Radical Womanhood

Should She Be A Doctor?

Last week, Mary Kassian and I had a great conversation with Paula Hendricks of the True Woman blog. As a younger woman, Paula had a question on her mind, stemming from a conversation with another friend of hers. So she put this question to the two of us via phone. Here's what she posted on the True Woman blog:

Recently I asked Carolyn McCulley and Mary Kassian how they would advise my friend who’s pursuing a career as a doctor, and also hopes to get married and have a family. After you’ve listened to our nine-minute conversation, I’d love to hear what you would have added if you could have joined us. (You'll hear Carolyn respond to my question first, then Mary.)

Visit the True Woman blog to listen to our conversation and to read the feedback. 

Maxed Out

(Technical glitch--this should have appeared on Monday, but it didn't for some reason. So here it is a day late...)

It's been awhile since we've touched on the Practical Issues for Godly Women series, but there was one more area I wanted to explore before we closed out the series--and that is financial savvy. If we take the Proverbs 31 woman only as our reference, we would find that she is not only a shrewd consumer, she is also a solid investor. That's the part of the puzzle I think is often missing for younger women. It's often taken for granted that women can shop, but what about how we save?

There are many reasons why women as a group don't earn as much as men. One (very good!) reason is that we often have different timetables and priorities for our lives. We juggle career options to accommodate bearing and rearing children, caring for elderly parents, helping a husband study for a new career or launch a business, or even going abroad and serving as a missionary or on a church-planting team. For another reason, we often choose careers that aren't as technically demanding or physically grueling (I'm speaking in the aggregate here) and thus aren't as well paid. But still we tend to spend more than men in terms of health care, personal grooming, clothing, and so on. And we tend to live longer, needing retirement income for many more years than men do on average.

That's why we need to mentor young women in their finances and help them to establish patterns of saving as soon as they have money passing through their hands. Time can be on their side if they start saving early.

What undermines saving is the siren call of the credit card--it lures us all. That's why I recommend parents or mentors sit down with young adults to watch and discuss the award-winning documentary, Maxed Out. It's a disturbing exposé of the credit industry, told in an engaging and well-crafted manner. Having said that, though, I will tell you to be prepared with the remote control to zip through two scenes. The first is the comedian in front of the red curtain. He says some funny things early on but then gets very vulgar. He doesn't add anything to the storyline, so you can just zip through him every time you see him. The second scene is in a pawn shop, where the owner heads to a DVD collection. Zip right there for a few seconds. Those people aren't pawning their Disney movies, I can tell you that much.

The reason why I want every young adult (especially young women) to see this documentary is because they need to be savvy about how they are the hottest target for credit card companies. College students in particular are the most in-demand -- and mounting debt has been the reason for some very sad endings among a few college students. (Please note that suicide is also mentioned on this documentary.) That said, it's not as melodramatic as you might think. In the end, it's both sad and highly informative to see how greed corrupts on both sides.

Finally, here's a cost-saving tip: If you have Netflix, you can actually watch it online for no additional cost. It is one of the films that's available on-demand for Netflix subscribers. Big chunks of it are also on YouTube.

Abortion Changes You

One of the most challenging--and gratifying--elements of working on my book is interviewing the women who have agreed to share their personal stories. I'm now in the process of working on the chapter about motherhood, which features numerous testimonies from women with a wide variety of parenting stories . . . including deeply painful admissions of abortion. This is a painful topic, even for women who know they have been forgiven because of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ for their sins. I have sat and cried with women as they spoke of the challenges of adoption or infertility or caring for ill children. But I have seen profound remorse from women who aborted a child. The women I interviewed were not Christians at the time of their abortions and they have given birth to other children--two situations that create terrible clarity in hindsight. They have repented and know they have been forgiven of their sins because of the lavish mercy of the cross, but grief can still wash over them unexpectedly.

So I can only imagine what it would be like without the knowledge of grace and forgiveness, and the support of a Bible-believing church. What do you do with all the hurt that our culture ignores? How do you process grief when abortion is viewed as a political platform? Where do you go if you are a man and your child was aborted without your consent? How do you handle your emotions when your grandchild, niece, or sibling is aborted?

These questions are some of what drive the non-political online outreach, Abortion Changes You. It's a tool to begin a conversation about post-abortive grief.  I say "begin" because this site does not overtly present the gospel. There are a variety of personal stories posted, some of which are theologically accurate and some not. But it is a start, a bridge to the millions who have discovered that abortion is not a "quick fix" for the pregnancy they terminated. I pray the Lord will use it not only to reach those with post-abortive grief, but also for those who are searching for information about abortion. May numerous women come across this site when searching for abortion referrals.

