What is the Church's position on working mothers?

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Hermione

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Does the Catholic Church have a position on working mothers? Does the Church support the “traditional family” idea where the man spends his time working and the woman doing household chores? What does the Church say about women who, even when they have a vocation to marry, decide to spend 10 years or so getting an education?

Thanks! 🙂
 
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Hermione]Does the Catholic Church have a position on working mothers?
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I am not aware of an official position pro or con as to a mother working outside the home. I do know children will choose “quantity” over “quality” all day long.
Does the Church support the “traditional family” idea where the man spends his time working and the woman doing household chores?
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I suppose the “traditional family” or at least “your idea” of the traditional family is what’s at issue here. Both are working. Both are adding their talents to sucessfully rear and support the home and children.
What does the Church say about women who, even when they have a vocation to marry, decide to spend 10 years or so getting an education?
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I am not sure whats really at issue here, you sound almost angry. I am not aware of any official statement by the church concerning your last question… i think you, like the rest of us are trying to do the best we can to get through… and with the help of God and your neighbor, we will all reach the other side… I wish you peace 👍
Thanks! 🙂
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Your Welcome 👍
 
I’m not angry! I asked because I am in RCIA right now and have never thought about what God wants me to do. I always thought I would go to college and possibly graduate school.

Since I came to believe I’ve felt that I have a vocation to Holy Matrimony and parenthood.

Since I still want to pursue higher education I want to know if the Church sees this goal as being compatible with marriage and motherhood.

So if anyone knows the Church’s position, please, please tell me! 🙂
 
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Hermione:
I’m not angry! I asked because I am in RCIA right now and have never thought about what God wants me to do. I always thought I would go to college and possibly graduate school.

Since I came to believe I’ve felt that I have a vocation to Holy Matrimony and parenthood.

Since I still want to pursue higher education I want to know if the Church sees this goal as being compatible with marriage and motherhood.

So if anyone knows the Church’s position, please, please tell me! 🙂
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The Church beleives every woman (and man) should follow their consciences and their interests. its a personal decision and no one choice is mandated.
 
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katherine2:
The Church beleives every woman (and man) should follow their consciences and their interests. its a personal decision and no one choice is mandated.
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Everyone has a conscience, but not everyone has a well formed conscience. I believe the church teaches we must have a well formed conscience.

Catechism of the Catholic Church
1782
Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. "He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters."53
II. The Formation of Conscience
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1783
Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.
1784
The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience. Prudent education teaches virtue; it prevents or cures fear, selfishness and pride, resentment arising from guilt, and feelings of complacency, born of human weakness and faults. The education of the conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart.
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That being said I believe the church supports education for all sexes and sees it as a good.
 
The Church recently issued a letter written by Cardinal Ratzinger entitled “On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World”.

One paragraph in particular addresses your question
In this perspective, one understands the irreplaceable role of women in all aspects of family and social life involving human relationships and caring for others. Here what John Paul II has termed the genius of women becomes very clear.19 It implies first of all that women be significantly and actively present in the family, “the primordial and, in a certain sense sovereign society”,20 since it is here above all that the features of a people take shape; it is here that its members acquire basic teachings. They learn to love inasmuch as they are unconditionally loved, they learn respect for others inasmuch as they are respected, they learn to know the face of God inasmuch as they receive a first revelation of it from a father and a mother full of attention in their regard. Whenever these fundamental experiences are lacking, society as a whole suffers violence and becomes in turn the progenitor of more violence. It means also that women should be present in the world of work and in the organization of society, and that women should have access to positions of responsibility which allow them to inspire the policies of nations and to promote innovative solutions to economic and social problems.
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You can read the whole letter at this link

It also has a lot to say about womens’ role in the family but it is clear that education and full participation of women are in line with Church teaching.
 
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Hermione:
Does the Catholic Church have a position on working mothers? Does the Church support the “traditional family” idea where the man spends his time working and the woman doing household chores? What does the Church say about women who, even when they have a vocation to marry, decide to spend 10 years or so getting an education?

Thanks! 🙂
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Considering that the Pope just canonized St. Gianna Beretta Molla, I’d say that the Church has no problem with a mother who is able to work for the benefit of her family and society, regardless of whether that work is in or out of the home (remember this is a personal decision for each family- what works for one may be disastrous for another, and the Church respects this). The Church’s universities have also been in the business of women’s higher education for centuries- no problems on that end.

Here’s St. Gianna’s biography:
scborromeo.org/saints/gianna.htm
 
I am a cradle Catholic. I am a university graduate. I am a wife and mother. I earned my degree in 1976 and went on to further studies when I was around 40 years of age.

The Church does not have a position on working mothers because it is not a matter of faith and morals. As a degree qualified person I should have had the ability to pursue some kind of career, but fate intervened. I spent the first 10 years of my marriage as a wife and mother, and then we purchased our first home. That is when I had to go into the work force.

Many Catholic women are devoted to teaching children in both Catholic and public schools. This kind of vocation allows a woman to be both wife and mother to any of her children over a period of time. Other Catholic women work as doctors, nurses, accountants and lawyers, to name just a few of the vocations that we have taken up over time.

It is a matter of choice as to whether we pursue a vocational career outside or inside of the home. Yet this is not the way that the issue is often seen outside of the Catholic Church.
 
Hi Hermione,

I think the Church considers children’s welfare as a top priority, but it leaves it to women themselves to decide how best to organize their lives.

As for working women, John Paul II’s encyclical on the dignity of women (see here does not broach this subject.

However, in a letter to women on the occasion of Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in September.1995, he wrote the following :
Thank you, women who work! You are present and active in every area of life-social, economic, cultural, artistic and political. In this way you make an indispensable contribution to the growth of a culture which unites reason and feeling, to a model of life ever open to the sense of “mystery”, to the establishment of economic and political structures ever more worthy of humanity.
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That seems clear enough.

Verbum
 
Man, this is an old thread! Not surprising a Catholic Exchange article 3 1/2 years old isn’t working.
 
Hermione said:
Does the Catholic Church have a position on working mothers? Does the Church support the “traditional family” idea where the man spends his time working and the woman doing household chores? What does the Church say about women who, even when they have a vocation to marry, decide to spend 10 years or so getting an education?

Thanks! 🙂
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Well, if they want families to be able to attend their schools, in many cases a dual income is needed. 🙂
 
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