Mary Didn't Work Either

public domain

(Sigh) ....

"Stay at home" moms, we know how it feels. Why does the culture we live in equate work with making money? I think that if someone dug ditches all day long under the Phoenix August sky - for free - people would look in amazement and say the familiar words..."Oh, so you don't work?!"  Somehow it is only "work" if you are getting paid. Pleasure has nothing to do with it.

You might love your job and sit in an air conditioned room all day long, but if you make bank - that's "work."  So, moms, don't feel so bad. It isn't just that there are large pockets of people that don't understand the role of motherhood - there are even more and larger pockets that don't understand the role of work.  

I find this curious - because the two are in a way connected.  Look back to Genesis and both begin at the dawn of creation. Work is not an end in itself, of course, but it is good. Even before the fall we were to work - joyfully, painlessly.  We were made keepers of the earth, made responsible, when we were given dominion. We were called to prepare the land to bear life when told to subdue the earth. And we were told to be fertile and multiply. Therefore, our work embraces responsibility for the good of creation, of which the most sacred is humanity.  Our work should bear fruit, new life, growth and development. Finally, our work is ordered to God and family. Our work is ordered to the final command to be fertile and multiply.

Mothers (parents, fathers, guardians)
- biological or spiritual (priests, vowed, etc) - do not lack, but rather embrace, these three attributes of work. Truly, they have the greatest work - in quantity and quality!