Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, September 15th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey and I’m Bob Lepine. So is there something really wrong with making the decision for your family mom is the provider and dad is stays home to take care of the kids. We’re going to talk about that today.
Welcome to FamilyLife Today thanks for joining us. So you’re going to take on Mr. Mom today, right?
Dennis: No, I’m not going to take on anybody. Mr. Mom was a movie that had the actor Michael Keaton in it and he had to stay home for a period of time because he lost his job. It wasn’t a permanent decision between him and his wife and he didn’t become a stay at home dad on a long term basis.
What I want to talk about today is probably best illustrated by Beckie who wrote me on Facebook. She said, “My husband has been a stay at home dad. He calls himself a homemaker which he is. I work full time and it works great for our family. He does the homeschooling of our kids as well. I think when you look at this you need to see how God has gifted each of you and not go by what society expects. We got a lot of flack when we decided to do this. Most of it came from the Christian community. It was quite disheartening. My husband and I are in partnership to raise our family. Our kids are well adjusted. They are actively involved at church and love Jesus Christ.”
Bob: What we’ve already heard you say as you look at this you don’t see it as a black and white issue with an absolute sense that it is always right or always wrong for a dad to be at home as a stay at home dad but you do think there is some biblical wisdom we can apply.
Dennis: I want to say that it is not wrong 100 percent of the time to stay at home as a dad and it’s not right 100 percent of the time to stay at home. I think some people are making that decision for the wrong reasons. I think some people are making that decision without understanding where it is going to take them. Without understanding what it is going to do to their kids and without understanding what it is going to do to their marriage. To their family. To their relationships. To them and their identity. But I’m running ahead of myself at this point and throwing the stone too soon.
Bob: (laughter)
Dennis: I have four questions that I would ask a couple who would be considering this kind of lifestyle. The first question really gets near the heart of the matter in my opinion. Ultimately what are the values that this decision represents for your marriage, your family, and your children?
Ultimately, Bob, I believe it is a value decision. As I’ve heard a lot of people make the decision I think that money and standard of living is ultimately driving, not all, but a number of folks to make this decision so that they can provide a standard of living that includes a lot of comfort and freedom for their family.
Bob: That is a factor for some couples. They are just looking at the raw economics of it and they are saying the wife can make a whole lot more money than the husband can so doesn’t it just make sense if she’s earning and he’s staying at home. That way you can enjoy the financial benefits and if that is a couple’s primary motivation you’re suggesting that couple really needs to pull back and say…
Dennis: I think they need to evaluate seriously. I think that can be and often is a faulty value system to make that decision. I think also another value is that of fulfillment. We’re talking about a woman who feels more fulfilled in the marketplace than she does at home. She may say my husband is more gifted to stay home than I am.
Bob: He’s more of a nurturer. He likes the home environment and I go stir crazy when I’m around that. I remember talking to a wife one time who said if I was at home I would be a raving lunatic. It would not be good for our family.
Dennis: Right. You talk about the consequences of all these decisions. First you make your decisions and then your decisions make you. I talked to one person who said you know I’ve watched a number of couples make this decision and in their 20s it was fun and kind of novel. In their 30s it was okay.
When they hit the 40s they hit a wall. This person said they wake up one day angry and they don’t get over it especially the women. They get angry at the price they paid at the loss of being a mom and the man who was supposed to provide. They are looking at him and evaluating him they say and he’s become passive. He’s just having a good time because the kids are now teenagers and don’t really demand a lot of his time. So he’s running around having a lot of fun.
So I think what has to happen here is I think you have to step back and ask yourself what are the values that we embrace as a couple. What are the kinds of values we want to represent our family? That really leads me to a second question. Is the world pressing you into its mold as a man, as a woman, as a mother, as a father and as a family? Romans 12:1-2 says don’t be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The scripture clearly calls men to be the heads of their homes. Not a Gestapo head or dictator but rather a servant leader of their wives and their children. Making money does not represent the power for a man to be the head of his home.
Bob: Making money isn’t how you demonstrate leadership.
Dennis: No, it is one way you can provide for your family. Because you make the most money or provide for the family isn’t the reason why a man is to be the head of his home. He’s to be the head of his home because the Bible clearly established a man as the leader of his home. It called him to give up himself and deny himself and follow Christ and to lay down his rights to love his wife and his children.
In some cases, Bob, it is a heavy mantle for a man to wear to have to be that provider and to care for his family in extraordinary ways.
Bob: You know some of our listeners heard you quote Romans 12:1-2 where you said do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind and they would say now Dennis, if I’m being conformed to this world I’m going to embrace these traditional roles. I mean the world has established the role of the husband in the work place and the wife at home. Isn’t that being conformed to this world if I just jump in and say okay that’s how it has to be for us.
