Is it Ok if men stay home with children while women work

The Proverbs 31 woman managed her home, and worked a job, verses 16,17,18, yet according to verse 15 she has servants also. We don't know that her husband is out working as all it says abut him is he is sitting at the gates, verse 23. To say he is working is reading into what scripture says.

 

Which of course means, you do not use a woman doctor, pharmacist, no women teachers in the scholl for your childre, the cafateria cooks at school are not women, when you go to a resturant the cooks, waiters and dish washers are all men, the check out at your grocery store has got to be a man, the people who serve you in your utilities have to be men, no women, how about at your bank, are there women working there?
If any of these( and many others I could name ) have any women at them, then you are supporting the idea of working women, mothers.
In your home, in your family, don't know how many there are in your house, but your family, what is the bare minnium your household needs to opperate for 1 month/ This includes house payment or rent, utilities, food, clothing, medical, insurance premiums, transpertation, necessisites.
What about a fmaily whose husband can not make that amount of money? What do you choose they do without, food, electric, medical?
In reality, you can only speak for yourself, not other families.

 

I agree with Donna.

Also ,TB, what do you think of women who work alongside their husbands? What about the women who not only work outside the home and also manage to properly care for their homes and children? Also, do you think it is appropriate for women to receive a college education if they are only going to work for the family or in the home? (note: I am not insinuating anything just asking)

As far as your earlier comment about more extra-marital affairs resulting from women in the workplace I find that a little bit of a stretch. People were having affairs long before women were commonly accepted in the workplace. If you meant work-related affairs, ok, because it only follows that with more women in the workplace this type of affair would increase, and even in this case I do not put all blame on the women. It takes two. Personally I am of the belief that if a woman has a work-place affair, she would have had one even if she wasn't in the workplace. It is a matter of the heart and lust, not the job.

 

:laugh: You should have seen some of my drafts.

 

never mind

 

The issue is not can the man remain in the home and the wife work outside, but can this take place and the man remain the head? I seriously doubt that such an arrangement would make it possible for the husband to be able to be the head of the family in the biblical sense. I am not saying it would be impossible, just very improbable and very risky.

 

You are using nothing shy of humanism to justify your desires. We do not need humanism to "explain away" the Word of God.

The LORD gave us a ways and a means. If a woman is married and has children and is living the Proverbs 31 life, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to have a secular job without setting biblical duties aside.

Your justification by talking about women doctors, pharmacists, cooks, etc.. holds no biblical grounds. I do not mean to sound blunt but there is only one Word and that is the Word of God.

I cannot help what the world wants to do. I cannot decide who will and who will not be woring at the Restaurant when I go to eat. All I can definitively answer for is me and mine.

My wife doesn't consider it a burden to stay home and be a wife and mother. She has a RN Nursing degree and has been offered upwards of 34 dollars an hour with benefits but she reufed. She knows where God wants her, at home being a wife and mother. She is very happy and thanks me often for allowing her giving her the oportunity to be the best wife and mother in the world! She loves it! SHe is in God's will. What more could we ask for.

I than the LORD for a wife who is willing to be the wife and mother He wants her to be.

 

It takes a God fearing woman to step up to the plate and be a biblical wife and mother. One who will not take the easier path that society has taught is better for her.

 

The scripture commands that the man be the head. No exceptions given. He is to lead and make the decisions for the family and this includes how to handle the money. That does not mean that the wife has no input, but he makes the final decision and she is to submit to his leading and that is without whining or pouting or any other rebellious conduct. When the man works and brings home the income it makes such things much easier. However where the women brings home the income it would be a much difficult task for her to fork over her wages and then set back and accept his leading. As I said it can be done, but it would be rare and a dangerous practice to attempt.

