Journal: Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry
Volume: JDFM 02:2 (Spring 2012)
Article: Equipping the Generations: How Much is a Homemaker Worth? Staying Home and Silencing Satan
Author: Matt Smethurst

JFM 2:2 (Spring/Summer 2012) p. 88

Equipping the Generations:
How Much is a Homemaker Worth?
Staying Home and Silencing Satan

Matt Smethurst

Matt Smethurst (M.Div. student, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Assistant Editor for The Gospel Coalition. He and his wife Maghan have one daughter and live in Louisville, Kentucky, where they are members of Third Avenue Baptist Church.

Six-Figure Moms

A recent study conducted by the financial service company Investopedia found that the sum value of different homemaking duties annually amounts to almost six figures.1 If a homemaker’s job were salaried, it would draw, on average, $96,291 per year. The website states:

We examined some of the tasks that a homemaker might do to find out how much [such] services would net as individual professional careers. We only [took] into consideration tasks which have monetary values and [we used] the lowest value for each calculation.

Duties accounted for included private chef, house cleaner, childcare provider, driver, and laundry service provider. Needless to say, this research offers a strong caution against underestimating the “economic replacement value” of homemakers.

Underachievers Or Underappreciated?

There’s no escaping the fact that contemporary society often scoffs at stay-at-home wives and moms. “This isn’t the 1950s anymore,” the thinking goes. “Why in the world would someone want to be imprisoned in her own home?” The common idea, of course, is that many responsibilities on the home front should be outsourced, thus releasing moms from domestic shackles to realize vocational dreams. While women working in vocations outside the home isn’t wrongheaded in every case, it can frequently betray a prioritization that is biblically questionable.

Homebound Or Homeward?

The home isn’t a woman’s “place.” Scripture does, however, suggest that it ought to be her priority. Her chief orientation, in other words, should be homeward.

Contrary to popular belief, this idea isn’t rooted in mid-twentieth century misogynism, either. In fact, long before the rise of Western societal norms, Paul exhorted

JFM 2:2 (Spring/Summer 2012) p. 89

older women to “teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled” (Titus 2:3-5). Elsewhere the apostle wrote, “I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the a...