What's A Stay-At-Home Daughter (SAHD)?

A Stay-At-Home Daughter is a daughter who—(get this)—stays at home. This is not profound, but it is deep.

In this era of woman’s liberation in America, it is assumed that every teenage girl will naturally leave her parents’ home to go to college, make a career, and support herself. This is touted as the best way for the current generation of women to honor the sacrifices made by the “downtrodden” women in previous generations.

But I, for one, have a different vision for my life than trudging around a college campus, cramming my head full of knowledge I will never use in my chosen career. I don’t intend to spend my life making money in a competitive job market. I decided when I was a little girl that I was going to grow up to keep a home, a husband, and children (all subject to the Lord’s will and timing). In the meantime, I want to be at home, learning homemaking skills.

In our day, however, a girl who desires to make a “career” of the joys of home life is looked upon as old-fashioned, anti-social, backward (to put it nicely), or even worse. That an intelligent girl would purposely decline a four-year college education is unfathomable to those who see in academic Education (with a capital E) the answer to every social problem.

As Christians, Wisdom should be our primary educational goal, and this is taught by the Holy Spirit, not by a college course. Wisdom is seeing life from God’s perspective, that is, with Biblical “glasses.” It can be learned just as easily, perhaps even most easily, from home by simply reading the Bible.

Knowledge, which the world calls wisdom, is a supplement to true Wisdom. Knowledge deals in details and facts that instruct one in applying Wisdom. For instance, a person that has learned Wisdom, and therefore desires “by love [to] serve...another” (Galatians 5:13), uses knowledge to determine whom to serve, what to serve, and how to serve them helpfully.

The knowledge needed to excel in basic home economics can be mastered most quickly in the actual field of labor. A real home and family is a far more practical training ground than a remote, isolated world of books, desks, and peers. Home training is less expensive, too.

This is not to say a girl doesn’t need book learning or teachers. What she learns in her lifetime, and who teaches her, are even more important than where she is taught. But take heed that the where and who do not undermine her intended course by injecting subtle lessons in personal independence and worldliness.

Daughters and Sisters: The Lost Art

After years of defending their position, Stay-At-Home Moms (SAHM) who shun office work in order to raise their own children at home are finding some acceptance in our society and filling the vital role of motherhood.

Now it is apparent that their daughters must also learn to defend their right to remain at home with their mothers—to fill the declining role of daughters and sisters.

But, you might ask, what good are daughters and sisters if they don’t get a job and earn money? Don’t you know, I reply, how it used to be?

Once upon a time:

• A father could look to his daughter for appropriate youthful affection, admiration, and respect.


• A mother could depend upon her daughter to lift the burden of housework and childcare.


• A brother could find in his sister an attentive ear and helpful companionship.


• A child could look to his sister for playful attention and creative direction.

Today:

• A father leaves his wife and children for a young affectionate, admiring, respectful secretary.


• A mother is crushed by the full responsibility of household management and the lack of proper help.


• A brother seeks disreputable relationships with other men’s sisters, and doesn’t protect his own.


• A child, bored and hyperactive, is considered a liability instead of a blessing to his parents.

Daughters and sisters are a homegrown help with the daily tasks of homecare and childcare. Their role naturally prepares them to become wives and mothers, which should be their default career-of-choice (wonderful Godly exceptions do not change the Biblical ideal).

The girls who are willing to remain “unemployed” at home, working quietly and confidently against societal norms, will grow up to be (if the Lord wills) the best-equipped second-generation Stay-At-Home Moms around.

I can’t wait to know them.

“Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good [manner of life] his works with meekness of wisdom...” (James 3:13–17).


Click to read more