Abandoning Children to Work Outside of the Home is a Violation of Scripture

Abandoning Children to Work Outside of the Home is a Violation of Scripture

Preached By Pastor John MacArthur

Young women are to be workers at home…workers at home. What does that mean? That means what it says, workers at home, home workers. God must have written that for our day when millions and millions and millions of women are working mothers outside the home. Millions of them have young children. In fact, the statistics of the number of women who work outside the home and have children under three is staggering; it’s something like a third of all mothers with children under three work outside the home.

You wonder why there are delinquents? This is a very fascinating term, workers at home, oikourgos from ergo, to work; and oikos, home, work at home. Your task is at home. A woman’s task, a woman’s work, a woman’s employment, a woman’s calling is to be at home.

I mentioned 1 Timothy 5:14, “I want younger widows,” of course implied here, but it touches then all women, “to get married, younger women, get married,” that’s where I got my introduction. Get married! Bear children! You hate this: Keep house! That’s what it says. Get married, bear children, keep house and give the enemy no cause, no occasion for reproach. A married woman is in a safer place, a more spiritually beneficial place, a more protected place. She must care for her husband; it’s a more selfless place. And she must care for her children and it’s again more selfless.

This isn’t hard to figure out. This is a divine principle. Abandoning children to work outside the home is a violation of Scripture. You say, “Well, my kids aren’t home while I’m at work.” That’s not the point. That doesn’t change the obligation because they went to school. It’s the home that you prepare when they aren’t there that makes the home a home. If you arrive when they arrive and leave when they leave, it’s unlikely that the home will be the kind of home the children need.

Working women contribute to lost children, delinquent children, children who have lack of proper understanding of God-ordained roles in the home, terrible decline, drugs. We don’t even talk about the working woman phenomenon of adultery and divorce. And for a woman to be the bread winner…you say, “Well, our house payment requires two jobs. We both have to work.” Then get another house and have a family.

In fact, for men, 1 Timothy 5:8 says, “If anyone…meaning a man…doesn’t provide for his own, especially for those of his household, he’s denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” The point is the man is the provider and the protector and the security and the woman is there to care for the children and the home. Working outside removes her from under her husband and puts her under other men to whom she is forced to submit.

I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.
1 Timothy 5:14

***Here is another great sermon by Pastor Robert Reed on Keepers at Home.

***Here is a YouTube I made yesterday about the blessings of having my mother be a keeper at home even after all of her children were raised.

40 thoughts on “Abandoning Children to Work Outside of the Home is a Violation of Scripture

  1. Women driven by radical feminism to be obsessed with career and shun their families and helpless children is disgusting, but needed to be an “empowered” Nasty Woman! So many parents now resent their kids, always need “me time” over family time, and even publish articles in parenting magazines about “How to feel zero guilt over not spending any time with your children”! What a sad and morally bankrupt society women are being raised in! Well, it will come full circle when they are dumped in nursing homes by their raised-selfish entitled kids who were taught from a young age, just brush aside those who inconvenience you….

  2. I’ve shared about all the horrors that came to my family. I’ve always believed it was because my mom left the home to work. Even sadder, it doesn’t stop at one generation. That simple decision that my dad made in pursuit of the boat, the 2nd car, the bigger house? My dad is on wife # 3, I’m the only child of 3 that he still has contact with. My two brothers are in horrible situations that I can’t begin to help them out of. One has 3 children, another has 2, and they’re a mess. One of them has 3 children from 3 different women and he cares for NONE of them.

    So, my father has moved on to a new family, my mother has been dead for 5 yrs. And we’re left to deal with the mess. And “mess” is truly putting it mildly. Not only is our family dealing with it, but it’s costing society a pretty penny, as well. 9 of the offspring I mentioned are on welfare, incarcerated, etc. Only 2 of us are not.

  3. It’s tragic, Debby. Women fight so hard against God’s ways and want to always give all of the exceptions but the exceptions don’t negate God’s commands. God’s commands are always for our best not to cheat us out of something!

