Gender norms: violence and domesticity

This excellent article was posted today regarding "Violent Men, Working Women, and Evangelical Gender Norms." I have recently given significant thought to the issue of 'stay-at-home' moms. As a hot-button topic for American Christianity for so many years, this discussion seems to have lost much biblical and historic perspective.  This aforementioned article addresses some of those issues.

I would add a couple of thoughts regarding why it is not true that 'the ideal Christian wife is a stay-at-home mom.'  Until about two generations ago, both parents were stay-at-home parents, in most settings.  The world was far more rural which meant that family life centered on the home.  The father and mother were both at home raising the kids.  As my grandmother described her family growing up on a farm in Virginia, she said the boys grew up doing the outside farm work with her dad who worked full-time (and more), while she and her sisters grew up doing the domestic farm work with her mom who worked full-time (and more).  All this work happened to be at home.

However, at some point, many fathers not only began working outside the home, but they also began to abandon their responsibility to raise their children in godliness and responsibility.  Thus, the mothers often covered this neglect as best they could.  When mothers needed to leave the house as well in order to support their families, many homes went into free-fall.  Somehow Christian fathers and mothers must both give serious attention to raising godly and mature children, neither ceding the responsibility to the other (Deut 6; Tit 2; etc).  As the above article urges, we must give serious attention to being Biblical in our culture, not simply to defending tradition or culture or the perceived past.  Two generations have shown us that this will not be easy, but the Word of God and the Spirit of God will not fail to enable God's children to follow His path.