I work and I feel guilty about it. I keep hearing that I should be at home more with my children. How am I meant to think about this?

“She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.”

The woman praised at the end of Proverbs buys land, plants a vineyard and runs a trade, and all of it is described admiringly. The passage is a poem rather than a job description, but its portrait of a godly woman is emphatically economic. Whatever the right balance turns out to be for your family, Scripture does not treat her work as a compromise.

“Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.”

Paul is addressing believers who were judging each other over food and holy days, matters on which Scripture gives no direct command. His argument is about who actually has standing to judge, and the answer is not fellow Christians holding a different conviction. That applies squarely to families making different but legitimate decisions about work and childcare.