The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Househusbands

I am a stay at home dad as well. I work part time at Lifeway Christian Books at night, but my wife's income supports us.

Our situation developed because neither of us were Christians when we met and married. It wasn’t until several years later after our marriage that we started to take our faith seriously, but by this time, our marriage had developed some firm foundations. I had quit the U.S. Navy, because I didn’t want to put the strain of constantly being gone on my family. After that, I had worked odd jobs to be able to stay at home during the day to take care of my daughter. My wife grew up in a home where it was expected that the girls would grow up, go to collage and enter the job field. So that is exactly what she did. She started to work for the family business when she was around 20 and she still does. She basically runs the business now while her parents are unofficially retired.

The point is that I believe that the bible, especially in Titus, lays out a good example of what God has intended for the home. I believe that it’s natural and biblical for the man to grow up with the expectation of being the head of the household, and or being patriarchal and the supporter. I also believe that it is natural and biblical for the women to grow up being taught by older women, especially her mom and grandmother, to view a biblical role of women as good. So I do embrace biblical roles for men and women, fathers and wives.

But, I do not believe a church should have the authority to enforce church discipline in this area, because our culture is very feminist. I work at Lifeway and I talk with godly young women who’s fathers are preachers and even they are focused on going to collage an finding a career. These are preacher’s daughters mind you. I have talked with many young women in their late teens and early twenties and I very rarely if at all hear that their plans are to find a good man, get married and become a good housewife and mother or home keeper. I don’t think that I have ever heard that as a matter of fact. This is in the church mind you. This is the mentality and common understanding that Christian girls are being taught and raised by, that they should go to collage and start a career and consider marriage as a second goal.

But I have had several discussions with my wife about this and we both agree that we are going to raise our daughters with the biblical understanding of marriage and the role of women. We want our daughters to have expectations of finding a good godly man and to be a good wife to them. We want our daughters to understand that God has intended for women to support and encourage their husbands and that marriage is a wonderful Christian union and is ordained by God. We want our daughters to understand that one of the best ways that they can serve God is to be a godly wife and mother and to view their marriage and family as their primary ministry. We want them to understand that they can bring God much glory by submitting to a godly husband’s rightful authority and to consider the role of a housewife as a very important and fulfilling responsibility.

Don’t misunderstand me, I still want my daughters to go to collage (God willing a good reformed seminary) I still want them to continue to grow in knowledge and to pursue being the best they can be at a certain school of thought. But I also would like them to be mindful that their primary concern should be to find a godly man and start a family if they are so willing. I say “if they are so willing” because I also believe that there are people who just naturally don’t have a desire to marry. They are fine with serving the Lord unmarried. I wouldn’t see anything wrong with the fact that if I had a daughter who wasn’t interested in having relations with a man and pursued a career and faithfully served Christ.


But, we live in a secular, post modern culture. Many people are being raised without these kind of biblical principles in the church. Both my wife and I grew up with non-Christian parents and so we didn’t start to change and learn our biblical understanding of marriage until just recently. This was a main reason why we moved from the PCUSA to the PCA. We have changed a lot in our thinking and we are concerned about our children’s development because of our home situation. We have talked to the elders of the church and everyone has been very supportive of our position. We also have good Christian neighbors who are very supportive of my stay at home dad role. It’s a situation where we are trying to do the best we can do to discern God’s will for our lives. So far it just hasn’t seemed logical for us to completely turn our lives upside down, so I can find a full time job and my wife can stay at home. My wife is very good at managing the business and she likes doing it and is very successful. She also loves working for her dad and her brother. As far as being a keeper of the home, she is still the main home keeper. Even though I do most if not all of the household chores, she’s still very focused on what’s happening with the home and family. I as the husband and father am still the head of my house especially when it comes to our faith. I have always been the leader in that department and that will not change.

When it comes to cultural mandates from the bible, I tend to stick with my belief that the bible should be dictating the culture and not the culture dictating the bible in how we should lead our lives to obey and bring God glory. So I tend to be conservative in discussions of how certain versus no longer apply to us because they were meant for that apostolic culture. But because times have changed that we can just disregard those antiquated ideas. I say wrong, I say the bible is transcending and that it’s authority should demand for us to constantly be reforming how we think and live. So that is why, I will try very hard to raise my children in a Christ centered home where the “whole counsel of God” is taught and accepted as good and true.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Dave.