Yet, in modern America, a tension exists for women who desire motherhood and meaningful careers at the same time. For a while, women were led to believe that they could be “Super Moms” and “do it all” with no negative side effects. But few subscribe to that model anymore.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an assistant professor in economics at Barnard College, Columbia University, poignantly testified to this. She tried desperately to be a good mother and teacher at the same time. After her first child was born, she maintained her regular work schedule while spending lunch hours and late afternoons with the baby in her office. It was a noble effort, but it ended after she received a terse note from a colleague: “Dear Professor Hewlett, I would like to point out that we, at Barnard, are not running a crèche but a college.”

Hewlett faced more problems as she continued to work, problems that culminated in the miscarriage of twins. Yet she realized that her problems were not as complex as those of many women:

“By now I had become deeply perturbed by the difficulties of combining a career with childbearing in this liberated society of ours. My concern was especially acute because I knew that I was a privileged person. Seventy percent of today’s women in the labor force work out of economic necessity; they are single, widowed, divorced or are married to men who are either unemployed or earn less than $15,000 a year. I was not poor, black, or single, and I had an abundance of marketable skills. What happened to working mothers who were more vulnerable than I?”

The heart of the issue that confronted Hewlett and that faces so many other women is how women should be perceived and treated in comparison to men. Should they be regarded as fully equal and therefore treated equally in all respects, or should they be regarded as equal but different and thus treated with unique considerations? Feminists themselves differ on this issue, as seen in testimony offered during the recent trial of a major corporation for sex discrimination in its hiring and promotion practices.

Testifying in defense of the corporation was Rosalind Rosenberg, associate professor of history at Columbia University. She emphasized the differences between men and women, arguing that the reason women were not represented equally with men in high-paying sales positions was because women chose not to seek competitive and demanding jobs that would curtail their family involvement. To ignore the fact “that men and women still lead very different lives,” she contended, “will lead to bad public policy; if women aren’t taking certain jobs, perhaps corporations have to change their conditions of those jobs (for instance, by providing child care).”

Testifying for the plaintiff was Alice Kessler-Harris, professor of history at Hofstra University, who strongly objected to Rosenberg’s position because, she said, tying women’s supposed domestic orientation to their employment patterns only reinforces discrimination. But Kessler-Harris’s refusal to see any connection between women’s domestic orientation and their employment is at the very core of the problem—a problem that is intensified by those feminists who fail to recognize the significance of the sex differences between men and women.

Hewlett, a one-time supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, came to the conclusion that such legislation would be harmful to working mothers. She concedes she was not the first to hold that view. “Forty years ago Eleanor Roosevelt opposed the era not because she espoused a traditional role for women, but because she thought that this legislation might make it more difficult to create the support structures women need to carry their double burden in the home and in the workplace.”

Hewlett found that many of her feminist colleagues at Barnard College “were less than enthusiastic about families.” When she proposed a more generous maternity policy, the Barnard Women’s Center showed little enthusiasm. It was simply not considered a “feminist” issue. “If this was the other side of the coin of liberation, I thought, heaven help the working mother. It was clear our sisters wouldn’t.”

To blame feminism alone for the plight of working mothers is far too simplistic. The causes of their problems are many and varied. Yet, the failure of some feminists to acknowledge sexual differences has only hampered efforts to alleviate the problems.

Completely Profamily

What then is the solution to the problems associated with mothers in the work force? And more specifically, what can the Christian community do to help alleviate their difficulties?

First of all, Christians must recognize that neither feminism nor society as a whole has been attuned to the needs of working mothers. To help turn the situation around, churches and Christian organizations should take the lead in calling for and offering alternatives that would promote a more healthy family environment.

Some call for more government involvement. Unfortunately, most government-sponsored cures, such as subsidized day care, mandatory pay for maternity leave, or tax allowances for mothers who remain at home, are costly and face a rough path to approval in the current fiscally conservative era.

Nevertheless, other countries have placed these family concerns high on their list of priorities and have decided to afford the expense. Some offer family allowances that supplement income if a mother remains at home, or help pay for child care if a mother works. Other options, which do not entail government spending, include widening the availability of flex-time work schedules and offering part-time and job-sharing positions to working mothers. Day care could be offered as one option in a package of employee benefits. For example, if a husband receives family health care through his employment, his wife, rather than duplicating that benefit through her employment, could opt for day-care coverage.

Christian leaders should also speak out for more and better day-care facilities. And churches should recognize the tremendous potential they have for ministry by offering child care with a Christian emphasis, using church facilities that often sit empty during the week. (Federal legislation, however, may place restrictions on church-run day-care centers that receive federal funds.)

