5 Questions With Family Studies: Emma Waters Reflects on Maternal Middle Spaces

When my husband and I were in graduate school and expecting our first baby, I was absolutely clueless as to the demands that motherhood would put upon my professional life. I had visions of strapping a happy, quiet baby onto my back and taking her with me into the archives as I did my dissertation research. Suffice it to say, that "girlboss" version of motherhood is not what I ended up experiencing after my (delightful and) extremely colicky baby was born. That model didn't fit—but neither did the "tradwife" one that is so popularly performed by some influencers today. I needed a different model of motherhood and professional life: a flexible, often-changing model that I would develop myself over time as I grew as a mother and as a professional.

Emma Waters's new book Lead Like Jael proposes such a model—one that uses the Biblical story of Jael to create a structure for discernment for Christian women in this in-between way of life. I sat down with Emma recently to ask her to tell us more about her Tent-Peg Strategy and how Jael (who spiked her people's enemy in the head with a tent peg), can help modern women work, marry, and mother boldly and faithfully.

Dixie Dillon Lane: Everyone's talking about the tradwife-girlboss dichotomy these days. But you begin your book by pointing out that "most women live in [a] middle space." What does it mean to "lead like Jael" in a polarized culture of womanhood?

Emma Waters: Lead Like Jael aims to cut through the noise of both the online tradwife movement and girl-boss feminism and make the case for a seasonal approach to life that places first things first. Specifically, I want to challenge how we think about female success and argue that we should prioritize marriage and family earlier in life, rather than as a reward after career and academic achievement. This doesn’t mean that everyone can or should get married and/or have kids “young,” or that it’s wrong to work or pursue higher education, but that we should be open to family life, and resist the career-first messaging that has shaped so much of how women today think about their lives.

What struck me, is that for the twentieth century onwards, female empowerment was increasingly framed in economic and individualistic terms: more freedom, more earning power, and more visibility in male-dominated spaces. To be a modern woman was to want more. While there are many studies to show the impact this has had on women, I also can’t help but think of the impact it has had on the kids never born, those with one or no siblings, and those being raised in full-time day care while their mother’s work out of a necessity or desire—something Erica Komisar has written so powerfully about.

As the pandemic shutdowns sent many people home, it seemed to reignite an appreciation for the centrality of the home, with a growing number of women either stepping back from the workforce or expressing interest in flexible and remote work. The online tradwife movement, though, is not the solution, either. Rather, this is a signal that women are not satisfied with the life script they have been handed, and are looking for a better way to make sense of the competing demands of work and family. 

Given these ongoing cultural debates, the story of Jael in Judges 4-5 presents a refreshing alternative. We meet Jael when a Canaanite general came stumbling to her tent after battling Israel. He asks for water, she gives him milk and a soft place to rest, and then she takes a wooden mallet and tent peg, and drives it through his skull, thus soundly defeating Israel’s enemy. Now, the point of her story is not to promote physical violence or a ‘warrior princess’ mentality—far from it! What stands out to me is that Jael was adept with the wooden mallet and tent peg because setting up and taking down tents was a feminine domestic duty. She would have used those very tools to secure her home hundreds if not thousands of times. For Jael, the home was not a barrier but the means through which she exerted influence and strength when the time came. 

The tent-peg strategy I lay out in the book takes its name from that moment. The seven principles I offer are far from comprehensive but reflect what I see as real needs for women today, including discernment, shrewdness, resourcefulness, hospitality, marriage on mission, motherhood as warfare, and older women as wise counselors. Together, they offer women a model that is neither girl boss nor tradwife, but something truer and older and far more beautiful: a biblically-grounded home economy where faith, marriage, and children come first but a woman’s gifts are used for the good of others.

Lane: Jael was literally at war in her own time. Today, we sometimes feel embattled as we juggle the pressures of family life, but we can become confused about who is our enemy. Is it our spouse? Or our children? What changes when we begin to think of husband and wife not as in conflict with each other, but as battle mates in work-family life?

Waters: This is one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves: who is our real enemy? It can be so tempting sometimes to make the mistake of seeing the very people we love and the inconveniences they bring us as the ‘enemy’—even our own beloved children! For example, as I shared in chapter three, when I was writing the book it seemed like every time I sat down to write the chapter on the importance of the home, one of our daughters would get sick, sleep terribly, or wake up early and disrupt my time to write. I found myself repenting time and again for the frustration and resentment I felt toward my kids for distracting me from my “real work”—a sure sign that my own priorities were disordered. 

The Lord would remind me that caring for my girls was the important work, but in that moment, it would have been very easy to cast my children as the obstacle, my husband as an unsympathetic bystander, and the whole arrangement of home and family as the thing standing between me and my “calling.” 

Husbands and wives were never designed to be rivals or identical. They are asymmetrical, distinct, and forged together for a shared mission. 

Likewise, in principle five, “marriage on mission,” I dive into how Adam and Eve went from battle-mates to finding themselves the first victims of the ongoing battle-of-the-sexes. It begins Genesis 2:18 when Adam searches for a “helper fit for him.” That phrase in Hebrew—ezer kenegdo—has been sadly used to frame wives as mere domestic servants but the reality is far more profound. In the Old Testament, ezer is a military and political term used almost exclusively to God Himself or David and his mighty men. It means one who brings strength to another. And the second half of the phrase, kenegdo, gives us the paradox: she is "like opposite him" as his mirror, his counterpart, and his challenger. Iron sharpening iron, if you will. That is what a battle-mate is. Husbands and wives were never designed to be rivals, and they were never designed to be identical. They are asymmetrical, distinct, and forged together for a shared mission. 

