A blog post from a conservative Christian mommy blogger is taking over the parenting corner of the Internet, a place that often has more discord than the halls of Congress. Lori Alexander, a.k.a. The Transformed Wife, posted a chart titled “Should Mothers Have Careers?” in which she compared her thoughts on working moms versus stay-at-home moms—and it’s really something.
Alexander is a full-time homemaker who has been married for 39 years and has four grown children and nine grandchildren. Her About section on Facebook reads, “Learning about marriage, raising children, homemaking, and being a godly woman who desires to be transformed into the image of Christ!”
In the flowchart, she directly compares and contrasts her perception of the lives of working and stay-at-home moms. For example, in the SAHM column she writes of dinnertime, “Dinner is from scratch, nutritious, and delicious” whereas with working moms, “Dinner is usually fast food or microwaved.” She also says working moms lack time for intimacy and that their lives are “falling apart,” whereas SAHMs spend weekends at the beach and are totally fulfilled.
It’s easy to see why people are angry—and the ire coming from both sides of the mommy aisle. (Not to mention that staying at home is not a financial option for many families.) “Motherhood is not a competition. Moms in both groups have challenges to face that are not more important than the other,” wrote one commenter on the Facebook post. “Also, welcome to 2018 where dads are like, fathers and stuff now, who also help with domestic duties such as cooking, cleaning and! (Are you ready for this? Clutch your pearls) help take care of the children. ?” Another said, “I have been a stay-at-home and work-from-home mom for the last 16+ years. This chart is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Staying home with a three-year-old makes me feel like more of a failure as a mother than working out of my house EVER did! Also, if this stay at home mom is resting when the children do, when is she preparing that from scratch meal and cleaning so she is free to spend weekends at the beach?” another commenter remarked.
People are Twitter were equally upset.
https://twitter.com/katherinejoshi/status/1072947492419977217
https://twitter.com/SandraL74826292/status/1072716936683929601
https://twitter.com/TattdCodeMonkey/status/1073276483010002944
https://twitter.com/abfabgabrielle/status/1072870173395234818
When Glamour reached out to Alexander, she said she did not intend to shame working mothers but “I simply want them to ponder their life paths.” She explained that she is “teaching Christian women biblical motherhood according to Titus 2:3–5 in the Bible, where God commands older women to teach younger women to be ‘keepers at home.'”
“No one can take the place of a mother in a child’s life. I was a career woman for the first two years of my first child’s life, and I could totally relate to the left side of the flowchart,” she told us. “I knew I was the one that was supposed to be at home raising my own children. Most women aren’t even told that this is good! Homemakers are embarrassed when asked what they do. What can be more important than raising the next generation?”
As for the viral backlash, Alexander says she’s had it since she started writing in 2011 and won’t let it “steal her joy.”
“I teach what I am called to teach and leave the results in the Lord’s hands.”
