Updated 5/10/15
Many years ago in America, a married woman was considered unfit to act as a school teacher. That's because her attention would be divided between household affairs and the business of teaching, thus reducing her effectiveness in either realm.
This was apparently sound reasoning, confirmed by a homeschooler who felt torn between being a serious sadhaka, a responsible and loving housewife, a helpful friend, a teacher for her children and just plain "Mom". The result was a home found often in disarray and the feeling of being hurried or overwhelmed as she struggled to stay in control. And she didn't have to commute to work everyday either.
Although undoubtedly joy and competence may be gained in such activities as teaching, the more important things- such as a woman's actual duties at home -will not be given the attention they require. Of course, wealthy persons can brag and boast about how they hire help for all those things, but we're talking about ordinary folks here who don't have a maid or a cook or other servant help nor do they usually have a degree in education.
Another example is writing. Writing naturally brings one's mind to another space as a piece of writing-in- progress competes with the duties at hand for her attention, but once someone knows how to write well enough to teach someone else writing, they feel compelled to utilize it! We are talking about an ordinary housewife, here (but whose mother was a writer and news reporter, by the way). Another problem is that, even if she too was surrounded by servant help and thus had that time to write, she'd still be mentally and emotionally absent from her family. Then it'd be little wonder when we hear later on how her husband's business failed.
That said, today we see not just the higher classes who have the leisure (or even the sudrani class that must work a job outside), but all women are encouraged (or relentlessly prodded and coaxed) to spend most of their time going to school, working a job and a dozen other services outside the home. Modern society labeled this phenomenon "juggling a career and home" or they call it the “have it all generation”. And such superwomen are often glorified for their contribution to society; such workaholism is even considered... saintly!
In reality, the divorce rate is rising and the degradation of human society in general happens when family life takes the back seat to personal ambition. When the women go astray, the whole society goes downward. (Bhagavad gita As It Is 1.40).
So let's not be fooled. Working women today are usually trading off something for what they get, and that something is the happiness of their husbands and families for the sake of their personal sense gratification. Even crazier is that such an entanglement is considered freedom. Srila Prabhupada remarks:
“Just like in India, when we were children, I saw one advertisement by the Remington typewriter machine company that 'This machine has given emancipation to the woman class because they have found some job for typewriting.' In this way they were advertising. ...Instead of being dependent at home, they have to go and become a secretary of a third-class person... So is that emancipation? But it was advertised as emancipation. Similarly, whatever material advancement we are making in the name of facility, emancipation, we are simply bungling the whole affair.”--SB 7.9.11 lecture
SAVING THE FAMILY
But you say you crave recognition and glorification for your work? Well, a contented family speaks volumes. Or you say you want to save the world? Mother Theresa wisely advised:
“Go home and love your family...The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them. Put your love for them in living action.”
As mothers, children are our most creative project and greatest humanitarian work. That baby that needs diapering may be the next big book distributor. And they grow up fast. You don't want to miss out. Later we'll have lots more time for other things...but then there will be grand kids!
One mother wrote, “I held on to the wise council given me when my children were toddlers. Live your life in chapters. You don’t have to do everything you want to do in life during this chapter of rearing children.’ This advice provided the cornerstone of my plans for personal goals..."
Yes, some activities or personal interests may have to be put on hold, but more often though, most can still be continued in some form of another by inviting children to join in. For example, instead of keeping in boxes that rug you plan to hook after the children are grown, why not teach a child how to hook it along with you? And if one wants to do devotional services outside one's home, why not choose what can be done with the children, such as engaging them in festivals programs and harinam?
Also there's plenty of little things one could do like giving a book to the dentist or repair man, inviting mothers you meet at a playground to a temple program, making ghee wicks, serving carnamrta, serving out or sitting next to guests at feasts... or simply greeting visitors to the temple with a smile and kindly offering them assistance, prasadam and a book.
MOTHER NURTURE
What's more, a woman with a heart towards home finds time to cook. Just consider all the advantages of those home cooked meals for family health and nurturing. Each meal creates a special time for bringing the family together, reconnecting and also sharing with guests. Every offering of the Lord's prasadam is an important way of saying “I love you” (NOI 4)
Dhanurdara Maharaja wrote, "Years ago I was dealing with a person in Vrindaban who had all the signs of serious clinical depression. He was gradually losing touch with reality and needed serious mental health care.....I spoke to one of the leaders, a very cultured Indian, and told him frankly that he could never understand the need for psychiatric care because he had a loving mother at home who fed him. I also knew his mother and how close they were.
