What’s a Girl To Do?

Posted on 14 June 2010 by Jasmine | 51 responses

Whenever a conversation about raising homemakers gets started, you can be sure to expect a few standard responses. The one I most enjoy answering is: “Well, that’s all fine and good if a girl gets married at eighteen or twenty, but that’s not really likely in this day and age. What is she supposed to do with her in-between time? And what if she never gets married at all? Wouldn’t those homemaking skills go to waste? And wouldn’t her other gifts go to waste as well?”

Up until my sophomore year in high school, I wasn’t training to be a homemaker. Far from it, I thought that most housewives were housewives because they didn’t have the intellect or ambition to be anything else. I wanted to go to NYU to explore my interest in filmmaking -I wanted to go to Oxford to learn English and history at the school where my dad had done much of his post-graduate work. I wanted everything… except for the little white house with the picket fence -if you had asked me in high school whether or not I ever wanted a family of my own, I’d have answered you that I was pretty sure my spiritual gift was singleness.

Despite being raised by a homemaker (a stellar homeschool mama who graduated cum laude from one of the biggest historically black colleges in America) and loving her dearly, I always remember asking my mom how she “gave everything up” to be at home with us. She would always smile at me patiently, a twinkle in her eye, and say that she didn’t know how she had given up the opportunity to invest in her home for something else in the first place.

Even as my college dreams were gently laid to rest -as the Lord slowly began convicting me of the condescending attitude I had towards “those girls” who wanted nothing more than to be wives and mothers when they grew up -I found opportunities to use and nurture the gifts, passions, and abilities I had in this new context: the home.

Now twenty, I am what some would call a “stay at home” daughter. I have chosen to live at home under the covering of my family until marriage. It’s a complete turnaround from my former ambitions, and the only thing I could tell you about the girl who writes this article vs. her fiercely independent and ambitious high school counterpart is that I have really patient parents, who wanted to support me in whatever post-high school path I chose to take, and who constantly inspired me to stay immersed in God’s Word -I read fantastic resources that highlighted the beauty of a homeward calling -and I serve a mighty God, who changed my heart. I’m still headstrong -and I’m still ambitious -but my focus has changed. I want to be a Proverbs 31 woman more than anything else in this world.

But what about these in-between years? Surely, learning to cook and clean should only take so much time. Can’t I go to college and get a career in the meantime, and drop it all when I get married?

I am a junior in an online college program, working towards an English literature degree. I am an aspiring author who just signed her first publishing contract last month. I am currently finished with the first draft of my first book and started on a second. I was the sole employee for my dad’s online store from sixteen to nineteen, and by the time we outsourced, I was filling one hundred orders and taking about twice that many phone calls a week. After I have my B.A., I would love to pursue a nouthetic counseling certification, and am already making plans to start my first home business teaching an literature/history/writing class.

Most importantly, I have a family to serve -five brothers, four of whom are five and under  who keep me incredibly busy between wrangling and homeschooling (my mom lets me homeschool my three-year-old brother, which is a rewarding learning experience for both of us) -a dad who needs a research assistant, sometimes one who’s ready to run through three to five books a week to find what he needs -and a mom to whom I am an apprentice, from meal-plans to laundry to errands to anything else that she needs to do on a day-to-day basis.

I don’t assume that I will be married someday -I know, because I am a black woman, that there is a 42% chance that I will remain single. Although I do trust that, if it’s the Lord’s will that I marry, it only takes one man -the right man -to walk into my life for that to happen, I have lived a full life -I could ask for nothing more than the opportunities the Lord has given me here, or the room I have to take advantage of them.

If I don’t get married for ten years -if I never get married -I am planning to continue to develop those Proverbs 31 skills to bless my family, church, and community. If I have a homeward focus during singleness and end up remaining single, I have lost nothing -I have gained practical skills that have helped me to have a full life at home doing what I love with the people I love. If I spend my time only investing in those passions of mine that have nothing to do with becoming that Proverbs 31 woman, I have lost a lot of vital time in preparation, and, I would argue, some pivotal years of growth and ministry.

I am an individual -the Lord made me unique -special. The same is true of you -of your daughters -of your mothers. Embracing a homeward calling does not eradicate those unique aspects of my personality. It just focuses them on the most beautiful context I could possibly use them in: my home (Titus 2:3-5) . The more I learn about the exciting sphere of the home, the more I understand the secret behind my mother’s smile: honestly, there is no place I’d rather be.

What are some other questions that come to mind when you think of unmarried daughters choosing to stay at home?