Harriet Connor Author

On 27/06/2026

Should mothers work? That’s the question at the heart of the so-called ‘mummy wars’, which have sought to divide ‘working mums’ from ‘stay-at-home mums’. This article is an excerpt from my chapter of Parenting in God’s Family Volume 2 and offers some reflections that might help us to bridge the divide between ‘work’ and ‘home’ and imagine a more biblical integration of these two spheres of life.

This topic can stir up some very strong emotions. It doesn’t take much to make a mother feel guilty about what she has or hasn’t done for her children (or her career). But it’s important to say at the outset that we are all bound by the particular circumstances we find ourselves in—all we can do is make the most of them. In today’s economy, many mothers have very little choice about when or whether to return to paid employment.

All of us, however we’ve managed to ‘juggle’ raising children with paying the bills, have to entrust our children—and our bills!—into God’s strong and loving hands. No mother is perfect or perfectly present for her children, but all mothers can turn to Jesus who said:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28–29)

What is work?

To begin with it’s important to recognise that in God’s eyes, there is no distinction between paid work and the rest of life. Human beings have a creation mandate: God created us for the ‘work’ of filling, ruling and caring for creation as his image-bearers (Genesis 1:26–28; Genesis 2:15). Christians also have a gospel mandate: we have been re-created for the ‘work’ of loving God, loving our neighbours and sharing the good news about Jesus (Matthew 22:37–39; Matthew 28:19–20).

It’s not wrong to do these things for money—after all, ‘the worker deserves his wages’ (1 Timothy 5:18). But if we do these things as a volunteer—for our own family or church community—it still counts as valuable ‘work’ in God’s eyes.

In the modern economy, ‘real’ work is done for strangers in exchange for money. In economic terms, working in a childcare centre looking after other people’s children is considered ‘work’; but staying home to care for your own child is not. By contrast, in God’s economy, ‘work’ that is done out of love for people we know brings him great glory, because we are living out our God-given purpose—even if it brings us no earthly reward.

Motherhood is not just a ‘job’. It’s not about function but relationship: it binds us to particular people—our own children. Children need their mothers close, especially in the first three years: mothers may be replaceable at work, but not at home. Being present and attentive to our own children and creating a nurturing home for them is the invaluable work of motherhood (for more about this, see my chapter of Parenting in God’s Family Volume 2).

How pre-industrial mothers worked

Our modern economy has separated the spheres of ‘home’ and ‘work’. Home is generally only a place of rest and recreation—where things are consumed rather than produced. This has resulted in the dichotomy that started the ‘mummy wars’: either you ‘go out’ to work or you are a ‘stay-at-home’ mother.

However, this sharp division is fairly recent; before the Industrial Revolution, most homes were also ‘workplaces’. Families ran farms, shops and small businesses from their home bases. They also grew, cooked and preserved food; they sewed, knitted and repaired clothes. Families were not just bound by affection and recreation—they were also economic units: mothers and fathers, sons and daughters all contributed to the family’s ‘work’.

This model allowed mothers (and fathers!) to integrate the various kinds of ‘work’ that human beings were created to do. They could ‘fill the earth’ by giving birth to and raising their own children at the same time as ‘working’ the creation for food and clothing and serving their neighbours through their family business. Men and women still had their distinct areas of focus, but there was much more crossover and collaboration.

Latest podcast conversations

On 20/06/2026

Thinking Christianly about technology

Recently I had a great conversation with Andrew Horsfield (a co-contributor to our latest book) and Cass from the HerTheology podcast. We talked about our parenting fails, finding healthy limits, how our understanding of family, home and work has changed over time, the importance of fathers taking responsibility for discipleship and how mothers can encourage this.

On the Timeless Parenting podcast, we continue to explore God’s wisdom for modern families on all sorts of topics including:

Christ-anchored parenting in a changing world
(this one explores the theological framework behind the new book I edited: Parenting in God’s Family Volume 2)

Contentment when life is tough
(this one was recorded live at the annual Mothers Union Seminar at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney in February)

Family goals and priorities for a new year

Knowing God better through reading the Bible

Extracurriculars: balancing busyness with church and community connections

You can also find our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other platforms.

—

Timeless Parenting is brought to you by Growing Faith, a ministry of Youthworks Media and Mothers Union Sydney.