"He was startled by my statement, and told me I was absolutely right. He related to me that when he would sometimes read in the newspaper how the rich and famous had clinical depression, he would say to himself, 'What is this depression?' having no personal frame of reference to understand it. We then discussed how much the sense of being loved in a family is transferred through the serving and taking of meals affectionately prepared by a loving mother, and especially how the children were inoculated against insecurity and depression by the love and security impressed within them by this loving exchange." (excerpt from "The Mother, the Mind and Food" )
Mother Theresa again wisely coincided in her 1985 U.N. address: "That special power of loving that belongs to a woman is seen most clearly when she becomes a mother... Yet we can destroy this gift of motherhood, especially by the evil of abortion, but also by thinking that other things like jobs or positions are more important than loving, than giving oneself to others. No job, no plans, no possessions, no idea of 'freedom' can take the place of love."
PROVIDING A HAVEN OF COMFORT AND PEACE
Prabhupada also comments on the needs of a married man: "A person becomes agitated by so many material contacts in the outside world; therefore, in his home life he must be treated by his wife with sweet words." (SB 3.23.2)
But what if his wife is out working all day, too? Most likely they both come home in the same shape and to a cold, foodless house. With such a situation there's bound to be trouble. Therefore, it is best if one of the two goes out to make a living while the other tends to the business of making life worth living. In this regard, Srila Prabhupada teaches that "Man is meant for hard working, and woman is meant for homely comfort, love. So both of them, if they are situated in their respective duties under proper training, then this combination of man and woman will help both of them to make progress in spiritual life." (Srila Prabhupada, discussion/lecture on Comte)
Lord Chaitanya also remarked, “Merely a house is not a home, for it is a wife who gives a home its meaning. If one lives at home with his wife, together they can fulfill all the interests of human life.” (CC Adi lila 15.27)
UNDERSTANDING OUR PRIORITIES
"The highest religious duty for a woman is to sincerely serve her husband, behave well toward her husband’s family and take good care of her children.” (SB 10.29.24). There's a saying that when we tend to our own business, we find out we have plenty of business to do.
SAVING OUR SANITY
In this way, we save our own sanity. Authoress Helen Andelin (Fascinating Womanhood) wrote memorably about too many self-created duties: "I was unable to have children the first five years of my marriage, and then I had five little ones very close in age. Besides the full role of mother hood and keeping my house organized and running, I was asked to teach classes in my church and help with various big events. And I was not inclined to turn away someone who was in dire need of me. All of this sounds quite angelic on the surface but inside I was crumbling and spent two days in the hospital with a near nervous breakdown. Shortly after I came home from the hospital my mother called me from California to check on me. She listened quietly while I reviewed all of my problems which seemed to have no solutions then she said in a very calm voice: 'Helen, you have nothing to worry about. Aubrey has to take his place in the world of men but all you have to do is to tend children.' Those few gentle words kept ringing in my ears. With my husband’s support I trimmed life down to tending children and quickly recovered from my near nervous breakdown."
So it's up to us. Every woman has the choice whether to make or break her home. Andelin again observed, “When you quit (work), it brings immediate peace in the household. Mother is home when the children come home from school. She is rested, composed, not in a hurry. The house is tidy and homey. All is well. This will bring more lasting memories than fine material comforts....
"It is almost impossible to successfully fill your role as a mother, directing the hour-by-hour affairs of your children, - if you work outside the home. I know that many of you feel locked in to your jobs but this is not so. Where there is a will there is a way. Trust in God and turn to Him for a way out."
AVAILABILITY
Besides, we cannot force our family members to become detached from the material world by providing wifeless, motherless homes. Time magazine observed, "Home has been left an impoverished place, little more than a dormitory, a spot for a shower and a change of clothes....How will these marginalized kids turn out?" (Fall 1990, p. 74)
A mother and wife at home can live her life in such a way that she is present when needed, not in a hurry to get to "other things" that the world now expects us women to be concerned with. Is there a teen that needs listening to? A tired husband after a hard day's work? A daughter-in-law who needs help with little ones? Even one's neighbors need support and friendship. Availability means someone is there to listen, sympathize, counsel, assist, comfort, and encourage. Childless women also; there is so much they can do voluntarily to help the rest of a community. They can help with the newborns, devotees who are ill or elderly and so on. Doing the needful can ease the strain on others. That way there is more quality to what we do rather than a concern over quantity.
All this, of course, comes from nurturing a Krishna conscious, loving service mood; it is what makes a woman truly super.
Many years ago in America, a married woman was considered unfit to act as a school teacher. That's because her attention would be divided between household affairs and the business of teaching, thus reducing her effectiveness in either realm.