Open Nesters

When I was in Charlotte this past weekend, I learned a great phrase coined by my hostess, Jane Connolly. Instead of referring to women with grown children as "empty nesters," she speaks of such women as "open nesters." These women are in a season where they can now be open to new people to care for and new ways for God to use the experience and wisdom they have gleaned from rearing children of their own.

I love both the phrase and the idea! I love the God-centered optimism in that phrase. I love the hint of excitement about what could happen. And I love the flexibility and servant's heart represented in it.

So, to those of you who are open-nesters, how have you used this time? What has God done with your time, wisdom, and availability? The comments function is open for this post--please let us hear from you on this topic in Practical Issues for Godly Women.

To Be At Home

In response to my last post, "The Economic Base of the Family," Janelle Hardy sent me the following joke:

The industrial revolution came and took the men from the home. Compulsory schooling came and took the children from the home. Feminism came and took the women from the home. And now...they are all out working to pay the mortgage so the dog can stay at home by himself.

Bah-dah-boom, bah-dah-bing.

But it's a good transition to our next post in the Practical Issues for Godly Women series. Last week, Boundless published an article from Heather Koerner about how she evaluated the decision to be a stay-at-home mother. What fascinated me about the piece is that she could speak both as a new mother and as a child who was often in daycare herself. As what's been called the "latch-key generation" becomes parents themselves, I think the "mommy wars" conversation is going to take on some interesting nuances. Here's an excerpt from her thoughtful article:

I can't tell you the exact moment I made the decision to be a stay-at-home mom.

I can remember a few of the moments that I acted on it — like when my husband and I started sacrificing for the "baby fund" or the day I handed in my resignation and said good-bye to almost 40 percent of our family income. But those were the action points, not the decision point.

I think that at different times in my life, I just started to know.

I'm sure it started in my own day care experience. After attending a group day care for much of my childhood, I took different jobs during my college breaks as a child care worker and nanny. Though most of my co-workers were nice, sweet ladies who tried to make the day pleasant for kids, I still began to see that there was something unique and special about a parent's love that a child care worker could never duplicate. Even with my one-on-one time as a nanny, I saw that, as much as I cared about my job, it was still that — a job.

But what about me, I would wonder. I'm a well-adjusted, productive member of society and I came through day care just fine. What's the problem?

I thought about that — hard. Then the answer came to me in three little words: in spite of. Day care had not made my childhood happy. My childhood was happy in spite of my time in day care. It was my parents' individual attention each night and on weekends that helped me to thrive. It wasn't that the days were always bad, but that my parents' love was always best.

I started to ask myself the hard questions: Who is going to raise my child someday? Will the nights and weekends be enough?

At times like that, I sometimes just longed for explicit biblical instruction. You know, some verse that would just settle the whole debate: "Thou shalt be a stay-at-home mom" or something like that.

Read the rest of "Why I'm at Home" on Boundless.org.

UPDATE: I have opened the comments function on this post.

The Economic Base of the Family

I'm headed to Charlotte, NC, today to speak at a women's conference at CrossWay Community Church. One of my topics will be about the history of domesticity and why there is tension in our culture today about the value of the home. I mentioned in a prior blog post that I was working on a chapter about this topic and an alert reader, Linda Bronkar, sent me this 1999 article by Nancy Pearcey titled, "Is Love Enough? Recreating the Economic Base of the Family."

If you recall, the Practical Issues for Godly Women series began with a question. Rebecca asked: "I understand homemaking is to be a priority for women, but is homemaking to be the only priority/purpose/what-have-you for a woman?" It's been a long, windy, and somewhat distracted road to get back to this particular question, but I wanted to explore some other "nooks and crannies" of biblical femininity before we circled back again to this topic.

So now that we are here, I want to link to this article because it does a stellar job of encapsulating all the research I've come across on the history of the home. (Wish I had found it first--it would have saved me a lot of time!) Here are two excerpts. The first addresses the family prior to the Industrial Revolution:

Colonial families lived much the way families have always lived in traditional societies. Prior to the 19th century, the vast majority of people in the world lived on farms or in peasant villages. Productive work was done in the home or its outbuildings, whether for subsistence or for sale. Work was done not by individuals, but by families. Stores, offices, and workshops were located in a front room, with living quarters either upstairs or in the rear. The boundaries of the home were fluid and permeable; the "world" entered continually in the form of clients, business colleagues, customers, and apprentices.