Christians have two families

On 23/05/2026

Over the past 12 months, our little regional church has started growing—one person, one family at a time. One Sunday last year, a woman about my age came along by herself—she and her family had recently arrived in Australia from the Middle East, and she was curious about Christianity. Eventually her husband and children started coming to church too; then her husband’s parents began tagging along, even though they don’t speak any English.

By the time Christmas came around, my new friend wanted to be baptised. By Easter, it was her husband’s turn. And I know that for both of them, the thing that drew them towards Christianity—and ultimately to Christ—was experiencing our Christian community.

Now I have to admit: our church is very ordinary. We’re a motley group of all ages and stages; we’re not particularly good-looking or outwardly successful; we’re not all in ‘happy families’; we’re just plodding through the ups and downs of life together, with our eyes fixed on Jesus. So I asked our new friends why our ordinary little church community had made such an impact on them.

The first word they used was ‘open’: our church welcomed them in, without putting any hurdles in their way. There was no dress code, no shushing of noisy children, no judgement for those who are still working out their faith. My friend’s husband called it ‘love without conditions’. The next thing that stood out was the personal interest and care. When the recent Middle East conflict began to touch their home country, our church drew around them to listen and to pray.

A number of families, including ours, have invited these newcomers over for a meal (and they have more than returned the favour!). As they left our place, the wife was beaming from ear to ear. ‘Thank you. Really, thank you. We had such a feeling of family tonight’, she said.

Another person who joined our church for a time was a young single man whose work had brought him to our area—on the other side of the country from his family. I got to hear this young man’s story of faith one night as we were doing the washing up after a church dinner. He had become a Christian a few years earlier through a Christian housemate. Sadly, the young man’s work contract recently came to an end, and we had to farewell him. On his final Sunday, he thanked us for welcoming him into our community and being ‘a home away from home’.

All of these new people claim to have experienced God’s love through our church community and have used the language of ‘family’ to describe it. Indeed, we speak about the church being a family, because that’s how the New Testament describes it—as ‘the household of God’ (1 Timothy 3:15).

But what does that mean exactly? And how do our natural families fit into this picture? Is our church family a replacement for our natural family? Or is a church simply a gathering of natural families? Or is the church something different altogether?

Someone that I have learnt a lot from on these questions is British theologian Alastair Roberts. Coming up on Wednesday, June 17, Alastair will be in Sydney speaking about how the cross reshapes all of our relationships. This event run is being run by Cross Related (formerly Single Minded).

Boxing Day blues: finding hope when Christmas disappoints

On 26/12/2025

It’s been a difficult few weeks in our part of the world, so I’m guessing that for many families, Christmas wasn’t that ‘jolly’ this year. We all still did the normal things—going to church; singing Christmas carols; tipping out Christmas ‘stockings’; distributing presents from under the tree; visiting family; eating lots of food.

But this year, Christmas was probably a little subdued. Our home state—indeed the whole of Australia—is still living in the shadow of the horrific antisemitic terrorist attack that killed 16 people and injured 40 at a Hannukah celebration at Bondi beach less than two weeks ago. I think we all feel heartbroken for our Jewish neighbours—and so sad that our country has let them down.

It’s not just a national tragedy that can take the shine off Christmas. I know many families who had to celebrate with an empty chair at the table this year. Mothers and fathers, wives and husbands who have passed away; spouses who have moved out because of relationship breakdown.

It’s the smaller things too—the kids being disappointed with or ungrateful for their presents, family members snapping and grumbling, extended family conflicts bubbling up to the surface.

All of these things can rob us of the peace and joy that we want to feel at this special time of year.

We spend so long looking forward to Christmas—the shops get us going early with their music announcing: ‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year!’; the kids count down the days on the Advent calendar, the excitement builds, they stay up late on Christmas Eve with pure anticipation of the day to come.

And then this: perhaps we had a day that wasn’t particularly wonderful or joyful. It can leave us wondering, ‘Is that it?! Was Christmas really worth the wait?’.

The day after the terrorist attack, many people lit a candle in their window to represent the candles of Hannukah, the ‘festival of lights’. One little flame flickering in a world that felt so very dark. It was a meaningful symbol of solidarity and hope, and yet it seemed so small and feeble.

The first Christmas: Is that it!?