Churches have a unique challenge to issue to husbands, as well. Vast numbers of working mothers are single, but many who are married carry as much of the weight of home responsibilities as those who are single. Past expectations of the mother being the sole keeper of the home must be revised. Christian husbands of working wives should take the lead in modeling joint parenting and housekeeping.

One of the most important ways the Christian community can help working mothers is by accepting their lifestyle. Working mothers—even those who work out of deep economic need—often feel rejected in evangelical circles. Pastors too often fail to identify with their needs, sometimes scolding them for neglecting their domestic duties, other times simply ignoring their existence.

“We working women,” writes businesswoman Mary Whelchel, “have sometimes been treated by churches as if we aren’t really spiritual to be working.” Whelchel moved up the corporate ladder while raising a child—and facing criticism from Christians. In response to the needs of women like herself, she now hosts a syndicated radio program, “The Christian Working Woman,” through which she encourages women to “live out their Christian faith in the working world.”

Working mothers are a fact of life in today’s world. Simply exhorting mothers to stay at home will not be likely to turn the tide of women entering the work force, nor will it solve the complex problems working mothers face. Yes, the family must be preserved, and the welfare of our children must be seen as a top priority. But more than home life is at stake. The Christian community must respond to the needs of the working mother herself. “We have to reach women where they are, not where we think they should be,” writes well-known author and speaker Jill Briscoe. “And that’s going to involve following them into the work place.” By calling for alternative employment practices, providing quality child care, and affirming and supporting working mothers, the church can move beyond finger-pointing of blame for family problems to providing solutions that show a genuine and complete “profamily” concern.

“The Woman Question”

Viewing feminism as a threat to the family has taken many forms, especially in the modern era, when men’s and women’s roles have become more radically differentiated.

Before the Industrial Revolution, both men and women were largely confined to the home and its environs, where the extended family worked together to provide necessities of life. With the industrial age came the division of labor that took the husband out of the home and turned him into the family “breadwinner.” The mother became the keeper of the home, and the responsibility of rearing the children fell on her. It was a pattern that quickly became the norm of society, and anything that significantly deviated from that norm was viewed as a threat to the family.

Out of this consensus developed the “cult of true womanhood,” which placed women on a pedestal, while at the same time it restricted their activities to domestic concerns. Working outside the home or seeking to expand the mind was believed to divert women from their first calling. Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony publicly articulated this concept two centuries earlier when he declared that the cause of one Mistress Hopkins’s insanity was that “she spent too much time in reading and writing.”

Higher education for women was also viewed by many to be a threat to the home and family. In the 1830s and 1840s, “the woman question” was a widely debated issue in England. Some “feminists” of the day were involved in founding women’s colleges, while “traditionalists” despaired over what that would do to marriage, the home, and the female sex in general. Education “would encourage rivalry between the sexes,” they argued, “make women dissatisfied with their divinely-appointed roles in society, and disrupt the complementarity that is at the heart of the marriage relationship.” Some traditionalists even cautioned women against the grave biological dangers of scholarly learning. Women were warned that academic endeavors would cause the womb to shrivel and obstruct childbearing.

The domestic circle

The same reaction was expressed when women began entering careers that traditionally had been limited to men. John James, a well-known nineteenth-century Congregational minister in Birmingham, England, wrote a book on female piety. In it he argued against women having careers outside the home because such would undermine their supremacy within the home:

“Neither reason nor Christianity invites woman to the professor’s chair, or conducts her to the bar, or makes her welcome to the pulpit, or admits her to the place of ordinary magistracy.… They claim not for her the right of suffrage, nor any immunity by which she may ‘usurp authority over the man.’ The Bible gives her place of majesty and dignity in the domestic circle: that is the heart of her husband and the heart of her family.”

The argument to keep women in the home took various forms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. “One tactic used in keeping women out of professions, politics and ministerial positions,” writes historian Gayle Kimball, “was to tell them that their talents were more prominent in feeling. Science corroborated: according to a study published in 1843, woman had a smaller brain and thus a ‘natural inferiority of intellect.’ ” Even some feminists of the period accepted this scientific evidence.

The new woman

Some of the most bitter feminist/traditionalist debates of the early twentieth century regarding motherhood centered in the issues of birth control and women’s suffrage. It was feminism, in the view of an editor in the Lutheran Witness in 1898, that was wreaking havoc on the family and encouraging women to use methods of birth control. “The new woman has cast the church aside, because it teaches subordination of the wife to the husband, and enjoins domestic duties from which the ‘taste’ of the new woman revolts. The new woman hates children, and is madly exerting her ingenuity in frustrating the ends of matrimony.”

In 1920, the same Lutheran publication described the catastrophe female suffrage would produce: “Many women will be so busy about voting and political office that the home and children will have no attraction for them, and American mothers and children like Christian charity will be a rarity.”

Ruth A. Tucker is a visiting professor of missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.

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