What did this integration of work and life mean for family relationships? For husband and wife, it meant they inhabited the same universe, working side by side in a common enterprise (though not necessarily in identical tasks). For the mother, the location of work within the home meant she was able to raise children while still participating in the family sustenance. Marriage in colonial times "meant to become a co-worker beside a husband, if necessary learning new skills in butchering, silversmith work, printing, or upholstering--whatever special skills the husband’s work required." Of course, women were also responsible for household tasks which required a wide range of skills: spinning wool and cotton; weaving it into cloth; sewing the family’s clothes; gardening and preserving   food; preparing meals without pre-processed ingredients; making soap, buttons, candles, medicines. Colonial mothers did not need to start a feminist movement to demand a role in economically productive work. Many of the goods used in colonial society were manufactured by women, doing the brainwork (planning and managing) as well as the handwork.

Fathers enjoyed the same integration of work and child rearing responsibilities.  Parenting was not, as today, almost exclusively the mother’s domain. Sermons, child-rearing manuals, and other prescriptive literature of the day addressed both parents, admonishing them to "raise up" their children together. When manuals did address one parent, it was usually the father, who was thought to be particularly important in religious and intellectual training. With productive endeavor centered on the family hearth, fathers were "a visible presence, year after year, day after day." They trained their children to work alongside them. "Fatherhood was thus an extension, if not an integral part, of much routine activity."

It took only 50 years to radically transform both our economy and our family life. The startling pace of the Industrial Revolution introduced breathtaking change from 1780 to 1830. In reaction to the harsh reality of the industrialized workforce, the home took on a special status as a "haven" in the early to mid-19th century--a period that created "the cult of domesticity." But, as Nancy Pearcey points out, it didn't last very long:

For all the glorification of the home during the height of the Cult of Domesticity, the stubborn fact remained that many important functions once performed in the home were now performed by other institutions. The family’s sustenance came from without; a husband’s wages, status, and professional friendships were all based on associations outside the home. For all the transcendent values associated with it, the home was becoming an adjunct to the "real" world outside.

Fewer people seemed to reverence those transcendent values anyway. After the   publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, evolutionism took over biology and the social sciences. With its implacable materialism, Darwinism undermined confidence in any transcendent truths. If home stood for the outmoded values of piety and religion, then the home itself was an outmoded institution.

Moreover, Social Darwinism took direct aim on the home by exalting the public sphere as the seat of evolutionary progress. Beginning with the assumption that men are superior to women, Social Darwinists like Herbert Spencer sought to explain why men had evolved faster. They proposed that, from their brute beginnings, males fought for survival out in the world and were thus subject to natural selection, a process that weeds out the weak and inferior. Women, at home nurturing the young, were out of reach of natural selection and hence evolved more slowly. What is significant is the contempt Social Darwinists expressed for both women’s  character and women’s environment (i.e., the home). Homelife was denounced as  a drag on evolutionary development.

As you would expect from her writing, Nancy Pearcey's article is dense with information and insights. I highly recommend that you continue reading "Is Love Enough? Recreating the Economic Base of the Family."

Hospitality Habits

While I'm away from the blog this week, I'm introducing you all to some of my blogging friends. Lydia Brownback at The Purple Cellar blog recently wrote about her friend, Susie Cassel, and how she excels in hospitality. I enjoyed the post so much that I want to make sure to flag it to you all. It's a great addition to the Practical Issues for Godly Women series, too, which is more or less on hiatus this week.

Lydia writes:

Susie defines two distinct types of hospitality, both of which we should prepare our hearts to offer. First is calculated hospitality, which includes hosting our friends, making meals for the sick--basically, the sort we can plan ahead. The second type is spontaneous hospitality, which is opening our home and heart to that drop-in neighbor or friend who calls at an inconvenient time. How we handle spontaneous hospitality is a matter of mindset, of putting others ahead of our personal comfort. But that doesn't mean there aren't great rewards for such service: generosity comes back on our heads! But, primarily, every time we open our homes and hearts to someone in need, it is Jesus we are serving. Do we think about that? Do we see today's interruption or inconvenience as an opportunity to love Christ? Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me" (Matt. 5:40).

Lydia has posted four of Susie's hospitality habits, which I encourage you to check out. I found some great ideas listed there! I particularly liked the tip about how daily hospitality to your own family produces a ripple effect.

The Joy of Eating Together

The good old-fashioned family meal has so many benefits, not the least of which is serving the family some healthy fare. But there are also some benefits just from being together. A recent study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine reported that sitting down for regular family meals may protect teen girls from developing eating disorders.