I can imagine that many people were underwhelmed by the first Christmas too. When they looked at the small, feeble baby lying in a feeding trough, those who were there might have been wondering, ‘Is that it?!’.

God’s people had been waiting not just for a month or a year, but for over 50 generations for God’s promised Saviour to arrive. Ever since God had promised that a descendant of Eve would crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). With each new generation, God’s people wondered, ‘Is this the one who will crush sin and death and make things right?’.

Then finally, he came. Not in a palace with trumpets and fanfare, but in a small-town stable surrounded by his poor, unmarried parents and a bunch of local shepherds. His birth was announced to some people by glorious angels, to others by signs in the stars. But not even King Herod knew about Jesus’ birth until the wise men came knocking some time later.

Baby Jesus was one little flame flickering in a world that was so very dark. How can the birth of one small baby possibly give hope to humanity?

Why I don’t want to teach my children about (just) consent

On 22/11/2025

I generally enjoy watching the reality TV show Parental Guidance. It follows different sets of parents as they navigate a series of challenges with their children. Later on, the group evaluates how each family went, with the help of parenting expert Dr Justin Coulson. I’ve found watching the show to be a good way of reflecting on my own parenting.

But one episode of this year’s series left me with an uncomfortable feeling: the episode about consent. Consent seems to be the word that everyone is talking about. In 2024 the federal government launched a nationwide awareness campaign, including a suite of TV ads, called ‘Consent can’t wait’. At school, many of our older children are attending ‘respectful relationships’ seminars where consent is one of the key concepts. Our school leavers are heading off to formals and ‘after parties’, to ‘schoolies’ weeks and beyond.

On the ‘consent’ episode of Parental Guidance each set of parents was given a family discussion question that was meant to start a conversation about consent in various situations (not all of them sexual). It was clear that the overtly Christian or ‘traditional’ parents were extremely uncomfortable talking about sexual relationships with their teen/tween daughters. But the ‘moral’ of the episode was that all parents need to prioritise talking with their children about the topic of consent.

So why did I go away feeling uneasy about this?

I strongly believe that as Christian parents we need to be talking to our children about sex. If we don’t communicate God’s positive vision, our children will pick up a different view of sex from their peers or the internet. In our family, my husband and I have tried to be open and upfront in initiating conversations and answering questions about sex, marriage, relationships, puberty, pornography and so on.

But I have to confess that I’ve never talked with my children about ‘consent’ exactly. And to be honest, I don’t know if I really want to. Here’s why I don’t want to teach my children about (just) consent.

It’s a low bar … but a good start

Consent has become the only moral standard by which our modern society evaluates sexual activity between adults. Did both parties give their consent? If so, it doesn’t matter what happened or who did it.

According to the government’s campaign, ‘Sexual consent is a free, voluntary and informed agreement between people to participate in a sexual act. This agreement is only present when these people mutually and genuinely want to engage in that sexual act, and actively ensure their partner does too’.

Of course, I want my children to expect sexual activity to be mutual and consensual. That’s the Bible’s ideal too. In sex, as in all of life, Christians are people who seek the good of others. Song of Songs is a great example of a loving sexual relationship in which both the man and the woman take pleasure in the other person. The woman repeats, ‘I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine’ (Song of Songs 6:3). This view of sexual mutuality and other-person-centredness is echoed in the New Testament when Paul writes:

‘The husband should fulfil his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.’ (1 Corinthians 7:3–4)

But the Bible’s view of sexual relationships is about so much more than just consent!

Prayer and its place in our families

On 15/11/2025

Prayer is an essential part of the Christian life—but it can be challenging for parents and children alike. How can we make prayer a part of our routine throughout the different stages of family life?

In this episode of Timeless Parenting we got practical about prayer with our guest, author and mother-of-three Wendy Lin. We spoke about how we experienced (or didn’t experience) Christian prayer in our families of origin and how we decided to approach it with our own children. We set the scene by discussing the questions ‘What is prayer?’ and ‘Why should we pray if God already knows everything?’. We then shared insights and practical ideas about:

How can we practise both routine and spontaneous prayer?
How does God answer prayer?
How can we do family prayer when we’re not confident?
What should we do if our spouse is not a keen Christian?
How can busy parents find time for personal prayer?

