Total Truth

What comes from being alone with nothing but your thoughts, reflection and questions. And a desire to seek answers to those questions. I have a lot of alone time. Time during naps or play time or when they watch PBSkids and I'm doing chores. Time alone with my thoughts. For six weeks, the boys and I have been home during the week due to the road conditions. We don't have visitors and the ice makes it unsafe for walks down the hill to get the mail. The boys and I haven't left the house in 12 days due to the flu. I haven't even been in the garage. I'm not going crazy or unhappy about my situation. I'm grateful for Facebook and blogs to help me connect with others. I think it would be extremely lonely not to have the outside world touch my life. One question that has been spinning in my head for months since I was asked is "How do you do it? How do you stay at home and not work?" All I can come up with is "Why wouldn't I?" 

"We all long for a sense that we are contributing to something larger than ourselves, to a greater good, to God's purposes in the world."

I'm happy and fulfilled with my job as caregiver and shaper of my children's worldview. There is dignity in this job. Then my next question is, "Why does society view this as unsatisfying? Did society ever view it as fulfilling? And why does society view this job with less dignity?"

Last night I finally got relief and came across the answer. We've had this book for five years. For fours years I had all the excuses I could find not to read it because I was scared to be disappointed by yet another Christian woman author. Scared that it was going to be another book full of fluff because that seems to be all Christian women are interested in reading. I finally ran out of excuses and found the courage to open the book. And found out they do exist. Academic women who love God. This author is a dream come true. She uses theology, logic, philosophy, science and history to present her case for how and why the Protestant Church exists and functions as it does today. No fluff anywhere. It turns out that I never finished the book. Life got in the way and a little thing that almost killed me, my heart condition. So it got packed away and last night while looking for something to read before bed I came across it and opened it up to the last fifty pages I still needed to read. Chapter 12 "How Women Started the Culture War" Perfect! The answer to my question, though I may not like the answer since it says women started it.

The answer: the Industrial Revolution. As a History major, my first thought was of course it is the answer. Western society turned upside down with the modernization of society. Tolkien's view of the Industrial Revolution's impact on England was Modor versus the Shire. The Shire representing pre-revolution and Modor post. You can see which he preferred. Tolkien romanticized one and demonized the other.

I came to learn that pre-revolution family units operated much differently than today. Business and economy was done in the home together with the business in the front of the house and living quarters in the back. Husbands and wives worked together. Wives would be skilled to run the business even if the husband died. Women also had extensive household responsibilities. Yet they were able to do productive work and raise kids at the same time because it was done in the home. Men had equal responsibility in raising the kids and running the household. Cookbooks, parenting guides, and sermons were addressed to the fathers. Fathers were not to be driven by self ambition, but by what was best for the family. There was no separation of work life and family life. 

Compartmentalization of life came when work left the home. Modernization brought about factories and a new individualist mindset in order to advance in the new world. The English word competition came about from the Industrial Revolution. Men were taken away from their role as spiritual leader, teacher and caregiver of the children. Women were left isolated to take over those roles along with all the chores once shared in the running of the household. The opportunities for women to be skilled workers were no longer available and became viewed as helpless and pitiable because they were no longer able to support themselves. The power went to the public sphere. Dignity was less assigned to the home life. Women raised the culture war because of the inequality in standards. Men were given a free pass from the church to no longer need to live by morals, it was now the woman's job to teach and enforce morality. The double standard raised the war.

Both men and women lost in the societal change. Men lost out on home (private) life and women lost out on public life. Two hundred years later our society is slowly starting to recognize a need for change and restore balance to the private and public aspects of life. Men are sharing responsibility raising the kids, leading spiritually and helping run the house. Businesses are allowing telecommuting, businesses from home, taking less ambitious and all life consuming jobs to have more time for a private life, a home life. A balanced life. A dignified life.

All quotes and information was learned from Nancy Pearcy's Total Truth.