 

Sorry, but you had better go back and re-read Prov. 31. The Prov. 31 woman is clearly a business woman in addition to the manager/keeper of her home. She goes into the market place and procures the raw materials she needs to produce clothing etc. (Prov. 31:13a). She works hard with her hands (Prov. 31:13b, 19). She returns to the market place and sells the things that she has produced (Prov. 31:24). This all means that she had to spend time working at the production (or at least that she oversaw her servants while they worked to produce the products) and she had to spend time in the market place seeking customers and negotiating the sales. She conducts other business transactions when she considers and buys a field (Prov 31:16a). She uses the income from her profits to plant a vineyard (Prov. 16b). She is much much more than a stay at home barefoot and pregnant housekeeper, babysitter, and cook. So if she is the ultimate biblical model of womanhood (and I believe she is), then our oversimplified idea of the stay at home mom does not line up with the teaching of the Scripture. Guess what has to change? It is certainly not the Scripture that must change to meet our ideas.

 

TBLADY -- you respond as if this account of this woman is strickly in the Bible for entertainment purposes. Is becoming this woman difficult? Yes, but not impossible. Is a family following, living Eph 5 & 6 difficult? I know some that it's terribly difficult for, but it's not impossible.

I don't get to decide what part of the Bible is fiction and therefore not to be followed. I have to look at the whole knowing that God included it all for my teaching, training, understanding. I have to see how the entire Scripture works together -- not part of a single verse. We are focusing on it because you don't seem to think a woman can be all those things.

Paul's instructions in Titus are for the older women to teach the younger women to love their husbands and their children to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their husbands. ESV Working at home doesn't mean that they cannot be the woman in Proverbs 31. In the KJV - keepers at home does not mean that they cannot be the woman in Proverbs 31. Full and multidimensional and still loving their children and their husbands and tending to business at home.

 

I don't know about the pastor you heard but I find my selfworth in Christ, in the fact that He loved me enough to die for me when I was His enemy, and in the fact that God the Father loved me enough to send His only begotten Son to die in my place. This makes me a treasure before Holy God. Because of the blood of Christ I find my complete selfworth, selfesteem, and/or whatever else you want to call it. Christ paid the ultimate price for me and there is nothing more valuable.

I have been the sole provider for my family when our kids were very young. I had great jobs in the engineering and environmental field. I have worked on huge government contracts up to as much as $40 million total (for the company I worked for not for me personally). I have had other jobs that did not pay nearly as well. While in seminary I worked as a lowly full-time third shift (11:00PM to 7:00AM) security guard. No one hardly ever saw me or even knew who it was that unlocked their buildings each morning. I earned less than the minimum amount required for a family of four to live above the proverty limit in NC (working for an SBC institution). Fortunately, my wife was able to find work as a contract technical writer. She telecommuted (worked from home) a lot. When she had to go into the corporate office she always left in time to pick our kids up from school and be home with them in the evening. She earned approximately four to five times more than I did. Yet, somehow I remaind the spiritual head and leader of our family. How is that possible? Because I married a Proverbs 31 kind of woman.

 

Sorry Bible Boy but you indeed need to look at the scriptures. If you will read your own writing you will find that it was the women going to the market not the men. She was among other women dealing with the goods of the house. She wasn't working with men. I never said that a housewife meant she was barefoot and pregnant and staying at the home. You added that. Not me. Also, my wife does go to the market. She does buy the things she needs to sew and plant in the garden. This is in no way equal to a woman leaving her children at a daycare for someone else to raise while she goes of to "find herself" by working around vial men, and secularism just because "she needs her space" or "we need the money."

You are mistaken by using terminology like "stay at home mom."
I guarante my wife works twiced as hard as the average liberated woman working a secular job when it is not needed. My wife is fullfilling her Proverbs 31 virtues.

It is sad to me when men will not stand up and be men and allow their wives the liberty of being a wife and mother instead of a slave to our modern society.

 

Okay, take out the words "barefoot" and "pregnent" and the phrase "stay at home mom" and nothing that I said about the passage changes.

Likewise, are you implying that in the ancient Hebrew culture all lands were owned solely by women and that all land transactions were conducted solely by women?

Tell me do you read Hebrew? If so how much of the text speaking about the Prov. 31 woman in the market buying the raw material and selling her products to merchants is in the Hebrew masculine? And if the text uses masculine Hebrew verbs and nouns then it can not mean that this woman spent all her time in the market and engaging in business transactions solely with women. To force that meaning onto the text is to force your presupposition upon the text resulting in eisogesis.