Dr. Dianne Neumark-Sztainer and colleagues from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis found that adolescent girls who ate five or more meals each week with their families were approximately one third less likely to engage in extreme weight control behaviors, such as making themselves vomit, taking diet pills and abusing diuretics or laxatives than girls who ate less frequently with their families.

I am especially fond of family meals, perhaps because they are not common in my single adult life. So when I can get together with my extended family, I make a big deal out of it. Growing up, my official family title was Director of Ambiance--I was all about the music, candles, entertainment and the like. Now when I get together with my own nieces and nephews, I like to continue this tradition. When they were younger, we would practice "the art of conversation," as we termed it. Even the littlest ones would think of a question and follow-up response to ask a guest.

Now that the girls are old enough to take on some kitchen tasks, we often cook together, too. I've been trying to teach them how to cook intuitively, using ingredients already on hand. We have made some memorable dishes this way! But we have fun together, experimenting with all kinds of flavors and textures. (You haven't had nouvelle cuisine until you try a five-year-old's dish of mandarin oranges, marshmallows, pretzels, and uncooked spaghetti!) We make our dishes, rate them, and discuss over dinner what worked well and what we'd eat again. I want to encourage them that cooking can be a creative and rewarding endeavor. And since I'm the aunt and this is my special time with the "niblings," I don't mind the mound of dirty dishes afterward. (An impracticality for daily meals, I'm sure.)

Now my nieces are often in the  kitchen making items for family get-togethers or casual meals. My oldest nephew also enjoys decorating the table for holidays and leading us in conversations about what we're most grateful for at Thanksgiving and the like. I don't claim any extraordinary influence here (I tip my hat to their parents), but it's been fun to make my small contributions to their enjoyment of a good meal together!

(Photos: Natalie cooking a holiday brunch; the experimental dinner created by Claire, Stephanie, and Abigail and served on their hand-drawn dinner plates.)

Let's Dish!

In the Practical Issues series, we are now looking at cooking. I acknowledge that cooking is not as much of a gender-specific function today--many men I know are much better cooks than their wives or girlfriends--but in the day-to-day aspect of feeding a family, women are usually the ones to think through the meals and stock the groceries. So if the stove made 19th-century cooking easier, and processed and frozen foods made 20th-century cooking easier (easier, not necessarily better!), what can we say of 21st-century food? I have no idea what lies ahead, but I can tell you that one innovation I truly enjoy is the prep-kitchen concept of a place like Let's Dish.

One of the challenges I now have is limited time. Though I'm home a lot working on this book, I need as much free time as possible to write. While it's tempting to putter around in the kitchen (which I love to do), I had to figure out a way to eat healthfully and quickly. Frozen meals can only take you so far, especially if you try to avoid preservatives (as I do). There's also a limited palate in the microwavable-foods section. So when a friend of mine invited me to try Let's Dish, I wanted to try it.

If you've never been to a meal-assembly store before, the best way I can explain it is that it's like hiring out a sous chef. You select the meals you want to make online, register for a day and time that's good to go, and then you go assemble meals. The recipes (and nutrition data) are already figured out. The items are already assembled, diced, minced, chopped, etc., and you assemble according to your portions and preferences. Like garlic? Add a pinch more. Dislike cilantro? Skip it. In about 90 minutes, I had 24 meals assembled and ready for my freezer. No preservatives--all fresh! I selected Garlic Herbed Salmon (yummy!), Fusion Pork Tenderloin, Curried Vegetable Stew, and Citrus Almond Tilapia. Each dish serves six, so I divided my portions into thirds for easier access. Let's Dish even provides labels with the cooking instructions. So now, I simply take out a frozen dish in the morning and leave it in the refrigerator to thaw. I come home, heat up the oven, toss in the dish -- and by the time I've done all the little chores that must be handled when you come home (start the laundry, check your email, toss the junk mail, etc.), dinner is ready.

Even better: I had two meals ready to go in my freezer when a neighbor told me his twins were born. So not only am I prepared for healthy meals for myself, I am also stocked up to bless others. (A pre-paid visit to a meal-assembly store is also a great bridal or baby shower group gift.) The only downside is the unattractive bandanas you have to wear in a commercial kitchen--but I'd rather have hat-head and not find hair in my food later on!

