Toughest Job in the world - Our mothers do it free!

On April 14 someone posted a video on YouTube “World’s Toughest Job.”  They created a fake hob and posted an ad in newspapers, then conducted real interviews.  The title for the job was “Director of operations.”  The list of qualifications was exhaustive; and sounded exhausting. “If you had a life, we’d ask you to sort of give that life up,” the interviewer told applicants. “No vacations. In fact, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years – on holidays, the workload is going to go up and we demand that.”

Furthermore, the interviewer demanded that all this be accomplished “with a happy disposition.”

The job offered no breaks, and little time for sleeping or eating. Unlimited hours.  Oh, and no pay.  All without compensation beyond “the meaningful connections that you make, and the feeling you get from really helping your associate.” Candidates described the job as “twisted,” “all-encompassing,” and “inhumane.”  Some wondered if it was even legal J.

This prank highlighted the fact that women are asked to sacrifice their needs, desires – and occasional shreds of their sanity – while juggling household finances, the physical strains of child-rearing 24 hours a day, and other demands of managing a family life.  It collected over 18 million likes in a month!

Today I want to invite you to read Chapters 40 and 42 in the Adventist Home, on the misconceptions of the mother’s work and about mother’s health.  It would do a lot of good to be reminded on the care that we must provide for our mothers.

Here I just provide a few lines: “The strength of the mother should be tenderly cherished. Instead of spending her precious strength in exhausting labor, her care and burdens should be lessened…It is for her own interest, and that of her family, to save herself all unnecessary taxation and to use every means at her command to preserve life, health, and the energies which God has given her; for she will need the vigor of all her faculties for her great work” (p.251).

Think of opportunities to bless our women, mothers of all ages this weekend, and relieve them of the toughest job of managing all operations, and give them a day of repose, rest, renewal and recreation.  You will be doing God’s service.