Let me first clear something up (hear comes the caps). IF YOU BELIEVE THAT STAYING HOME AS A MAN OR WOMAN IS SOMEHOW BETTER THAN GOING TO WORK EITHER YOU DON’T HAVE KIDS OR YOUR KIDS ARE SECOND TO BABY JESUS AS IT RELATES TO BEHAVIOR.

Child rearing, cleaning up after children, trying to feed children, dealing with sick children and child discipline are the toughest things you will ever do in your life. And only an arrogant son of a gun would somehow think that what they are doing is harder than raising children and also that guy is most likely not involve in the day to day activities of homemaking. So if you believe that somehow stay at home dads are getting off easy by “just having to stay with the kids” . You are deaf, blind and dumb. I am involved with changing diapers, disciplining, feeding, cleaning up after, potty training, going to football and baseball practices and helping with the eduction of my children and let me tell you this.

 If I could work from 8-9 everyday and let my wife stay home with the kids I would in a heartbeat. Women who stay home should get 80-90% of their husbands disposable income bi-weekly! She is working 100 times harder than he is (regardless of his profession) and any man who does it, well……. you my friend are a special individual. But on to my post.

What Does the Bible Say?

If you read the New Testament, there is no and I do mean no way anyone could come to the conclusion that a man staying home is sin. If someone uses 1 Timothy 5:8 as a foundation for taking such a position, then you should immediately be suspicious of whatever they say going forward and you maybe want to reassess anything they have said in the past that you agree with. It is bogus and has nothing to do with a man working outside of the home or working inside of the home.

Each family has to evaluate their goals, talents and their economic environment and make a decision that is good for the family. Listen if my wife was a doctor and we decided to have a family and just say I was a teacher, but we had the personal conviction that putting our child in daycare would be detrimental to either our spiritual goals or even our social goals for that child(ren) then there is nothing in the bible preventing me from staying home and allowing my wife the freedom to use her God given talent to make the world a better place.

Let me explain something the type of work in the bible, well was labor intensive, labor intensive jobs are traditionally men centered just because of the physicality of such jobs. Heavy lifting, exposure to heat and cold conditions,  risk of being attacked…. these types of things, while not exclusive to males, may be better suited to someone who has the physical makeup to handle such conditions.  Again this is not exclusive to males because I know some women who could handle these conditions without a problem (and probably more women could also but social conditioning has psychologically effected people putting them in gender roles).

Today, however, our economy and work environment isn’t geared towards a specific gender. Either sex could be an accountant, either sex could be a doctor, lawyer, dentist, teacher, business owner, insurance agent, computer engineer, plant manager, real estate agent, psychologist, scientist, professor, graphic designer, mechanic, customer service rep, pilot, bus driver, physical therapist, beautician, computer programmer and politician. Because of technological advances and the use of machinery and almost everything we do a woman can even easily do things that they were probably incapable of even 50 years ago. It is just plain wrong to assume anything else.

What Those Who Are Against Stay At Home Dads Really Think About Women

What I hear (though many would outright deny this) is that women are only good for laying down, getting pregnant and standing up and taking care of these babies! Outside of your domestic skills you are practically worthless. They make women who decide to work while their husbands stay home, helpless victims who don’t know any better, because if they did they wouldn’t make such a decision. As a matter of fact it makes no sense for a husband who can generate 50K of income annually to work while his wife who could generate 100K stays home and tends to the welfare of the home. I am in finance and to me that is incurring a 50K loss every year and not sound business principles.

Women are not inferior creatures who need to rescued by strong brute men! They are created in the image of God just like their male counterparts and can contribute more than their ovaries to the world. It is actually shameful for Christians who mock the Muslim world for their views on women yet are only a half-inch in front of them, barely able to see them over their shoulder! If you look carefully the current Feminist activist have a huge platform to stand on because of this mentality. A woman who decides to work and their family decision is the for the dad to stay home for the overall benefit of the family is not a victim. She may be applying her God given wisdom constructively.

What It Says Of The Men Who Stay

What it says to men is that they don’t have the ability to nurture, care for, protect nor raise their children. Their primary purpose is to donate sperm and instill discipline. I have even heard someone say that if a man needs to work two jobs to obey God then they should do it. That is about the second dumbest thing I have ever heard (the first is that we actually have a president who was not a U.S born citizen).

If you need to work two jobs to even get close to what your wife can make at one job then my friend you are actually disobeying scripture. Husbands have the same responsibility as their wives in the development of their children. Women don’t have an ounce more (unless you take Titus 2 and make it the center of the Christian family) of responsiblity in the development of their children than husbands.  What may be more ironic is that the husband may actually be wired to be the better care provider than his wife ( a wiring that comes from God).

Please don’t let some dogmatic uninformed individual (I don’t care how many followers they have) tell you that men can’t stay home. Either gender can stay home and each family has to make that decision themselves. You have to ask , what is good for my family, what is good for me as an individual, how are we wired and what is good for us economically speaking (maybe the husband can take online courses to help the family economically or his own career personally). Listen the bible is silent on this issue and so we have to be also. Too many people overstep their boundaries and when they do they should be put in their place (lovingly of course).

