I have been a housewife and stay-at-home mom for several years now. I have had the opportunity to reflect on my life often as I seek to lead a richer, more fruitful life.
I have also had the privilege to walk with younger wives and moms, whose lives I’ve gotten to observe and learn from.
I have noted several mistakes that we make as wives and moms that hinder our fruitfulness and productivity.
The stay-at-home and, or, housewife life, especially in our times, is not a life most educated women readily embrace, nor does the society around us.
Most of our systems of education lean towards empowering women to work outside the home.
It is not uncommon to see loving friends and relatives up in arms when a young wife or mom lays aside her corporate job to operate from her home.
You’ve wasted your education. Some will remark.
How can you let your husband bear all that financial responsibility by himself? Others will retort.
All these responses come with the assumption that the said couple has not counted the cost of the choice they’ve made.
It hence is not an easy decision. It is a costly one, to say the least.
When a woman, therefore, comes home or chooses to stay at home, she must begin on the right footing.
It is my prayer that women who choose this life will live their lives to the full and be their best for God.
One of the ways for this to happen is for a housewife and stay-at-home mom to avoid certain pitfalls that often befall these women.
Most women end up falling into these pitfalls, getting disillusioned, and giving up.
Others will live by, never reaching their full potential in the Lord.
This is why I’m sharing these 7 mistakes that housewives and stay-at-home moms make, that hinder them from being their best for God.
I have made some of these mistakes myself. I wouldn’t want another woman to make these same mistakes.
Let’s go right into the mistakes stay-at-home moms and housewives make.
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Not Making Room to Continually Learn and Grow
The majority of the women who stay at home decided to do so when they got their first child.
Before the baby came, it made lots of sense to work because their husbands would be away most of the day and the housework wouldn’t be overwhelming.
It would also be good to make an extra shilling for the family by working.
All this notwithstanding, a woman can come home knowing that her sole responsibility now is taking care of the child or children, and the home.
A woman’s life will hence revolve around these two reasons why she came home.
A few years ago, my husband and I received our firstborn into this world. A few months later, I engaged with a dear mentor who’d been observing my life closely.
From her talk, I realized that my life was preoccupied with the baby and the immense housework on my hands.
I was slowly losing touch with what my husband was doing, and not growing deliberately as a woman, wife, mother, and child of God.
I had to do something about this. I decided to work on my program to loosen me up a little so I could engage in activities that allowed me to grow at a personal level.
This included being very deliberate and intentional in growing in my devotion to the Lord, reading, and growing in certain skills, some of which have been very helpful in the kind of work I do such as baking and cooking.
I also found my place in what my husband was doing in ministering to younger women now that my husband is a youth minister.
Investing in younger women stretched my growth, also helping me to organize my life in a way I could free up time to be of ministry to them as they ministered to me.
I will share more of this in a separate point.
As a housewife, are you sometimes bored, for instance, wondering what to do all day?
what about the stay-at-home mom, are you at a loss as to how to keep growing in your context?
Begin with the most important engagement: Pray. Ask God to show you what he wants you to do and how he wants you to go about it in your context.
Keep in mind too that certain seasons, such as when you have little ones and toddlers, can be challenging to grow.
You will need God to grant you wisdom to navigate these seasons as you make room to keep growing.
Don’t forget too that it’s not about the quantity of what you are learning. Set for yourself little goals. You’ll be surprised at what you will have accomplished after a season.
My knowledge and skill acquisition to date never happens because I’m acquiring it all at the same time.
When I got on YouTube for ministry for instance, and started learning the ropes, I set a goal to read just a chapter of a book that was recommended to me to learn more about the platform.
Considering my context, I sort to incorporate what I was learning a little at a time.
A season and a few years later, I’ve gone a long way in my knowledge of the platform with the help of the Lord to minister from there effectively.
Give yourself grace and learn a little at a time. You’ll get there. The process of learning and growing is as important as reaching the goal of what you’re learning and want to be.
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Looking at Social Media First Thing in the Morning
With the advent of technology, communication and access to knowledge have not only been made easier, but they have also come with underbelly effects that are not necessarily good for us.
As a housewife and stay-at-home mom, you are mostly in charge of your program. You are free to do what you want with your day without someone looking over your shoulder.
With the multiple media platforms and Apps available to us at the touch of a button, we can easily get distracted from doing the main thing.
It is not uncommon to find young women engrossed with TikTok after TikTok videos, Shorts, or Reels, being entertained for hours on end.
This might have just happened because this woman saw a notification when she woke up and tapped on it. Before long, an hour was gone on media.
The phone can be a wonderful resource for facilitating research and the acquisition of skills, not to mention communication.
It can however be one of the greatest hindrances to your progress. How do you, therefore, manage this gadget?
I switch off my data before I go to sleep.
When I wake up the next morning, I focus on doing my essentials first:
- I spend time with God in His Word and prayer (Part of this time includes praying with my husband)
- I journal
- I memorize and review Scripture
- I read a book for 20 to 30 minutes
- I plan my day through my to-do list
I have talked at length about each of the five above in this blog post here.
I’m not always perfect at doing all five every single day. I strive to have each of these in my morning routine most of my mornings. I can then look at my phone when I’ve gone through my essential list.
If you want to see a transformation in your life as a woman in the context of the home, you will have to decide how you will use your phone.
