My husband was recently asked this question—“What does your wife do all day?”—by a co-worker whose wife is leaving her career as a physician to stay home with their first child. I applaud her decision and recognize that it would be difficult to step away after spending so many years achieving a high level of success and respect.
The common response to such inquiries is a haughty “everything!” . . . which, although true, I find unnecessary. In this case, he wasn’t asking to be condescending, but out of genuine concern for his wife’s mental well-being. And of course when I think of the question “What does your wife do all day?”, it turns fast into “What do you do all day?”
To walk away from a career (or the potential of a career) and build a home is a radical choice in our postmodern American culture. It is socially unacceptable to be a content mother. Elissa Strauss, in her article “It’s Weird Times to be a Happy Mother,” elaborates on this phenomenon and concludes, “To like motherhood makes me feel dumb and repressed.”
I can relate to what she says. There were many times in my early mothering years when, driving to a mom’s group or park date, I mentally prepared a list of complaints, because I knew I wouldn’t fit in if I was too happy. Motherhood, the mentality goes, finds its validity in being a victim, and to imply that mothers are not utterly exhausted and overworked qualifies as a personal insult. A quick Google search reveals numerous sources who have carefully calculated every parenting task to add up to a six-figure sum, using theoretical money to prove a homemaker’s worth.
Now, nine years and four kids later, I balk against this norm, because the truth is that I have never felt more content and fulfilled. This experience is shared by women like my friend, who built a successful career as a plastic surgeon and walked away from it, taking a huge pay cut, to stay home with her three daughters. Despite the social and financial fall, she has never regretted this choice.
Many women are bored and unhappy staying home not because it’s a bad decision, but rather because the transition requires a major mental shift that requires conscious effort.
To find contentment as a homemaker means giving up the pursuit of the productive and building a schedule around the good instead. America as a whole is obsessed with productivity. We are all enslaved to the concept that to be a worthwhile member of society and even a worthwhile member of the human race, a person must bring in an income or produce in a tangible way. This is to our degradation. In the words of the great Josef Pieper in Leisure: The Basis of Culture, “to be tied to the process of work may be ultimately due to the inner impoverishment of the individual. . . . His life has shrunk inwardly, and contracted, with the result that he can no longer act significantly outside his work and perhaps can no longer conceive of such a thing.”
The victimization of mothers is a reaction against the message that being a stay-at-home mom is not hard work. It most certainly is hard work, but that isn’t what makes it valuable. Pieper writes, “It is normal and essential on this view, that the good should be difficult, and that the effort of will required in forcing oneself to perform some action should become the yardstick of the moral good.” However, he goes on to explain the weakness in this argument and counters it with the words of Thomas Aquinas: “Hard work is what is good? The essence of virtue consists in the good rather than the difficult.”
I do not believe that homemaking is the hardest job on earth. I’m not ashamed to admit that my husband works harder and carries more stress than I do. However, I’m equally confident that what I do is valuable not because it’s hard or because it’s worth a particular amount of money; it’s valuable because it’s good. As a homemaker, you are free to build the “little church” that reflects God in the unique way for which you and your spouse were designed. It opens the doors of creativity that aren’t easily opened if you work full time. This daily reality requires a good deal of critical thinking and self-discipline.
To take us back to the original question—“What do you do all day?”—I prefer the term “homemaker” to “stay-at-home-mom” because a vast amount of daily work is consumed by necessary details of the home more than simple childcare. I recommend that couples sit down together, as a couple, and decide what is most important. What are the foundational elements of the home that you want your children to remember? What family activities would you like to prioritize? What is necessary for you all to function in a healthy manner? Perhaps it would be helpful for you to write a family mission statement. This is going to look different for each couple. Once you have established these things, you can design a daily and weekly schedule that includes them. Success is never achieved without intentionality.
Again, to answer the title question, I will give the example of our family. My husband and I prioritize strong friendships and the pursuit of beauty. This include hosting friends, attending live music events, and splurging on art and various gardening essentials. We love our pets and have far more than is necessary or even practical. The way I cultivate our home lends itself to our specific priorities. Someday our children will build entirely different homes with their spouses, and these will reflect God in their own unique ways, but I’m sure they will take some of these things with them.
Most of this makes for extra work beyond the daily requirements of homemaking. However, I’m available for that work, and it adds richness and beauty to our life. Staying home sets you free from the daily grind so your family can thrive as a unit. The wife chooses how she organizes her days—and if you’re intentional about it, you’ll find it is incredibly fulfilling. And yes, there are days when children vomit in the middle of Mass, resulting in a million loads of laundry, hours in front of the TV, and us collapsing into bed amid a generally messy home.
The vocation of homemaking isn’t always idealistic. It’s rarely respected and requires flexibility based on the day. The majority of your progress vanishes almost as soon as you complete it (hello, laundry!), and there is little recognition for it. However, the work is rewarding in a way very few careers could be.
Step away from the popular culture mindset, allow yourself to get creative, and you’ll find that the answer to “What do you do all day?” is a satisfying “Exactly what I want, thank you.”