I put “biblical” in quotations for a reason. That reason is that I believe even the writers of the New Testament could have been conditioned by their environment. I know that says a lot about inspiration and all, but I have to believe that.

Cultural Conditions and Their Biblical Influence

I have to first say, I believe Paul to be a victim of his circumstances much like every other human in the world. This does not mean that I have to question everything Paul says, but I do have to question some things, especially in light of the environment and culture we find Paul in and the environment and culture we find ourselves in. Culture is fluid as I wrote before in the past, I believe the Gospel to be objective truth so any questions along the line of “well how do you know the Gospel is true” will be ignored

Here is why I believe the biblical authors to be influenced by their culture. Lets take Roman Slavery. Most Roman slaves were slave due to one of three reasons. 1. They were war captives. 2. They sold themselves due to financial hardship and poverty or 3. They were sold by their parents into slavery.

Now I don’t like it, but number 2 isn’t that bad. However, numbers 1 and 3 are totally unacceptable. Yet, we don’t see Paul ever telling Christians to release their slaves (I think it was estimated that the majority of people were slaves). He actually encourages slaves to be obedient and masters to be fair. I don’t know about you; however, that doesn’t seem to be a good answer, not even acceptable. No human being should ever “own” another human being. It is wicked, regardless of the circumstances. Now if you owe money and you must work it off, then fine; however, slavery/possession never seems right to me and Paul never addresses the issue directly, well in Philemon he does, but outside of that he doesn’t.

Another example would be Peter’s response to an oppressive government. No one has to submit themselves to an oppressive government. I am 100% for rebellion/revolt, even violent revolt for those being oppressed. Peter tells us to accept such persecution, I disagree (and so do most Christians in America).  Anyone who beats you because they disagree with you, enslaves you because the color of your skin, or attempts to take your land or posession is to be rebelled against. I think the Zealots had this right. So again these authors may have blind spots.

Manhood vs Womanhood

Not always, but usually, women were regarded as property under Roman rule. I think this is why Paul writes about husbands loving their wives as their own bodies and Peter talks about handling wives with care. Abuse was not abnormal for Roman husbands, including their children. Women had to accept their lot. Especially if they had no families. A woman with no family (which was not abnormal) in Rome often times became prostitutes just to eat on a daily basis, many were treated very harshly. Thus being a wife brought a double edged sword. You may not have to prostitute but you were subservient in that culture.

Being a man gave you special privileges and being a woman, well.. child bearing (and hopefully a male) brought you some type of security. But lets take it a step further. From the fall forward, women have been regarded as second class citizens. A woman was to take what was given to her and that was that. We see that from Genesis through the rest of the New Testament. Even in Hebrew culture the wife was considered the husbands property.

I would say that Western culture has made huge leaps on the development and equality of women. The women suffrage act was a huge leap but as of late, we now have women running for president. Women leading Fortune 500 companies, Women in positions of influence in our government, our first billionaire woman and women making breakthroughs in everywhere from Academics to Sports. To be straight-forward, we are realizing that women can do just about anything a man can do (I am doing P90X and it is a female who is kicking my butt).

Anyone who tells you that women are somehow different than man in an inferior tone is only perpetuating a 5000 year old lie. Those thoughts are rooted in the oppression of women and fallacy of “gender roles”. Now I am not against gender roles, because a man can’t breast feed nor have children. But this has nothing to do with roles, but basic biology, much like a woman uses the bathroom sitting down and a man standing up. Or women have ovaries and a man testicles.

The Bible and Gender Roles

Based off of the first two bullets, I believe that the bible may be wrong on gender roles and may be guilty of perpetuating some aspects of the curse. We have to remember that a woman being off work due to child bearing is part of the curse. We have to understand that most of the biological things we see as deficiencies is part of the curse. They were not part of God’s original design, they are sin-laden mutations that we have used to perpetuate things such as submission and headship.

Because of that we have undue pressures on families, especially Chritian families. We have been taught that a woman working outside of the home is going against God’s plan. The problem with that is that the work the husband does, which takes him away from his family and leaves a wife to raise children is part of the curse. We were never created to do such things, we were to live off the land in the cool of the Garden, not work overtime for a promotion.

Men have been taught, especially in certain traditions, that he is the priest, prophet and provider of his home. Yet we all were to be priest, prophet and providers of our home. There are men today whose wife is much more gifted at generating income for their family but because of their religious tradition are crippling their family. They believe that they are being disobedient to God (many preachers teach this foolishness) if they are the ones who stay home while their wives work. Others feel it is their responsibility to “wash their wives in the word” as Christ washes the Church. They believe they are the ones who are supposed to have the final say and make tough decisions, when they have a wife that is more wise and more gifted in these areas.

The pressure of such things are not doing a service to the stenghtening of the human family. Especially today where women actually have more opportunities. Wives feel smothered, many men feel undue pressure and the Christian family is divorcing at alarming rates. We really need to reevaluate our perspective on this, especially in an ever changing world and even more importantly in light of the fact that the biblical authors may have had some blind spots in certain areas.