I know a young woman who decided to use a basic mobile phone for a time rather than her smartphone to get rid of an addiction to her phone.
Others have deleted certain social media platforms that were causing them to be on media for too long as well.
I hope you will do something about your phone, trusting God to practice high discipline ideals for the sake of your wellness as a housewife and, or, a stay-at-home mom.
This brings us to the next mistake closely related to this one.
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Not Setting a Limit to Media Consumption
Media consumption is at an all-time high. This consumption is increasing by the year.
Content creators are ensuring we are constantly supplied with content to watch.
Unless you and I deliberately limit our media consumption, we will miss out on God’s best for us.
Our creativity and innovation will be curtailed. We will not contribute positively to our lives and the lives of those around us.
I for one often find it helpful to listen rather than watch content unless I need to watch a tutorial to learn.
I also find that content I can consume while doing something useful is much better than content that needs your full attention.
For content that requires concentration and has an entertainment angle to it, I often encourage younger women to schedule that.
Without a schedule, you can find your time wasted being entertained rather than doing something beneficial. It is God’s will for us to be busy at home as wives and mothers.
- Not Beginning Your Day with The Word and Prayer
Having interacted with younger wives, it is not uncommon to hear the statement: It’s been days since I spent time with God.
For a young wife, the responsibility of managing a household can be daunting. A lot suffers in her life. Needless to say, her time with the Lord often gets affected.
Thankfully, God has not called us into a legalistic regiment of walking with him to gain approval and standing before him.
He has called us into a personal relationship with him that’s deep and personal.
This relationship goes beyond what we have coined in our minds as consisting of a relationship with him.
I’m going on this tangent to reassure any mama that’s struggling in her relationship with God.
All is not lost. God loves you. You can always get back on track.
The reason I prioritize my relationship with God is because I know I need him. Apart from him, I can do nothing nor do I have any good thing.
I also know that I’m the one missing out on all I can learn and be in him when I don’t spend time with him in His Word, the medium through which he has chosen to reveal Himself to us.
Trust him therefore to organize your life in a way that your time with God will be an essential part of your morning.
You may miss a few times but on the whole, you are spending time with him to learn, grow, and to be transformed to be like him.
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Not Having a Routine
It’s interesting how most of us who had the opportunity to work in the corporate, knew we were not to waste any time while in our workplace.
Every minute of our time was used to contribute towards the profitability of the organization we worked for.
Strange how when we come home, we suddenly have no problem doing practically nothing sometimes.
I know there are those wives who genuinely do not know what to do.
Our exploration of this topic is to help you begin to pray and perhaps answer the question God might be asking you like he did Moses of the Bible: What is that in your hand?
I wrote this blog post here under the Proverbs 31 series to help you and me as women explore that question. I trust it would be a helpful read.
One of the ways of ensuring your days are fruitfully occupied is having a routine in place.
You want to organize your activities in a way that you can fruitfully accomplish them in light of your overall family goals and your mission as you seek to do God’s will.
Then you want to determine what you intend to do each day to reach those goals.
I remember a season I found myself with plenty of time on my hands. I did a lot of beadwork, mat weaving as well as crocheting. These are skills my then 7-year-old immensely benefitted from because I taught her the skills.
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Not spending Time with your Children
The main reason that brings many mothers working outside the home back home is when they get children.
I know this because the majority of the stay-at-home moms I know came home when they got a child.
In the initial weeks and months, these moms spend most of their time with their little children and toddlers.
Perhaps their motivation could be fueled by the fact that their children are at a vulnerable stage of their lives.
As children grow older though, a mom will find herself engaging in more and more activities.
We could say she is operating from home but in the real sense, she’s not really at home when it comes to spending time with her children.
A mom fails to notice those special moments, days, and even events in her children’s lives. They pass by unnoticed because she assumes she and her children are always together at home.
I am a victim of this. I tend to be a task-oriented person. I will often view success as my ability to accomplish certain tasks.
Raising children is not as clear-cut as tasks. Spending an afternoon teaching my 9-year-old to sew, taking her for a walk, or listening to her chatter as I cook may not look like a “task” that generates success.
I may therefore not view such an activity with my child with the seriousness I should view it with.
We hence must be very deliberate as moms to spend time with our children, creating legacy moments that will outlive us as our children serve God in their generation.
We must trust God to view every moment and every activity as an opportunity to invest in our children, trusting him to impart godliness to them.
- Poor Grooming
I remember sitting down to fellowship with a godly older woman we visited often as a family.
She was habitually well dressed each day in her casual outfits and carefully done hair.
I commented on how much I admired how she presented herself.
This homeschooling mom proceeded to share with me why she did so. She respected what she did. She took what God had led her to do seriously.
She shared another interesting reason. She wanted upcoming young wives and mothers to admire and love the stay-at-home mom life.
These remarks have stayed with me over the years as I’ve sort to live the stay-at-home mom life productively.
I would be lying if I said I’m always well dressed and prepared for the day as she is. I however strive to do so.
Just the way I would not have gone to my corporate job disheveled as I’ll sometimes find myself when at home, I want to trust God to take my stay-at-home mom life as part of my vocation; my calling; my way of life.
This will win the respect of not only outsiders but members of my household as well.
This is a growth point for me but I’m working hard on it.
I trust these points I’ve shared will help you towards being all that God intends for you to be as a woman, wife, and, or, mother.