Being a homemaker?

  • Thread starter Thread starter catholicwifeforlife1
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

catholicwifeforlife1

Guest
Is it still socially acceptable within Catholic circles for a wife to stay home and be a homemaker whether or not she has children? What should one do when relatives (MIL for example) treat the woman with less respect for doing so? I’ve noticed the pressure on women these days to work outside the home is enormous, and I feel crazy sometimes for thinking its fine (finances permitting) if a woman chooses to stay home and take care of the household needs. Thoughts?
 
catholicwifeforlife1 said:
Is it still socially acceptable within Catholic circles for a wife to stay home and be a homemaker whether or not she has children? What should one do when relatives (MIL for example) treat the woman with less respect for doing so? I’ve noticed the pressure on women these days to work outside the home is enormous, and I feel crazy sometimes for thinking its fine (finances permitting) if a woman chooses to stay home and take care of the household needs. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
That’s a decision for each couple, and them alone, to make. Has nothing to do with being Catholic, either.
If MIL is failing to respect her daughter-in-law, hubby needs to have a talk with her, and let her know he will not have his wife disrespected by anyone.
 
catholicwifeforlife1 said:
Is it still socially acceptable within Catholic circles for a wife to stay home and be a homemaker whether or not she has children?
Click to expand...
Step one: stop caring what other people think. You and your husband don’t need anyone else’s approval, social or otherwise, to arrange your household in whatever fashion works for you.
catholicwifeforlife1 said:
What should one do when relatives (MIL for example) treat the woman with less respect for doing so?
Click to expand...
Ignore them.

To give more specifics, such as whether husband needs to intervene and explain to MIL how his wife is to be treated or making decisions about limiting time with them, would require knowing what you mean by “treat with less respect”.
catholicwifeforlife1 said:
Thoughts?
Click to expand...
It’s between you and your husband and no one else.
 
What @angel12 said. If anything, the Catholic Church would encourage wives (or, at least mothers) to stay at home with their children. But there’s no teaching that I know of that speaks to the issue at all. What others think of you is irrelevant; it’s what God thinks of you that matters.
 
Last edited:
This is a decision between husbands and wives, and mothers-in-law should not be permitted to make rude comments about it. Then, it’s the husband’s job to step in and tell his mother that he will not tolerate listening to opinions about their personal decision.

I do think it’s a good idea for a wife with no children to work if she can, especially if the couple has debt or is saving for a home. It is also good to keep an active resume if possible- one never knows what is going to happen to one’s spouse, and being able to care for a family financially regardless of whether it is the husband or the wife could be very important if something unforeseen happened.

But, I would never say anything to anyone about her decision to do so, because it’s not my business. It is important to me to have the ability to step in financially if necessary, but that doesn’t make it wrong for another couple to decide differently.
 
By “treat with less respect” I mean basically treating the woman as inferior in general.
This includes marginalizing the wife during family events (leaving her out of conversations that pertain to her, not saying “please” and “thank you”), expressing disapproving looks, completely ignoring the wife when she makes conversation with the MIL, inappropriate nudges to get a job, insulting the wife’s family to the wife’s face, and ignoring the wife when she says “no” to the MIL’s offers.

While some of these things are smaller matters than others, together I believe they paint a bigger picture.
 
My husband would be having a talk with his mother and if that didn’t work, we would cut contact down to a minimum and we would have other plans on holidays until such time as they could behave themselves.
 
In my personal opinion, having a homemaker (being one in your case) is the best thing that could happen in the family, that is, if other things permit.

Earlier on my wife worked because we had just started and the extra income could fasten things up. She became a homemaker when I became more self-sufficient. Thus for us, I can say that a working wife is out of necessity, not an ideal choice. We had many children, and my wife, as a homemaker, is the greatest person on earth for our family, which makes our family what it is today. And all of us are indebted to her.

God bless.
 
1ke said:
My husband would be having a talk with his mother and if that didn’t work, we would cut contact down to a minimum and we would have other plans on holidays until such time as they could behave themselves.
Click to expand...
THIS. I mean; dang… No way would that fly with me!! And if my husband didn’t step up and defend me with his mother, I would have a heart-to-heart talk with her, in the presence of my husband, and let them know that this was unacceptable behavior.
 