  4. “…the exceptions don’t negate God’s commands.”

    Yes; this! Thank you for saying so. It seems everyone these days thinks their situation is special and somehow exempts them from doing what God has plainly commanded in the Bible.

    I found the Robert Reed sermon on another site and have downloaded it to my permanent collection. He speaks of the controversy even in church circles and among professing Christians that preaching keepers at home raises. This should not be so!

  5. He preached that most preachers won’t teach women to be keepers at home because their own wives are not keepers at home! He has other great sermons about biblical womanhood, too. I am happy that a woman shared his sermons with me. It’s rare to find preachers who preach the truths of biblical womanhood. They are too afraid of the feminists among them.

  6. Thank you for another great post, my dad left us we were very young and we haven’t heard from or seen him in over 20 years. He never paid any child support and because of that my mother had to leave the home and start working sometimes she’d have two jobs at once and we hardly ever saw her. I truly think this is the reason that my brother went down such a bad path my sister’s have anger issues and abandonment issues. It took me a lot of prayer to get over the issues from my childhood, and now I have a wonderful husband a beautiful daughter and I’m a stay-at-home mom like I’m always dreamed.

  7. I’ve been thinking about some of the men who comment on your blog from time to time, specifically those who have difficult marriages. I wonder if this may be at the route. Do these men have wives that work outside the home? Have the men encouraged their wives to work at home told them they would like to be the sole provider for their families? It’s hard to disrespect a hardworking husband that you depend on to provide for your needs. It’s easy to disrespect one that you think you don’t need because you can do it all yourself.

  8. I am not sure I agree with you on this one, M. I had a very hard-working husband who provided for me yet I disrespected him even though he made all of the money. I was definitely dependent upon him to provide for me. I believe this is why God specifically commands women to respect their husbands because most of us do not unless we are told to do so yet I understand the dynamics must be very complicated when a wife is making as much or more money than her husband. This certainly cannot be healthy since it’s the man that God created to be the provider.

  9. A good number of the men who have commented on the blog in the past I have communicated with and mentored as to how to do all things Christian with their wives even when their wives are not acting like Christians. I can only think of a few out of 25 or so whose wives work outside the home, and in all but one case, the husbands wished they did not.

    In a couple cases, the husbands have been so frustrated by their wives inability to keep home and family that they have asked them to go to work instead, believing that if they could see the gift they have been given by a hard-working husband they would learn to discipline their lives to be loving and productive. But their wives refuse to work productively in or out of the home.

    If you could only see the list of wives who disrespect their hard-working husbands you would change your view. Many of these guys are busting their tails for their family working long hours, or two jobs to make ends meet, yet it has no impact on their wives disdain for them. And yet their wives go to church on Sundays and worship the Lord, claiming to belong to Christ.

    We probably have a weighted sample of these men and marriages because they find this blog by searching they symptoms of their marriage woes on Google. I will also say there have been some men who have run from my counsel as soon as I challenge them to work on their own issues first, and to “do all things Christian.” These are the ones who want God’s blessings without first surrendering their lives to His will and a commitment to treat their wife with Christian ideals no matter what. After all, we are responsible first for our own actions and reactions before we can try to help our spouse with their issues and sins.

    Once bitterness sets into a wife, it is very hard for her to overcome it without handing it to God. This bitterness often seems to lead to mental and emotional disease processes. Most of the time, the bitterness was started long before the husband met the wife, but it was not discovered until something in the marriage triggers it. There is but one solution and that is for both spouses to determine to do things God’s ways and seek help with proper counseling/mentoring. But to do this, one has to give up the bitterness and look in the mirror recognizing that “I am the problem.” Stop blaming your spouse and move forward with God’s healing and ways.

  10. Lori thank you for this. I read your blog daily and it is changing my life. I am a mother of 4, the youngest is 3. I long to be home so much it makes my heart ache. The decision is a financial one, there’s just no way to make on one income until we pay down our debt (which is mostly my fault from poor selfish decisions before I found the Lord) I pray everyday that God will make a way for me to be home. Please keep preaching these truths there are many women like me who didn’t know we needed to hear them, and now I feel like my sight has gone from blurry to clear as to my purpose in life! Thank you again!!