Dennis: I don’t think the world was who established that. I think that was established in scripture in Ephesians 5:23. It says for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church. I think if there is anything we need to be suspicious of today it is anything that seeks to undermine the pattern in the scriptures of God giving men clear responsibility to love, lead, serve and deny themselves on behalf of their wives.
Bob: So the first two questions you are calling couples to look at as they are evaluating what ought to be our response to this and is this the right way for us to organize our family. Question one—what do we value? What are the priorities that we are trying to establish here and what is important to us?
Question two--Are we kicking against a biblical design? Are we being pressed by the culture into an unbiblical mold? You really just have to pull back and say are we taking our cues from the scriptures and what it would teach us or are we taking our cues from the culture we live in?
Dennis: I know I’ve been strident here. I know some of our listeners have recoiled at that and I’ll get some mail.
Bob: There is some bristling taking place even as you speak.
Dennis: I realize that but I said earlier I do not believe that a stay at home dad can do it and feel like it is right 100 percent of the time. I don’t think you could say it is wrong 100 percent of the time. Are there cases where this can occur and should occur? I think it is possible. I really do. I think it happens. I’m saying for this to become normative in the Christian family has huge consequences.
That leads me to the third question or issue. Will this decision ultimately create an identity crisis? Will it create an identity crisis for men of what true masculinity is and his responsibility to work and to provide for his family? Will it also create a crisis of identity for a woman? Who she is and how God has hardwired her as a nurturer, one who cares about the next generation?
I visited some of the web sites for stay at home dads and read some of the comments. I have to say I really had compassion on a group of dads because you could sense it in their writing. They were wondering who are we? I go to PTA meetings at school and I’m there with a bunch of moms. Who am I? How do I relate to them? Where are the other men I have a chance to relate to? I think it is one of the reasons why this convention for stay at home dads occurs every year. I think that is why they gather together. They are looking for other men they can identify with to be able to have a sense of self respect.
Bob: Whenever I think about this issue I go to passages like 1Timothy 5 where Paul tells Timothy to instruct men that if a man fails to provide for his family and for those of his household he is worse than an unbeliever. And he doesn’t say if a person. He doesn’t say man in a generic sense it’s pretty clearly understood that the man is providing for his household. There seems to be a clear instruction to men that the provision role is something that rests with them.
Dennis: That’s right. That passage you are talking about in 1 Timothy is actually talking about widows and how men are to provide for their extended family. I think the principle can be applied here. A man needs to assume the responsibility to be that one who does provide for his family. When a man doesn’t work, when a man is not employed permanently he will not thrive. I’ve watched it Bob. Men who don’t work and provide for their families will end up losing self respect. They will end up with a lot of confusion about what it means to be a man. They will end up becoming in many cases passive and they will start to coast.
My friend Robert Lewis works at FamilyLife and he says in his book, New Eve,
“For men this spells an identity crisis of the first order. A Newsweek article bears this out. For with few exceptions stay at home dads who were interviewed confessed their dislike of this new role. Why? Because from earliest boyhood males fix their eyes on the broader world outside the home where they have a God made hunger for adventure and accomplishment. Women, too, are exhilarated by success but for men it’s the very stuff of life.
“Men who aren’t conquering turf God has called them to aren’t merely standing still they are losing ground and their masculine soul in the process. Something dies inside a man when he gives up on authentic manhood and settles for something less than the call that lies within them. His manhood becomes hollow and when a man surrenders his life in leadership to a woman as Adam did to Eve both inevitably hate it in the end.”
Bob: Yes.
Dennis: Those are some pretty strong words.
Bob: I think we also need to talk about that provider woman in a family. The one who is out in the marketplace she is going to have to wrestle with Titus 2 where older women are instructed to teach younger women to be lovers of their husbands, lovers at home, and trainers of their children.
Now a woman may say I can work in the marketplace and do those things and I would say we are not disputing that. But there is a primary responsibility here and your job is going to pull you away from that a lot.
Dennis: Again, we are not picking up another stone and throwing it at working moms.
Bob: Yes, we are not addressing the two parent working household. We are really talking about that situation where mom has taken on the mantle of provision and dad is saying I’ll just stay home and keep the house.
Dennis: I think it is back to what my friend said. It’s what is going to make her angry in the end. Is she really going to be happy with her identity and with how that gets expressed? I do think there is a hard wiring issue here at how God created us male and female.
Let me go onto a fourth question I would encourage couples to ask. What is the message you are sending to your sons and daughters by having dad stay at home and take care of the kids?
Bob: You are modeling something aren’t you?
Dennis: You really are. I’m thinking of a dad who never worked and provided for his family. The wife struggled to provide for the four kids in the family and those kids grew up wondering what the responsibility is of a dad if he doesn’t get out and work? This dad didn’t.
I won’t get into what he did but he didn’t go to work. He didn’t get out and provide. As a result those four kids as they have grown up and married have all struggled from an identity standpoint with either being a man and how you do provide for your family or with being a woman and wife and mother and how to relate to a man who something different than their frame of reference.
