Things You Can Do At Home

 Years ago I was reading a discussion on a right-wing forum. Men were talking about traditional family and what it means and one Catholic guy said that married women should never work outside home. Someone asked him, suppose they don't have any children, what is your wife expected to do the whole day? He answered with one word: "Pray".

It produced such an impression on me that even now, after many years, I still think about it. In our society prayer is a very underestimated activity. We are supposed to be frantically busy, out there doing something and it includes housewives. In fact, I know some women who while not holding a job are practically never at home rushing from one place to another from early morning till late in the evening. 

Now don't get me wrong, they are often involved in worthy pursuits which may include charity, helping others, volunteering etc but can one be called a "stay-at-home anything" while she is seldom there at all? Is being constantly out and about the meaning of life?

I will admit that I tend to fall in the same trap myself. There is always something to do outside home, some place to go, some people to visit, but I have noticed that it makes personally me (won't presume to say everyone) rather unsettled and stressed by the end of the day. It also doesn't combine well with housework such as cooking and cleaning. In fact, when I took the trouble to somewhat restrict my outside activities and social life I started feeling better. 

An old proverb says that a man's home is the world while the woman's world is her home and feminists did an excellent job challenging it. There's no denying that modern women are taught to go out into the wide world and try to change it, this includes Christian and conservative women who are encouraged to take part in various church projects and even political protests and such. I'm not saying it's all wrong, mind you, or presuming they have bad intentions. Their intentions are, no doubt, noble, but if you are a believer, you realise that it's not always necessary to leave your house to change things.

I won't pretend to know the tradCath teachings in all the detail, but the trad Protestants used to teach (and some still do) that a woman, or at least, a married woman is to be a keeper at home, and so it appears that if she wants to make the world a better place, that's where she should begin. So if you find yourself with nothing to do suddenly, like your kids are grown and left, for instance, you can just dedicate more time to prayer and Bible study. 

There are many housewives who try to defend their lifestyle by enumerating all the things they do every day and even calculating how much money their labour is worth. They save money on daycare, they save money on eating out etc. It's all fine, but behind it there is still modern liberalism lurking, you know the way of life which is all about material reward.  It's not really a Christian way of thinking as the Scriptures warn us many times about the dangers of being attached to wealth and worldly goods. 

The love of money is the root of all evil

Prayer is underestimated as an activity because there is no price tag attached to it. And yet, it is no less important. I guess it must be easier for the traditional Catholics to understand it since from the very beginning they had (and still have) all these monks and nuns whose chief occupation is to pray and who are respected for this while they seldom even leave their convent/monastery. But surely, you don't need to be a Catholic to believe in the power of prayer? 

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.