If you want to try it, there are lots of similar concepts out there, so here's a link to a site that lists them by state. In the D.C. area, many of the Let's Dish franchises have a newcomers discount, which I expect would be offered by other companies, too. For me, it worked out to less than $6 per dinner -- a little more than a microwave meal, but better tasting and with less sodium on average. (And, hey, if you sign up for Let's Dish, give them my name as a referral. I might get a discount for my next trip there!)

(Photos: The Let's Dish kitchen in Gaithersburg MD; Dawn Weaver and Barb Jones assembling their meals; the three of us ready to go with our meals. Note to Barb and Dawn: I included the unflattering bandana shot of me, too!)

UPDATE: I opened the comments function on this post because a single woman sent in a great idea for how to adapt this concept to serve the married women in her church. Check it out!

Soccer Mom Wannabe

Monday's post considered the importance of long-term planning for women. Today I'm featuring a haunting article I stumbled across while doing my book research. It is written from the perspective of a woman who is conflicted about the choices she's made as a working mother and how trapped she feels by them. Titled, "Soccer Mom Wannabe," it carries this sub-headline: "Welcome to postmodern child rearing: I watch my son at daycare over the internet. He is growing up in Technicolor, right on my screen."

Author Jessica Smartt Gullion begins her article with this compelling description (with apologies for her slang):

He has not moved from that spot for 40 minutes. He just sits and watches the other kids come in. I think he has a book— it is hard to tell for sure.

The screen updates every five seconds or so. It reminds me of dancing under a strobe light. Flash: He’s sitting on the floor. Flash: Here comes a little girl. Flash: She whacks him on the head. Flash: He’s crying. Flash: Here comes the teacher.

Now, where is he? Flash: He’s crawled over to the cubby holes. Flash: What’s in there?

Every morning the alarm screams at 6:00 am. We get up, get washed, get fed, get dressed, strap his flailing body into the car seat, and haul him out to the daycare where two 18 year old girls watch him and ten other kids so I can go to my job that pays the daycare bill. And I become the voyeur. Welcome to postmodern child rearing: I watch my son at daycare over the internet. He is growing up in Technicolor, right on my screen.

The picture is not very clear. I can make out my son, but I can’t read his face. He is a blue blur. Wait— is that him? Yes, he has cuffs on his jeans this morning (they are too big but I couldn’t find anything else that fit/was clean).

I shouldn’t complain: I am lucky in today’s harsh economy to have a job that pays so well. At least that’s the propaganda they feed me over the TV.

I am lucky…

My mother’s generation fought hard so that a woman like me could earn a higher degree and have a prestigious career and make more money that most of her male co-workers. Feminists fought so their daughters could integrate into a man’s world, and perhaps, take it over. I am woman, hear me roar.

Problem is, this world sucks. I miss my family. On a typical day I am with my son (awake) for about 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes at lunch, and about 2 hours in the evenings for a grand total of 3 hours per day. I spend more time with my co-workers than my husband or son.

The author goes on to describe her emotional reaction to this work/life imbalance, concluding with this interesting observation: " I can’t reconcile this working/daycare thing. If I were a religious woman I would 'let go and let God.' But I’m not, so I fight it every day. I never thought I would pray to be a stay-at-home soccer mom."

The author's bio has been updated since this article was first released. Sadly (a reaction I have based on her own words) it says: "Since writing this essay, Jessica Smartt Gullion has had a daughter, who now is at the same daycare as her brother. 'I watch both of them on my computer at work. I am still very conflicted with my decision to work outside the home.'"

Gullion hits the nail on the head with her observation about trusting God. "Let Go and let God" is a weak theological statement for believers, but it's probably as close as an unbeliever is going to be able to come in articulating what it means to trust God for your provision, for His purposes for marriage and motherhood, and for what's eternally important. I don't quote her article to sneer at her. As a childless woman, I understand how little I know about parenting, so I want to proceed with humility. But I am fascinated by how she feels trapped by her choices and sees that faith is the answer. In fact, I found myself praying for her as I quoted her. 

Marx says that we are being exploited for our labor. It doesn’t matter how much money you make. The money part is irrelevant because no matter how much we make we are being exploited. We are disposable drones, punching in, punching out, selling our time, selling our souls. Agreeing that we would rather make money than be with our families. We would rather make money than care for our kids. We would rather sit at our desks watching our children over the internet.

Agreeing that we would rather make money than be with our families. We would rather make money than care for our kids. We would rather sit at our desks watching our children over the internet. That's a powerful summary--and a somber twist on "screen generation" children.

UPDATE: I have opened the comments function on this post, too, to hear from other parents. Comments are moderated.