A couple here at the seminary is having their first child. The wife wants an at home natural birth. She plans the best food and natural toys for her child – and full time child care after a few weeks maternity leave. Instead of asking, “Where is the baby going to daycare?” I internally wonder, “Who is going to raise your child?”
We live in a very wealthy area where day care and nannies abound. The children are well dressed and kept busy. They sit in front of the tv, choose their own non fruit and veg meals, and take hip hop classes by age seven. But their eyes betray their emptiness. They know intuitively that their mothers would rather be working out of the house than making a home for them. I am not saying it is not stressful to live on one income. But we all make decisions based on our priorities. And some moms have to work. My experience is that these children, even who go to church, are empty – they feel wharehoused and lonely and managed, not nurtured. Only a mother can nuture the way a child was created to be nutured.
In ordering our lives, I really do think we need to begin with what is best and to strive for it. A child is not ‘lucky’ if her mother spends the first 18 months with her at home, as I have heard it said.
Beth
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