According to one report, the average stay-at-home mom is worth $138,095 a year. How does your salary compare? Are you living it up with all that dough? Or is the only dough you see baked in the oven and inhaled in seconds by your growing brood of young 'uns? Do you live on a shoestring budget, barely seeming to scrap enough cash together to keep your family clothed and fed? This $138K they're talking about... they're kidding right? Your six-year-old makes more money (thanks to the tooth-fairy) than you do!
Is it worth it? Scrubbing toilets, pulling weeds, sorting squabbles, fixing 1,000 square meals a year, folding laundry 'til 12am, changing diapers, cleaning up vomit, pregnancy, labor, delivery - all for nothing? Or is it for nothing? Oh, we may never line our pockets with a penny for our labors, but could it be that the dirtiest, hardest, most tiresome and demanding job in all creation could also carry with it heavenly rewards of eternal value?
To date, children have out performed both the stock market and gold in ROI over the past six thousand years. The truth is, real wealth isn't found in money or the things that money can buy. Our worthiness is found solo Christo. Only when we recognize this precious truth, it'll make sense to invest in same things found in God's portfolio, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal (Matthew 6:20).
God makes it clear that children are worth the cost. Staying at homewith your babes, teaching them the ways of the Lord when thou sittest in thine house, and when you walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up (Deuteronomy 11:19) is worth every penny you don't make. Those hard and ugly parts of mothering when you feel like you're being persecuted by your kids and all those who question the legitimacy of your profession? Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven... (Matthew 5:12). Jesus said, "Verily (truly) I say unto you, in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matthew 25:40
Motherhood in this life is not without its perks either. Countless are the moments that money cannot buy. The first wail of your own child, fresh from the womb; a sleepy babe, suckling at your breast; "ma-ma"; wobbly steps; wet, slobbery kisses; wilted dandelion bouquets - these things are priceless. No other job comes with such a diverse benefits package.
On your death-bed, are you going to wish you had extra cash kicking around during those tough years where finances were always tight? Or, are you going to wish you had invested more time into the lives of your children? Will you wish you had invested in gold which perishes, or into the souls of the next generation which live on, and on, and on forever?