Someone needs to tell young women that it will rip their heart out to say goodbye every day when they drop their baby off at daycare to go to work. Someone needs to warn them that it will hurt deeply to have their baby's first smiles and first words and first steps witnessed by someone else because they weren't there. It's going to be traumatic to have their child cry and cling to them, begging them not to leave again, and worse when they walk away and don't even bother to say goodbye because it's normal not to have mom around. We have to tell young women the truth about human biology and psychology. Our society is in denial.
How have we, as a society, decided that it's normal and fine to separate a mother from her small child for most of the waking hours of most days? How did we get duped into thinking that babies getting a bottle from a stranger is the same as being nursed by the mother whose womb carried them and whose voice they know and whose heart cherishes every little expression and sound? Do we really believe that love doesn't matter to little ones? That merely keeping them alive and perhaps entertained is enough?
What too often happens is that women are taught from a young age to build their life around their career. So they rack up tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and they buy a house and two cars based on two incomes. They're dependent on their job to cover their debt and expenses. When they finally decide they're ready for a baby, they think they can just put baby in daycare and go back to work. It sounds like a perfect plan...until you actually have a baby and you bond with that baby and you see how much that baby needs their mom.
Women need to understand the needs of babies and factor that into their plans. If you wait until you're stuck in a 2-income lifestyle to find out that mothers and babies belong together, then you're often unable to escape the heart-wrenching guilt and trauma of leaving your baby and the harm to the child from not having their loving mother with them. If we stop pretending babies are mere possessions that only need impersonal inputs like food and shelter and start remembering that they're people who need love and nurturing, maybe we can start building lifestyles that take those needs into consideration. A baby doesn't just need any old caregiver. They need their mother, specifically. No one can replace her.
If we tell these things to young women before they go off to college and build a career and marry expecting to have two incomes, then they can plan accordingly. Ladies, think carefully before taking on large debt that will require you to work consistently for a decade or more to pay it off. Live on one income when you marry and save the second income (if you have one) for a rainy day. Don't buy a house or a car based on having to keep two incomes indefinitely to pay for it. Plan for the ability to stay home with your children, or at least work from home. Plan for the needs of your future children. One day, you'll be glad you did.
~Lindsay Harold
My note: I agree with all of the above except I'd like to point out that a wife needs no "second income" or to work from home. We need to get back to the thinking of a family living off of the husband's income, no matter what it is, & relying on the family learning to live frugally instead of the wife seeking to earn an income. Be blessed, dear Christian homemakers 💕