  11. None of you need an excuse to be at home. Just be at home. The workplace will thrive without you.

  12. Thanks for both of your responses and insight. It is unfathomable that these women would purposefully choose the harder path. I did not mean to accuse the men but hypothesize a possible reason. I’m sorry for them and hope their wives wake up.

  13. The first three years of a child’s life are the most important and shape absolutely every single part of the child (I have a degree in Child Psychology). It is so important that during these first three years, at least, they are at home being raised by their mother who loves them.

    I understand that some women do have to work, but it saddens me so much when children under the age of 3 are put in daycare.

    Every single child development theory out there agrees with the importance of the first three years, and being at home with mum for that time.

    My own mum stayed home to raise my sister and I, and Dad worked from home a bit as well, which was awesome as we got to spend heaps of time with them both. Mum has said many times that those years when we were young and home with her were the happiest years of her life.

    I’ve even noticed it myself in the times I have had to work (part-time) that I miss out on so much stuff with my children when I am not at home with them. It is heartbreaking. Home is where most women’s hearts are, when they put aside this modern feminist thinking, and look deep inside themselves.

  14. Lady of Reason – what parenting magazines are you reading? That is awful!! I flick through the odd parenting magazine and read a few different blogs/website and contribute to a couple as well and I’ve never seen anything like “how to feel zero guilt over not spending any time with your children”! Maybe I just read the *nice* ones?

    I think mum’s feel guilty either way. I’ve both stayed at home and worked part-time. At work, I feel guilty that I’m not at home with my children, and heartbroken when I have to miss stuff because of work. At home, I feel guilty that I’m not contributing financially to the household. For many of us, it’s a no-win situation. Guilt goes with the territory. Any magazine that is using headlines such as “how to feel zero guilt” with anything to do with children is flat-out lying. And any mother who says she feels no guilt at all when away from her children is probably lying, too.

  15. Lori, I watched your video, and you are the sweetest lady! What a lovely tribute to your mom! We are most definitely needed at home. I have mug with a saying that is pretty familiar, but I’ll share. “Mom makes a house a home.”

    I love that saying and try to do that as much as possible (although I do fail and get discouraged sometimes… yesterday actually). This was an encouragement to me. Thank you.

  16. My mother is an amazing women who has and is homeschooling her five children. I know she works at least as much as a full time job. And I hope to fallow her example.

    For most of the history of the world women worked very hard, churning, butter, hand washing clothes, and much more. But I don’t understand what modern stay at home mothers of public school kids do for half the day. I’m trying to ask in the most respectfull way possible, what do you do at home while your kids and husband are gone?

  17. “I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.” (1 Tim. 5:14)

  18. Amen, KAK! You were blessed with a wonderful childhood. I can’t even imagine not being raised in my home with my own mother. Homeschooling wasn’t known of back then, at least not in our circle, but I would have loved being homeschooled by her, too.

  19. Mothers feeling guilty for not contributing financially to the family is not from God because He never commands women to do this. It is not sin to not contribute financially so there should be NO guilt if we don’t. I sure didn’t feel any guilt about not contributing financially. This was my husband’s job!

  20. Hello,

    My mother’s schedule looked like this:

