Our Career

One of the families featured this year in the magazine I write for was a couple celebrating their 73rd anniversary. They’d traveled the world—both for work and pleasure—and lived a full and adventurous life. What struck me was that he called his career “our career.” His wife was a stay-at-home wife her whole life and he called it “our career.” Every step of the way, from high tea in Scotland with actual royalty, to trips to the North Sea, to retiring in Texas, this woman had been right with her husband, helping him.

I loved that.

I loved the idea that it’s not his career and her career, or even his career and her home, everyone doing their own thing, but that it is our career, our home, our family, our life. What he said communicated an appreciation of the tangible and intangible benefits his homemaker brought to the table, and it communicated her all-in attitude towards helping him.

“Our career” communicated a taking of ownership, a purposed-ness to his wife’s support of his work. How beautiful!

I think this struck me personally because as Price and I have grown and adjusted more and more each year to him serving as a pastor, there is a lot of it that I help with. Long talks over breakfast, in the middle of the afternoon, and sometimes into the evening about upcoming sermons that require me to keep my theology sharp. Long talks after sermons that require great discernment about what to critique and what to not critique. Burden sharing that requires great emotional control and discretion. Advice to give requiring prayer, prayer, prayer for wisdom. That doesn’t even start down the path of hospitality, engaging with people, playing secretary, figuring out pastoral accounting, conferences, early mornings and late nights, ironing shirts, polishing boots, dry-cleaning jackets, or helping with the horrible self-doubt and discouragement that plagues all pastors.

Since we got married, we’ve always had an Our Career mentality. My man being a pastor requires more of me than anything we’ve done before. It’s almost paralyzing when I realize that I’m his first sounding board. I long for wisdom and a sharp, quick, kind, gentle, and quiet mind. 

Your husband may not be a pastor or a deacon, which requires the whole family to be all-in on one level or another, but if you’re taking your work seriously, you’re tending the home fires on some level to support his career. You’re a team. That may mean attending awkward company holiday parties. It may mean keeping things going while he travels. It may mean staying up late or getting up early to greet him if he works long or weird hours. It might mean working while he finishes school or establishes a business.

All of this is being his helper, his homemaker.

It’s being on his team, at his side.

Ladies, how beautiful is this? Going to work together, supporting him, helping him, playing our part in his labors, whether directly, or more home-fires-esquely. The world thinks this is demeaning to us or selfish of him. Why can’t we travel and he stay home and do the laundry? Why can’t I study and preach and he figure out the accounting?

Part of this is natural revelation and part of it is special revelation. Naturally, men are better at working. They’re aggressive and enjoy conquering things. Naturally, women are weaker and enjoy tending and nurturing things. (Yes, there are exceptions, but they aren’t the law for the normal. They’re exceptions.) Special revelation calls us women to be the helpers of our specific husbands and to tend our homes.

When we obey the Lord, we’re blessed. He’s good and does good. And when we trustingly obey him, we help our husbands. We help them with their work, both directly and indirectly, by supporting their work.

Our Career.

Marriage is hard, but it is also beautiful. It is beautiful in its teamwork of men and women in a long dance of support, help, leading, following, working together, and working differently so that the whole family grows.

Maids, you can do this even now, even without a husband. If you think of yourself as a future wife instead of an autonomous person, you will make choices that will bless your future home and family. You can save up a nest egg. You can learn skills. You can grow in wisdom. Dive into theology, philosophy, economy, and the domestic arts. Start, even now, on practicing the high and hard art of being quiet. Yes, I said it. Being well versed in theology and philosophy is a great service to give your husband, but it is easy to use it just to argue with everyone and show off. This doesn’t mean don’t talk. It means be discerning and wise. Listen. Spend oh, so much time listening and when you want to jump in a conversation, keep your tone calm. This doesn’t mean don’t get excited, or even laugh, or be loud. This means start practicing discernment. Critique and measure yourself. Ask yourself if you’re listening first or if you’re just so full of information that it spills out all over the place. Go at the hard work of growing yourself and policing yourself. Helping your man is a lot of work and requires a huge amount of self-control. Work on yourself even now.

Matrons, we too have to police our attitudes. It is so easy when we are elbow deep in dishes, laundry, cleaning, cooking, schedule management, meal planning, bill paying, and home tending to enviously look at our husbands as they head off to work. It’s easy to glamorize what they do and become bitter, discontent, and nasty. Don’t stand for it. Stamp it out. Go to war on your heart. Stop looking at yourself and start looking at how you can help him! Do you even see all the lies you’re imbibing from the world: you deserve it, you can do anything a man can, me time, he’s selfish, etc. Our work is hard. Our work is redundant and never done. But don’t act like you would be happy if only you had some mighty career. If only your husband saw all you did you’d be happy. If only you had so and so’s home or so and so’s kids, or so and so’s husband you could also love life. This is a lie. Get yourself together, and go at the rich work of being your husband’s helper. You may not be traveling with him meeting dignitaries, but you are tending the home fires so he can provide for you. You are a team — act like it.

Crones, your husbands may be retired or may have major health issues. Age is no excuse to stop being your husband’s helper. Stay in the fight. Watch what you say so you’re not spreading lies and discontent. Preach to yourself so you don’t indulge in bitterness. Set your expectations biblically so that you don’t demand what the world holds out as your rights. Our world lays out this picture of travel, cruises, and endless golf games at the end of your life. That is not the Christian life. None of those things are wrong, but we must remind ourselves that retirement isn’t necessarily found in the Bible, that this isn’t home, and to stay at the work on whatever level we can. Help other women notice how they’re helping their husband’s careers. Pray for other women. Each marriage and each career has delights and challenges. Pray for the women around you who are neck-deep in the muddy trenches.

Whether you use the words “Our Career” or not, HearthKeepers, think purposefully, intentionally, and prudently about how you can and are helping your husband with his work. Don’t focus on how little he’s helping you with yours. Actively seek to help him with his. This will encourage you to respect him more, help you go at your work with a better attitude because you see the point, and grow a natural bond of teamwork between you even if your work is different. This is tending your hearth. This is being a HearthKeeper.