This was apparently sound reasoning, confirmed by a homeschooler who felt torn between being a serious sadhaka, a responsible and loving housewife, a helpful friend, a teacher for her children and just plain "Mom". The result was a home found often in disarray and the feeling of being hurried or overwhelmed as she struggled to stay in control. And she didn't have to commute to work everyday either.
Although undoubtedly joy and competence may be gained in such activities as teaching, the more important things- such as a woman's actual duties at home -will not be given the attention they require. Of course, wealthy persons can brag and boast about how they hire help for all those things, but we're talking about ordinary folks here who don't have a maid or a cook or other servant help nor do they usually have a degree in education.
Another example is writing. Writing naturally brings one's mind to another space as a piece of writing-in- progress competes with the duties at hand for her attention, but once someone knows how to write well enough to teach someone else writing, they feel compelled to utilize it! We are talking about an ordinary housewife, here (but whose mother was a writer and news reporter, by the way). Another problem is that, even if she too was surrounded by servant help and thus had that time to write, she'd still be mentally and emotionally absent from her family. Then it'd be little wonder when we hear later on how her husband's business failed.
That said, today we see not just the higher classes who have the leisure (or even the sudrani class that must work a job outside), but all women are encouraged (or relentlessly prodded and coaxed) to spend most of their time going to school, working a job and a dozen other services outside the home. Modern society labeled this phenomenon "juggling a career and home" or they call it the “have it all generation”. And such superwomen are often glorified for their contribution to society; such workaholism is even considered... saintly!
In reality, the divorce rate is rising and the degradation of human society in general happens when family life takes the back seat to personal ambition. When the women go astray, the whole society goes downward. (Bhagavad gita As It Is 1.40).
So let's not be fooled. Working women today are usually trading off something for what they get, and that something is the happiness of their husbands and families for the sake of their personal sense gratification. Even crazier is that such an entanglement is considered freedom. Srila Prabhupada remarks:
“Just like in India, when we were children, I saw one advertisement by the Remington typewriter machine company that 'This machine has given emancipation to the woman class because they have found some job for typewriting.' In this way they were advertising. ...Instead of being dependent at home, they have to go and become a secretary of a third-class person... So is that emancipation? But it was advertised as emancipation. Similarly, whatever material advancement we are making in the name of facility, emancipation, we are simply bungling the whole affair.”--SB 7.9.11 lecture
SAVING THE FAMILY
But you say you crave recognition and glorification for your work? Well, a contented family speaks volumes. Or you say you want to save the world? Mother Theresa wisely advised:
“Go home and love your family...The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them. Put your love for them in living action.”
As mothers, children are our most creative project and greatest humanitarian work. That baby that needs diapering may be the next big book distributor. And they grow up fast. You don't want to miss out. Later we'll have lots more time for other things...but then there will be grand kids!
One mother wrote, “I held on to the wise council given me when my children were toddlers. Live your life in chapters. You don’t have to do everything you want to do in life during this chapter of rearing children.’ This advice provided the cornerstone of my plans for personal goals..."
Yes, some activities or personal interests may have to be put on hold, but more often though, most can still be continued in some form of another by inviting children to join in. For example, instead of keeping in boxes that rug you plan to hook after the children are grown, why not teach a child how to hook it along with you? And if one wants to do devotional services outside one's home, why not choose what can be done with the children, such as engaging them in festivals programs and harinam?
Also there's plenty of little things one could do like giving a book to the dentist or repair man, inviting mothers you meet at a playground to a temple program, making ghee wicks, serving carnamrta, serving out or sitting next to guests at feasts... or simply greeting visitors to the temple with a smile and kindly offering them assistance, prasadam and a book.
MOTHER NURTURE
What's more, a woman with a heart towards home finds time to cook. Just consider all the advantages of those home cooked meals for family health and nurturing. Each meal creates a special time for bringing the family together, reconnecting and also sharing with guests. Every offering of the Lord's prasadam is an important way of saying “I love you” (NOI 4)
Dhanurdara Maharaja wrote, "Years ago I was dealing with a person in Vrindaban who had all the signs of serious clinical depression. He was gradually losing touch with reality and needed serious mental health care.....I spoke to one of the leaders, a very cultured Indian, and told him frankly that he could never understand the need for psychiatric care because he had a loving mother at home who fed him. I also knew his mother and how close they were.