    7:00 AM wake up, run 5 miles, usually with a baby in a baby jogger!
    8:00 Make coffee, get kids breakfast
    8:30 make sure kids are packed and ready for school
    8:30-9:00 walk to school with the kids
    9:00-10:00 – go to park with the baby and toddler / do outdoor housework while they play outside
    10-11:00 – clean the house while baby and toddler play
    11:00-11:30 — Mom showers
    11:30-12:00 — toddler and my mom make and have lunch together, sometimes with a neighbor
    12:00-1 — run errands (pharmacy, Target, post office, etc.), or do laundry
    1-2:30 — baby/toddler naps, mom may take a quick nap or read, gets a snack ready for the kids when they get home, preps dinner
    2:30-3:00 — walk to school to pick up kids and walk home
    3:00-4:30 — helps us school-aged kids with homework
    4:30-5:00 — makes dinner while kids play with baby & toddler
    5:00-6:00 — we all eat dinner, Daddy is home!
    6:00– takes us to soccer/tae kwon do/ art class etc. while Dad bathes and plays with baby/toddler, then picks us up from sports/activities
    7:30 — baby/ toddler put to bed, then Dad reads a bedtime story or Bible story
    8:30 — school age children to bed
    8:30pm and onwards — my parents always watched the news and hangout during this time before they went to bed!

    As you can see it is a very busy schedule! I’m not even sure where she put in the time to volunteer to teach home religious education, or where my Dad had time to coach our sports. How could she have possibly done the laundry, ran errands, worked out, prepped meals, cleaned the house, and all the other myriad of things if she had been working all day and only had from 5-8pm to do all that plus engage with us kids and help with homework . . . ???? I’m in awe my Dad could also leave at 6:30 and come home at 5:00 and spend the next 4 hours devoting all his time to us kids too (instead of watching TV or drinking beer like some of my friends dads).

  21. Where I work (a “super-major oil company” with over 50,000 employees) there is a “Returnship” program specifically geared to recruiting women who left the workplace for whatever reason (mainly having children).

    One “Returner” started just 6 weeks ago, sits next to me, has two small children, the oldest 6 years old. Another woman just had her third child and is back after a 4 month leave (meaning a 2 month old baby is in daycare somewhere). A woman who is often on the same train I take in has left her 10-month old baby to return to work.

    I just shake my head and wonder “why are they doing this?” They don’t even have particularly well-paying or interesting jobs.

  22. I fully appreciate that some mothers are forced by circumstances beyond the control of their family to work outside the home. But it should never be a choice and especially NEVER a priority.

    Every Christian family should regard the mother staying home as a priority, no husband should ask his wife to work or alow her to put career before children.

  23. Lori, I see additional meaning in 1 Timothy 5:8, a verse that has great meaning for me: “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” I always thought of it in the vein that if my elderly mother is in need of help, her family (me) should be available to help her; that love and caring is part of being a family.

  24. KAK,

    I highly recommend you pick up a copy of ‘Millionaire Next Door’ and read how women can indeed contribute financially to the family bottom line.

    Spoiler alert: the man brings home the money, the woman makes savvy purchases.

    The book is written from a purely observational point-of-view detailing what it takes to become financially independent in the West. The biblical themes of Prov 31 and 1 Tim echo throughout this book.

    Women should feel empowered in their role with how the finances are balanced within the family, not guilty.

  25. This is all they know since it’s been taught to them since they were young, “Go out and get a job! Being home is boring.” It’s very sad but they think that this is what they are supposed to do.No one has told them that they are the ones who are to raise their children. Their children NEED and want them.

  26. Beth, my mom in law lived with us for 6 1/2 yrs before she passed away. My husband looked to that exact verse in deciding whether or not to bring her to live with us. I won’t kid you. There was a time of adjustment because she fought her doctor’s recommendation that she couldn’t live alone anymore, but after that she was an amazing blessing to all of us.

  27. Thanks for the link. It is a thought provoking article. I don’t know how that would work when the man is on welfare. And some men would become homeless and still not work but blame economy etc.
    I’m not trying to be argumentative but I’m trying to figure this out.

  28. Ken & Lori are right. Many wives become slaves to their sin, and in that bondage they choose what seems harder to us, because they have been given over to their own madness.

    Jordan Peterson has pointed out before, that in our current society there is no mechanism by which a man can correct a crazy woman.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL3Hrwg3A3w

    Feminism has outlawed men from engaging in any natural justice and direct consequences for women, that used to keep them civil.

  29. Hi Lori, I was wondering where I could find McArthur’s full sermon that you quoted from above. Thanks

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