Respect the Housewife

Housewifery is maligned and mocked.  But really, if you're not going to take care of your family and your home, who is?  Now, for many women, staying home to care for home and family is not an option, financially.  But if you can, simply put, you should.  What's happened that well-behaved children are an anomaly, and that we need government agencies to tell us to sit down together at the dinner table?  Women are generally the keepers of family tradition, and thus of a lot of societal tradition.  So it's up to women to change what is becoming a tradition of fast food and too many after-school activities.  I know, I know, "Why can't men do it? They're just as capable."  Well, because, frankly, they won't.

This isn't a blog of household tips (although there may be some), or a how-to-raise-children guidebook (although I may have some ideas).  There will, however, be book suggestions and movie ideas, and new music to try out.  There will be recipes and menu ideas.  This blog will also delineate the fact that staying home is a privilege.  It's also a lot of hard work, and you'll need to make time for yourself.

While you've got your fourth load of laundry in the dryer, and the dishwasher's still running, why don't you take the time to read?  Or to look for new music online?  Or work on making something (like a quilt, or a painting)?  Or watch a DVD of an old movie, where there were stories, but no special effects, and where most people's clothes stayed on most of the time.  Or you could think about having a dinner party, and start to play with who you'll invite and what you'll serve.  See, that's another thing.  What happened to dinner parties, where children stayed home with a babysitter (which is fine, because for the vast majority of their little lives, you are with them--no need to feel guilty about leaving them for one evening!) and parents got a little dressy and had adult beverages and adult conversation?

I think you may be getting the idea.  I want to show you things to do to make the most of your time at home, to make your time fun and productive, not just a grind of cream-of-mushroom-soup-based dinners, laundry, and ferrying children to soccer and violin.

I want to help make your home a soft place for your family to land when they come back from work or school (whether it was a good day they want to share, or an awful day they want to forget),  which is probably the most important thing a housewife can do.