It also reminds me of another story that is really at the other end of the spectrum of a father who had a very lucrative job and he made a lot of money and had season tickets to the Dallas Cowboys games. He was laid off and came home and told his kids.
They were initially ashamed as they watched their father take a job that paid significantly less. He even worked alongside some teenagers in a form of employment that he could find because of the economic situation in their community. The son of the father reflected back as a young man. He said when I initially saw that I was ashamed of my father because he had taken this job but then I began to realize that what he had really embraced here was his responsibility to work and to provide for his family. Then the son began to be extremely proud of his dad and respected him as I watched him take a second job because he didn’t quickly find another job where he was able to earn enough money to provide for the family. He said I realize as I grew up and became a man what a gift my dad had given to me by modeling self denial and moving into a tough situation to have to provide for his family.
So I’d ask anyone who is doing this as you make this decision for your daughters and how they relate to a man later on and for your sons as they become husbands and fathers and breadwinners in the family are you modeling something you want from a generational standpoint to be passed down to succeeding generations.
I think it’s a tough question Bob but I think it’s one that is worth really considering. I hope what I have done here is to have left enough room for someone to disagree with me or to take on some of these issues and make a decision and to ultimately say this is God’s will for me and for us as a couple and for our family in Christ Jesus.
I say to you that is your decision. You’ve got to make it but I do think there is a rebellion against God occurring in this world against His design for marriage and for the family. I think the world wants to distort what it means to be a godly man, a godly husband, and a godly father. The same goes for being a godly woman, godly wife and godly mother.
I don’t hear a lot of people speaking up today on behalf of God’s design and being willing to take the shots that come with it. This is not a popular message necessarily but we aren’t called to popularity. The Bible calls us to live in a counter cultural lifestyle and to embrace the truth of scripture and to pass it on generationally to others who hopefully will pass it on to their kids. We are involved in a generational war for the soul of the family and we need to win it.
Bob: The only we are going to win it is exactly as you have said which is by pointing people back to scripture. We have to have our hearts and minds soaking in and saturated with what the Bible has to say about how we are to live.
First of all we need to be transformed people whose lives have been radically altered because of our relationship with Jesus Christ. What that looks like in our marriage relationships, as we raise our children, and as we think through the kind of issue we’ve been talking about today. You are right. There are going to be folks who hear us talking about this subject this week in fact there have already been some who have gone to our web site and looked at the transcripts of these programs and they have typed in where they disagree with what you are saying and why they think your view is the wrong view.
It’s fine to engage in that kind of dialog and debate but we have to keep pressing one another back to the scriptures. What does the Bible say? What do we learn from scripture about the husband’s role and the wife’s role and how we are to live that out in a marriage relationship.
Dr. Robert Lewis wrote a book on that subject a number of years ago called Rocking the Roles. It’s been a classic. We have recommended this book to hundreds of thousands of couples over the years because the content really is timeless and very helpful for a young husband and wife to think through what is my job? What your job? What would God have us do in a marriage relationship?
We have copies of the book Rocking the Roles in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center. I want to encourage our listeners to go to our website FamilyLifeToday.com. Order a copy of the book it’s at a discounted rate. Or just call us toll-free at 1-800-FL-TODAY. That’s 1-800-358-6329 and we’ll make arrangements with you to have a copy of Robert’s book sent to you.
I also want to encourage our listeners if it has been awhile since you have attended one of our Weekend to Remember marriage conferences or if you’ve never attended a Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference make plans this fall to get away for a weekend when the conference comes to a city near where you live. Spend some time focusing on all that the Bible has to say about things like communication, sexual intimacy, resolving conflict, our roles as husband and wife, mom and dad and a myriad of subjects that we address at the FamilyLife Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference.
In fact, this month if you are able to help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount we’d like to send you as a thank you gift a CD from the FamilyLife Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference. Dr. Crawford Loritts addresses the subject of embracing your spouse as God’s perfect gift for you. Really understanding God’s plan for marriage and how we put that plan into action. You can request a copy of this CD when you make a donation of any amount to help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today. We are listener supported and we depend on your financial support to help defray the cost associated with the production and syndication of this daily radio program.
You can make your donation this month on line at FamilyLife Today.com. If you do when you come to the key code box on the donation form just type the word “gift” in that box and we’ll send you a copy of Dr. Loritts speaking at a FamilyLife Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference.
Or call toll free1-800-FLTODAY and you can make your donation over the phone. Just ask for the CD about marriage. We are happy to send it to you and we do appreciate your partnership with us in this ministry and your financial support of FamilyLife Today
Now, tomorrow, Howard Dayton is going to join us. He is an author and a financial expert and we are going to talk about money and about marriage. I hope you can be back for that conversation.
I want to thank our engineer today Keith Lynch and our entire broadcast production team on behalf of our host Dennis Rainey I’m Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.
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