Finding Your Value As A Stay At Home Mom: How to Find Your Value

One of your mom friends graduates from college. Her picture gets over 100 likes and comments of, “Oh, you worked so hard! Congratulations!”. Another friend gets a big promotion and she gets a somewhat similar response on Facebook. Meanwhile, you work so hard day in and day out and get nothing. 

You might be starting to wonder, “Am I even doing anything of value?” 

Being a stay at home mom is one of the highest callings and yet it comes with zero accolades. It’s a job done in the background; in the shadows of society. We have no tangible evidence of how hard we work or the long hours we put in. It’s one of the hardest jobs and yet one of the least recognized.

• This is part 1 of a 2-part series. To see part 2, check out Why It’s Important to Understand Your Value

How to Find Your Value

Over the years, I have had many people try to find jobs for me, “You should be a teacher so you can get off work when the kids are done with school”, etc. For a long time, I thought people were trying to find a job for me because they thought I was lazy. But, I realized that they put my value in my ability to make money. 

Your value isn’t in your bank account. Or the car you drive. Or the rewards and recognitions on your wall. Your value isn’t in your big home or your boat or your grand vacations you take.

Your value doesn’t even come from how well your children behave or how well they don’t behave. It doesn’t come from the good choices they make or their good grades or the good college they got into.

Your value doesn’t come from how organized you are or how clean your house is. Your value doesn’t come from the delicious meals you make or don’t make.

Your value comes from someone who loves you so much that He purchased you with His very own blood. Your value is in Christ and who you are in Him.

And you know what? He chose YOU for this role.

You Have to Understand Who He Is Before You Can Grasp Who You Are

You do this by having a real, authentic relationship with Him. This comes by drawing near to Him. This is done through prayer, being in the word, and by fellowship with other believers. (I will expand on this topic in the coming months so stay tuned)

Once you understand who you are and what your identity is then it won’t matter what other people say. You won’t need that outside verification because you’ll cling to who you are. This is something I have been learning for the past couple of years. I have a sign up that says “You are only accountable to God” (you can get one for yourself in my freebie library). I look at that and have to remind myself of that truth about 4,285 times a day.

I am slowly getting to the point where I am excited for who I am and how God is using me…when people make little digs at me because I fall short, I just think about how important and how valuable I am to Him because of what Jesus did for me.

Why It’s Important to Understand Your Value

If you see no value in what you’re doing then you’ll start to question what’s the point, even. And when you start to see no point in what you do then the foundation of what you do will start to erode. You’ll become irritable and angry at your children. You’ll start to see them as more of something that got in the way. 

What you do with your time should be centered around them instead of seeing them as a hindrance to what you want to do with your time.

When you start to understand how important your job is, how important your role is then you’ll embrace it instead of fighting it til your real job comes along. When you embrace being a stay at home mom then you’ll feel fulfilled and you’ll carry out your job with a purpose. 

When you understand your value, then nothing will be able to shake you. And, let me tell you, your job is so important that the enemy will be there every step of the way to try to knock you down and make you fail.

Understand that Being A Stay At Home Mom Is A Real Job

Home is where your children begin to understand who they are. The home should be their safe place; the place they enjoy being the most. It should represent stability and a constant. They should be able to rely on the fact that when they get home from school, mom will be there. They should be able to rely the consistency and routine that having a stay at home mom provides. 

Your job is to completely manage and build your home. That is not only a job but a huge undertaking. You act as the home base for literally everything that goes on in your home. You’re a walking calendar with everyone’s schedule. You not only have to remember everything but you have to remind everyone about what they have going on.

You ensure lunches are complete and healthy. You make sure your kids got to school ok and that they are picked up on time. You make sure your home is somewhat organized so you don’t face each day with chaos. You make everyone breakfast, lunch, dinner, and 5,987 snacks. You make sure everyone is bathed and has clean clothes. You homeschool your kids, spending hours every day at the kitchen table teaching (or attempting to teach) them while your toddlers run amok.

We live in a society that glorifies working moms

All the articles that go viral, all the memes, all the tv shows, they all glorify the “supermom”..the mom who does it all. She builds her career while raising her family. 

Everyone makes it look so amazing and so glorious but what you don’t see is that those supermoms are neglecting their homes. You can’t invest all your time and energy into your career and invest all your time and energy into your home. You just can’t. You can either neglect your kids and your home and build your career or you can neglect your career and build your home….because, you see, building your home means spending your hours IN your home.

There are so many jobs that society respects and honors. Nurses, teachers, doctors, police officers, military personnel. We salute them. We call them heroes. 

And, they are. They do extremely important jobs. They save lives. They touch the lives of many. 

What if we could become a society that glorified stay at home moms in this same way? We are raising the next generation. We are pouring everything we have into the future generation. We are literally investing everything into the next generation.

I don’t know about you, but that seems like a pretty important job to me.

Are You Afraid to Give Up Your Potential?

For many, many years, I would almost go into a panic thinking about my future. Sure, I was a stay at home mom and I knew that’s what God wanted me to be doing. But, what if I died and all I ever was, was a stay at home mom? I felt like my potential was being lost. I felt like I wasn’t living my life to my fullest potential. 

If I am not careful, I can still get in that place. What if all I ever am is a stay at home mom? But, for reals. How silly is that? What a legacy I can leave behind. I could die today as a stay at home mom. What a huge thing I am doing.

This is important to work this one out because if you don’t, you can get to a place where you almost resent your kids for robbing you of the could of, should of, would of’s- your potential.

I can guarantee you one thing. When you’re old and gray, you won’t sit around and regret pouring your time into your kids. You won’t look at your grandkids and your great-grandkids and think, “Man, I wish I would have built a career instead of this family”.

When You Put Your Value in Society

I know how hard it is to see what we’re doing. We don’t really have anything tangible. We don’t bring home a paycheck. We don’t get yearly raises. We don’t get promotions. We don’t get to be employee of the month.

Listen, I understand! There was a time I can remember before I really embraced my value as a stay at home mom. I had recently started making money by house cleaning. I decided to take my family out for a little treat at Burgerville. And, I remember sitting in that Burgerville, watching my kids enjoy themselves and their food. I remember looking around and thinking to myself, “I wonder if I look different…do these people know that I am the one who paid for this?”

Silly, I know. But making something tangible and getting to see my kids enjoy that something tangible made me feel like I was important. 

What I am starting to fully grasp now is that I am important. What I am doing is important. And, that is enough.

What you are doing is important. Your role is important.

Don’t let your identity be wrapped up in your career or what you can do. Your identity comes from who you are in Christ.

This is the first part of a two-part series. To see part two, click here: Why It’s Important to Understand Your Value