Can You Be a Homemaker Without Children?

Being a homemaker is slowly making a come back, or so it seems in my instagram circles, you at least can know you’re not alone. But still, I wonder how many married women are still working their full time demanding jobs all the while hoping and praying for children because the only “acceptable” reason to quit your job and come home is if you’re pregnant.

This was my case. All growing up, my desire was to be a stay at home mom. I saw my mom do it and knew this is what I wanted. About a year into our marriage, we started trying for children and it just wasn’t happening. And what was worse, was going into work on those days when I was just so sad about not being pregnant, and trying to keep it together. Scott encouraged me to quit my job, but in my mind I could not justify quitting my job (out of fear of what people would think of me) before getting pregnant. I had never seen anyone become a homemaker with out children. It was like children had to be the qualification for not working at a job for someone else.

A couple months went by, and one night Scott was coaching rugby, and I was home by myself with my journal. I wrote down a quote from my mentor, something I would commonly write down “You’re too young to play it safe.” And as my pen hit my journal, a thought came to my mind to quit my job… tomorrow. You know those moments when you’re like, these thoughts are NOT my thoughts. The thought of quitting my job was terrifying. I knew this was the Holy Spirit. I was scared but also had this amazing peace and urgency. Scott came home and I told him what I was feeling and he was pumped. He had been praying for months for this.

The next morning, I put in my two weeks. Of course came ALLLLL the questions, which I wasn’t prepared for. I was quitting as a step of faith and obedience, not with some formula of knowing what I was doing. I didn’t have all the answers everyone wanted from me. When asked what I will be doing, my answers ranged from “helping my husband” to “working on art from home” (just to have an excuse).

To be honest, I didn’t know what I was doing. Like I said, I had never seen someone become a homemaker without children. But Scott had faith in me coming home and we had a vision for our life and it wasn’t for us to be living separate lives. It was to be working together toward the mission that God put on our hearts. I wanted to learn how to be a helpmeet to my husband, not a helpmeet to my boss for 8+ hours a day.

And so the adventure began. I had all day to myself. Scott and I started watching Justin Rhodes youtube channel, and this really gave me a vision for homesteading and homeschooling. When Scott was at work, I was home saving seeds, making nut milk (yes at the time we were buying almond milk, so the next natural step was for me to learn how to make it myself). I got back into journal making again, and started selling my journals at art fairs. Scott was managing a local farm to table restaurant and butchery at the time and for two months that fall every weekend was a festival, so I would go out and help him. I took photos for social media for the place, and did whatever I could think to add value to his work.

As soon as I made space, the amount of things I found to do in the home were abundant. So much so, I couldn’t keep up with all the things that I wanted to do. There was so much to learn, so many things I didn’t yet know how to do. I finally had time to learn how to cook from scratch, make cleaning products, learn to garden, I could go on and on! I learned how productive I can be in our home and how to steward our home economy for the first time. And what a blessing it is to learn these things before having children, so Lord willing when children come, I already have these skillsets.

You have to get used to people not understanding this choice, not being offended by their lack of understanding, but trust that your life lived is planting seeds! I remember someone asking me if I just sit and watch Netflix all day. I was caught so off guard and honestly offended. We didn’t have Netflix or any streaming channel. After that, I remember asking God, how do I respond when people ask me “what do you even do all day?” What came to my mind was to ask them, “what would you do with your time if you didn’t have to work for someone else?” The truth is most people don’t know. Most people don’t have a vision for their life or time. Sometimes I think it’s more comfortable for people to have someone else tell them what to do with their time.

Of course, I can’t not talk about one of the biggest fears of leaving a job to be a housewife is the obvious cut in income. I remember really struggling with guilt that I wasn’t contributing to our family income (or even to society, like being at home was a waste of my God given talents- such a lie from the pit of hell). But you know what. God totally provided. We found that we were doing better financially after I quit my job. For one- I started tracking our spending. This wasn’t nessesarily a budget, but just a tracker for where our money was going, and learning to be intentional with the money that was coming in. When I was working my job, I would spend my lunch breaks going across the street to TJ Maxx and Michaels- retail therapy.

I also would be so tired from working that cooking a meal from scratch was not going to happen (although at the time I thought buying things from trader joes to cook was cooking from scratch. Now that I actually cook from ingredients, I know that wasn’t the case). So we often went to Whole Foods hot bar for dinner or ordered out pizza. All of these things add up in the money tracker!

But like I said, God always provided for us- we were never without. Did we simplify our life? Yes, but joyfully so- we had a vision. We knew the direction we were going in and happy to sacrifice some luxuries to get there.

And back to the fertility thing, you know one of the main causes of struggling to get pregnant is stress? Stress is horrible for our female hormones! I know several women who were struggling to get pregnant for a while, they ended up quitting their job and soon after got pregnant. This isn’t a formula- this hasn’t been the case with us, BUT it is just another reason to become a homemaker before having children.

I could go on and on about this topic and probably will with more post to come. But I will wrap it up here. I pray this is a blessing and encouragement to you.