"Just" a Mom

When women introduce themselves, very often the stay-at-home mom replies she is “just a mom.” The implication in that answer is that being a child’s whole world and running a household somehow is not enough.

C.S. Lewis said, “Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.”

This isn’t to say that every woman should quit their job and stay home to raise their children. It is to suggest that we place value on a homemaker’s role.

Just think of that title: homemaker. The homemaker influences how the home is run. She influences the tone of the home, the look of the home, what is offered in the home. But if you’ve been a stay-at-home mom, you also understand that you are not “just” staying at home. Very often you are helping out neighbors, volunteering at school and church, carpooling. Very often you are the piece that not only holds your family together, but supports a handful of other families as well.

How can we not place value on that?

And why do we place so little value on molding children’s hearts?

I found one of the great benefits of carpooling is having a voice not only your child’s attitude, but in their friends’ as well. That opportunity is not available once children drive themselves. And one of the benefits of being the house where all the neighborhood children congregate is having opportunity after opportunity to gently suggest another way, to break up arguments, to amend rash or foolish choices.

Whatever a mom’s status is outside the home, their value in the home is beyond measurement. Though the payment is delayed for years (and years and years), the payout is considerable. In the short term you experience and create memories. In the long term your hard work will hopefully produce the loving leaders you are trying to rear.

No one is “just” a mom. You are a molder of children, a teacher of manners, and the first glimpse of Christ your children see. And as I’ve realized throughout the years, most of the other roles I am and can be covered by someone else, but my children have only one mom. And that means you are priceless.   

This blog was written by Amber Albee Swenson.

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