Two things can be learned from the article I lived in Poverty to Save My Son From Daycare. Before this woman was divorced, she was a full-time stay-at-home wife and mom who lived in "a luxurious home in an affluent suburb." After she divorced her husband, she lived in a place that was "a small apartment in a blue collar neighborhood...elbow-cracking small, the unreliable air conditioning made it heavy with heat in the Texas summers, and the neighbors were sometimes sketchy." They went from part of the upper class to living below the poverty level.
Single mothers are the poorest group of people in America. Married couples are the wealthiest. Seventy percent of divorces are initiated by women. Stay-at-home moms usually need to go back to work full-time after they divorce their husbands. Their children must stay with others while she works; many times they stay with strangers. Women, do everything in your power to stay married to your husband.
The second thing that can be learned from the article is the value of raising your own children. Many people told her she should work full-time so her son could live with better material possessions and in daycare all day. Mmmmm...being left with strangers and being separated from his mother is much more important than living with very humble means??? Most children would MUCH rather live with their mother home full-time in a hut than having her gone all day, put into daycare, and live in a mansion.
Instead of taking a job that would have required my son being under someone else's care for the bulk of the work week, I took a job I could do from home, on my schedule. While the income did allow me to buy a reliable car and increase our weekly food budget, it still left us living on an income below the federal poverty level.
We are told that the choice of being poor is one made by lazy parents who would rather not have to work than provide a good life for their children. Somehow we have equated living above the poverty line with the preferred place to raise children. The two are not mutually exclusive. Children need more than money and the things that money can buy. They do have a right to having their basic needs met; house, clothing, food, education and medical care. But they also require love, guidance and protection. When mothers and fathers cannot provide those, no amount of money can fill the aching loss a child feels. Why do we find it more acceptable for a parent to be emotionally unavailable to their son or daughter than we do for a parent to choose to live below the poverty line?
It's refreshing to hear more women coming home to their children and understanding the value their presence has upon them. God commands women to be keepers at home, not to just care for their homes, but to nurture and nourish their children. Come home, dear mothers. If at all possible, go home.
By wisdom a house is built,
And by understanding it is established;
And by knowledge the rooms are filled with
all precious and pleasant riches.
Proverbs 24:3, 4
By wisdom a house is built,
And by understanding it is established;
And by knowledge the rooms are filled with
all precious and pleasant riches.
Proverbs 24:3, 4