This vision of ‘battle-mate’ marriage has been such an encouragement to my husband and I as we discern what it looks like to “be on the same team” as we grow from a “me” to “we” mindset. My husband’s call to ministry, for example, is no longer just his, but now ours. 

Lane: What role does hospitality play in all of this?

Waters: Hospitality reflects the very heart of God, displayed from creation to the incarnation of Jesus, who dwelt among us and prepares a table for us. In Lead Like Jael, I talk about the ways our culture has shifted from sharing meals around the table to fast food dinners in the car or in front of screens, and how loneliness, obesity, and social isolation have been on the rise. 

At the same time, hospitality is not a hobby for those with extra time or a Pinterest aesthetic for those with a nice kitchen. It is one of the most feminine, strategic, and meaningful ways to wield influence in our churches, our communities, and even our culture—and the Bible treats it that way. Hospitality should be a way of life where we invite others into our home just as we are, rather than a performative or mere utilitarian experience. 

When I look at women like Esther, I am inspired by the way that she set a table as the means through which she confronted evil, built trust, and achieved great political and theological wins for her people, even risking her own life to do it. For women (and men!) today, the stakes are just as high—though thankfully most of us are not risking a death sentence if our invitation is declined. 

Lane: You also issue a call to experienced women ("matriarchs") to provide fuller and more deliberate mentorship to younger women. How can bridging the generational divide support marriages and families?

Waters: In college, I fell madly in love with my now-husband, and then-boyfriend, Jack. As we started to talk about marriage, the “C” word—children—came up, and I had what can only be described as a complete meltdown. Without even realizing it, I had believed the lie that children would ruin my life and be a net loss when it came to taking my time, my body, and my career. We were still young at the time, and I remember once asking Jack what he thought about waiting 9 years until I was 30 to start having kids. To be very clear, he was never pushy about when we started having kids, but I felt like I had to have it all worked out then and there. (Given that I’m 28 years old now, and expecting our third daughter later this year, you can imagine what kind of heart change I had.) Well, back to the story, I broke up with him over this fear of children, and very quickly came to regret it! 

As I shared this with a godly, older woman and mentor, she said something that stopped me cold: "Either you're right that children will ruin your life, or the Bible is right that children are a blessing and the natural fruit of marriage—but you can't both be right." That ‘truth spoken in love’ was a turning point, and a wake-up call for how far I had fallen into a career-first mindset. Jack and I got back together a few months later and recently celebrated four delightful years of marriage. 

But here is what keeps me up at night: what happens to the young woman who doesn’t have anyone to ask her that question, or lovingly redirect her when she feels consumed with fears about kids and work? What happens when the older women in her life—her mother, her mentor, her pastor's wife, or her professor—either aren't there, or are silent on the matter by simply saying that ‘if he loves you, he’ll support your career’ (which is true in some sense, but also incomplete in its own way)? I heard all three in the few months we were broken up. 

At the end of the day, motherhood is a way of life that is most often ‘caught’ from the spoken and unspoken messages we hear from our mothers, grandmothers, peers, and our broader culture.

The data about young women, likewise, tells a sobering story. An NBC Decision Desk poll found that among Gen Z women who voted for former vice president Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election, the top marker of success was “having a job or career you find fulfilling,” while being married and having children ranked near the bottom. Even among women who voted for Donald Trump, career fulfillment was second only to financial independence, far above marriage or children. And while some reports seem to indicate young men are far more religious, young women (18-29 years old) are far less likely to say that religion is very important to them, or take time to attend church, read their Bible, or pray compared to where they were in previous decades. Faith and family preferences seem to go hand-in-hand. 

As a 2025 Barna study found, intergenerational relationships may be key to restoring faith and belonging among Gen Z women. Titus 2 gives us the model. It cannot be replaced by podcasts, Instagram influencers, or self-help books. Paul entrusts this work not to Titus or the male elders but to the older women themselves: those who have loved a husband through decades of real life, raised children with patience, and failed and been forgiven and kept going. That is precisely the wisdom young women need to navigate key questions about marriage, motherhood, and work, and it is in short supply. 

Lane: What do you think is needed in public policy to help young women and men form healthy families and welcome children?

Waters: This is such a complex question, and one that I am excited to see gain so much attention these last few months. On the whole, I think there are many drivers of declining marriage and birth rates that are due to technological, economic, cultural, spiritual, and policy shifts that have had the (un)intended consequence of undermining or discouraging family formation.

Given that, I don’t think there is a single policy lever that will fix it. It is, in my mind, an all-hands-on-deck problem that will require coordinated efforts across different spheres, including a rise in unabashed pro-family messaging that kids are awesome, and good for women emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically, and intellectually. 

Nonetheless, I do think there are proactive steps we can take at the federal level to build a more pro-family culture: 

• the Child Care Development Block grant, reimagined along the lines of Rep. Riley Moore's (R-WV-2) Respecting Parents' Childcare Choices Act, which would mirror the structure of Education Savings Accounts and empower parents to apply funds in ways that align with their own child care preferences; 
• expanded access to root cause care for infertility and reproductive health conditions, as outlined in the RESTORE Act to support families who desperately want kids but are facing health limitations; 
• the removal of all marriage penalties in our tax and welfare programs; 
• far greater protections and less red tape for independent, contract, and flexible work to support mothers as they navigate work with young children. 

At the end of the day, motherhood is a way of life that is most often ‘caught’ from the spoken and unspoken messages we hear from our mothers, grandmothers, peers, and our broader culture—the question is, what message will other young women hear from us, and will it inspire in them a curiosity, awe, and love for the self-sacrificial adventure of motherhood? In Lead Like Jael, I pray that is what my readers walk away with when they’re done.