"He was startled by my statement, and told me I was absolutely right. He related to me that when he would sometimes read in the newspaper how the rich and famous had clinical depression, he would say to himself, 'What is this depression?' having no personal frame of reference to understand it. We then discussed how much the sense of being loved in a family is transferred through the serving and taking of meals affectionately prepared by a loving mother, and especially how the children were inoculated against insecurity and depression by the love and security impressed within them by this loving exchange." (excerpt from "The Mother, the Mind and Food" )
Mother Theresa again wisely coincided in her 1985 U.N. address: "That special power of loving that belongs to a woman is seen most clearly when she becomes a mother... Yet we can destroy this gift of motherhood, especially by the evil of abortion, but also by thinking that other things like jobs or positions are more important than loving, than giving oneself to others. No job, no plans, no possessions, no idea of 'freedom' can take the place of love."
PROVIDING A HAVEN OF COMFORT AND PEACE
Prabhupada also comments on the needs of a married man: "A person becomes agitated by so many material contacts in the outside world; therefore, in his home life he must be treated by his wife with sweet words." (SB 3.23.2)
But what if his wife is out working all day, too? Most likely they both come home in the same shape and to a cold, foodless house. With such a situation there's bound to be trouble. Therefore, it is best if one of the two goes out to make a living while the other tends to the business of making life worth living. In this regard, Srila Prabhupada teaches that "Man is meant for hard working, and woman is meant for homely comfort, love. So both of them, if they are situated in their respective duties under proper training, then this combination of man and woman will help both of them to make progress in spiritual life." (Srila Prabhupada, discussion/lecture on Comte)
Lord Chaitanya also remarked, “Merely a house is not a home, for it is a wife who gives a home its meaning. If one lives at home with his wife, together they can fulfill all the interests of human life.” (CC Adi lila 15.27)
UNDERSTANDING OUR PRIORITIES
"The highest religious duty for a woman is to sincerely serve her husband, behave well toward her husband’s family and take good care of her children.” (SB 10.29.24). There's a saying that when we tend to our own business, we find out we have plenty of business to do.
SAVING OUR SANITY
In this way, we save our own sanity. Authoress Helen Andelin (Fascinating Womanhood) wrote memorably about too many self-created duties: "I was unable to have children the first five years of my marriage, and then I had five little ones very close in age. Besides the full role of mother hood and keeping my house organized and running, I was asked to teach classes in my church and help with various big events. And I was not inclined to turn away someone who was in dire need of me. All of this sounds quite angelic on the surface but inside I was crumbling and spent two days in the hospital with a near nervous breakdown. Shortly after I came home from the hospital my mother called me from California to check on me. She listened quietly while I reviewed all of my problems which seemed to have no solutions then she said in a very calm voice: 'Helen, you have nothing to worry about. Aubrey has to take his place in the world of men but all you have to do is to tend children.' Those few gentle words kept ringing in my ears. With my husband’s support I trimmed life down to tending children and quickly recovered from my near nervous breakdown."
So it's up to us. Every woman has the choice whether to make or break her home. Andelin again observed, “When you quit (work), it brings immediate peace in the household. Mother is home when the children come home from school. She is rested, composed, not in a hurry. The house is tidy and homey. All is well. This will bring more lasting memories than fine material comforts....
"It is almost impossible to successfully fill your role as a mother, directing the hour-by-hour affairs of your children, - if you work outside the home. I know that many of you feel locked in to your jobs but this is not so. Where there is a will there is a way. Trust in God and turn to Him for a way out."
AVAILABILITY
It's an important job. Somebody has to do it. Could you imagine little Krishna coming home to a babysitter instead of mother Yasoda? Or how about Nanda Maharaja being served his daily meals by a paid servant and cook instead of his loving wife? Yet, nowadays, in most western neighborhoods, you can hardly find one woman at home, and if there is one, that's most likely where many of the neighborhood children will congregate. Every child needs at least one person to care about how he is engaged rather than feeling burdened by his presence. A whole neighborhood of such women can not only provide safe, secure environments for children to roam from house to house, but also provide much needed support for one another.
Besides, we cannot force our family members to become detached from the material world by providing wifeless, motherless homes. Time magazine observed, "Home has been left an impoverished place, little more than a dormitory, a spot for a shower and a change of clothes....How will these marginalized kids turn out?" (Fall 1990, p. 74)
A mother and wife at home can live her life in such a way that she is present when needed, not in a hurry to get to "other things" that the world now expects us women to be concerned with. Is there a teen that needs listening to? A tired husband after a hard day's work? A daughter-in-law who needs help with little ones? Even one's neighbors need support and friendship. Availability means someone is there to listen, sympathize, counsel, assist, comfort, and encourage. Childless women also; there is so much they can do voluntarily to help the rest of a community. They can help with the newborns, devotees who are ill or elderly and so on. Doing the needful can ease the strain on others. That way there is more quality to what we do rather than a concern over quantity.
All this, of course, comes from nurturing a Krishna conscious, loving service mood; it is what makes a woman truly super.