This conversation is insightful, practical, encouraging and full of grace for families in every season of life! You won’t hear a lot of ‘shoulds’, but rather a whole range of ideas that you could try out with your family.

—

You can also find our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other platforms.

Mothers Union Sydney runs an annual seminar about Christian life and parenting: The Joy of Enough, February 27, 2026.

—

Timeless Parenting is brought to you by Growing Faith, a ministry of Youthworks Media and Mothers Union Sydney.

Parenting when our days are numbered

On 27/09/2025

Grief is weighing heavily on my local community at the moment. A few families have been visited by that most unwelcome and cold-hearted of intruders—death. It has been mercilessly tearing fathers and mothers away from their children far too soon.

A couple of weeks ago, a local dad had an out-of-the-blue medical episode and died quite suddenly, leaving a wife and four children behind. While our community was still coming to terms with that loss, the news came in that another local parent, whose kids are still in primary school, had been transferred to a palliative care unit.

Beyond that, the global Christian community is still reeling from the very public death of American conservative activist and father-of-two Charlie Kirk.

All of those families are facing the unthinkable: the fact that one day we will die and leave our children behind. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare.

We may have many more years with our children, or we may have fewer than we expect. We may have a slow departure, with time to say goodbye or we may pass away quite unexpectedly. But the fact remains: no parent lives forever. And the past few weeks have taught us that we never know how soon—or how suddenly—our time on earth might be up.

So how might we raise our children today in the light of our mortality?

Lord, you have been our dwelling-place
throughout all generations.
Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You turn people back to dust,
saying, ‘Return to dust, you mortals’.
A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
they are like the new grass of the morning:
In the morning it springs up new,
but by evening it is dry and withered …

Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:1–6, 12)

Entrust our kids to God … starting now

Parenthood is one long exercise of faith. From the moment we see those two lines on a pregnancy test, we realise how much is out of our control—from our children’s safe delivery to their health, to their developmental milestones, to their friendships, school life and mental health … there are many times when we’re just anxiously, helplessly praying our way through the day. We can research and investigate, we can make plans and appointments, but ultimately, at least half of parenting is learning to wait and watch in faith.

Facing up to our mortality reminds us that we always need to hand our children over to God. They were never really ours to begin with. God gives us children to birth and care for during the short span of our life on earth, but he is their true Creator and sustainer. God is good and, unlike us, God is in control. So, like Abraham did with Isaac, we need to offer our children up into God’s loving arms—today and every day.

Timeless Parenting – latest conversations

On 20/09/2025

Timeless Parenting on Transistor.

Through co-hosting the Timeless Parenting podcast, I’ve had the privilege of talking with lots of interesting and well-thought-out Christians about issues that relate to family life. Some of our recent conversations have been about:

A Christian approach to neurodivergence. With Kate Morris and David Whittingham.
Bringing our children’s anxiety to God. With Dr Sarah Allen.
Foster care: God’s love in action. With Anglicare.

I hope these conversations will equip and encourage you too!

—-

Timeless Parenting is a collaboration between Growing Faith and Mothers Union Sydney. Find all of our episodes on your favourite podcast platform or here:

The what, why and how of discipline

On 14/06/2025

Discipline is probably the most difficult—and divisive—area of parenting, even among Christians. At some point every parent wonders: Are we disciplining our children enough? Or perhaps too much? Are we too lenient? Or perhaps too strict?

Our society usually equates discipline with punishment—a response to bad behaviour. But the Bible’s definition is much broader than that. Understanding biblical discipline begins with knowing God, the only perfect Father, who lovingly disciplines his children for their growth in godliness. In the light of this, the Bible describes parental discipline in terms of a loving, intentional, wholistic and long-term process that involves modelling, encouraging, teaching, training and correcting our children to help them mature towards godliness.

In this episode we speak with author and mum of five, Jocelyn Loane, taking a deep-dive into what biblical discipline really means.

We talk about:

What is discipline, according to the Bible?
Why do parents need to discipline their children?
How can discipline go wrong?
Is it OK for Christian parents to smack (or not to smack) their children?
How should we understand the ‘rod of discipline’ described in Proverbs?
How can we best respond to our children’s bad behaviour?

This conversation will be valuable for any Christian parent who wants to better understand the what, why and how of biblical discipline.

Gender differences: generalisations are not stereotypes

On 23/05/2025