What if there are times when the MIL seems to care about the wife even though she tends to act weird when the husband is not there? Wouldn’t the MIL be able to deny treating the Wife rudely? And, is it ungreateful to bring it up when the MIL does have times when she seems caring?
 
Gosh, I don’t know. Only you know the demeanor of the MIL. It may be her intention is NOT to offend you - that’s just her mannerisms. It may be that you are “taking it” the wrong way… I don’t know. If you think it’s rampant or obvious enough to be deliberate on her part, then maybe you need to sit down with her, alone (or with your husband), and just have a talk about what’s bothering you. Maybe she never means it the way it comes out, and she’s unaware. If so, that gives her the opportunity to apologize and make an attempt to not speak/act towards you that way. If she IS aware of it and is doing it deliberately, then your husband will be in on the conversation and can defend you as your husband, and hopefully that’ll put a stop to it.
 
I don’t care if you head the UN Security Council, stay home, work in a plasma center, or anything in between, you deserve to be treated with respect and your husband needs to either get his mom in line or drastically reduce contact.
 
it is not socially acceptable in my catholic circles to be a stay at home wife is you haven’t had children who are minors.
It is not acceptable to be a pregnant wife without children and without a work.
Tolerated with a baby, but we will asked many times questions about finding a job, as if you are searching one.
With children at school, it will be less tolerated.
Acceptable if the family is large…

Not acceptable, bad jokes, or anger, for my mother in law…😉
 
It’s socially acceptable and respected if you have young children to care for. If not, not so much. You can’t expect people to respect being jobless but you can expect people to keep their gosh darn mouths shut around you.
 
Whew, I wish taking care of the household needs was “jobless”. Gosh, I might actually get to sit down if that were true! The only jobless thing about it is that I don’t get paid. 😅
 
job: noun 1. a paid position of regular employment.

If there are children I agree taking care of the household needs is more than a full time job. If there are no kids there just isn’t all that much to do.
 
catholicwifeforlife1 said:
What if there are times when the MIL seems to care about the wife even though she tends to act weird when the husband is not there? Wouldn’t the MIL be able to deny treating the Wife rudely? And, is it ungreateful to bring it up when the MIL does have times when she seems caring?
Click to expand...
This is called manipulation. Your MIL knows exactly what she is doing.

One of my friends has such a MIL and she usesd to be nice as pie to my friend when her son was in the room and mean as a snake when he wasn’t.

The husband had a hard time believing it until his mother was being ugly to his wife when she thought her son was not there, but he was and heard her.

It changed everything.

You need to make sure you are not alone with MIL or that you take steps to ensure your husband can see her behavior.
 
Last edited:
I agree and never meant to suggest otherwise. Still, if you were to ask me if I thought it was a socially acceptable occupation in Catholic circles I would say no. Most people will be left wondering what you do with all of the extra free time.
 
catholicwifeforlife1 said:
one do when relatives (MIL for
Click to expand...
I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. If anything, I would have guessed it would be encouraged and preferred.
I personally think it is better for families to have a partner at home to take care of the house. With both spouses working, it’s so easy to fall behind with housework or to overspend on groceries etc. Maintaining a house is a lot of hard work outside of a job, especially if a couple has children or is bringing children into the world soon.

I am currently a stay-at-home mom, but we can’t afford to keep up the lifestyle. Sadly we can’t afford to have me work either. It’s a really tough position. In the area where I live, childcare/preschool for an infant and a 3 year old costs more than I would be likely to make at any entry level job. I am a licensed sub teacher, but even sub pay wouldn’t cover the costs of childcare. We also can’t qualify for any sort of welfare or foodstamps because my husband makes slightly too much money and has VA benefits. Cost of living is just that out of control in my area that there’s a pretty broad middle range of people who make too much for help but not nearly enough to get by either.

So I don’t envy any woman the choice of work vs children. We should be able to pick children every time, but I know in a lot of areas that’s just impossible.

Right now- I am personally searching for night work so that my husband can be home with the kids while I work- but I haven’t found anything yet. We’re just running up tons of debt.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top