Today, I was talking about home management to my husband and he remarked that running a home is harder than going to work.
Don’t I know it.
I have been on both sides of the mommy wars and there is unequivocally no doubt that what I do now is much more work than putting the kids in daycare and working a full-time job was. And I was a single mom when I did that!
I take it as a given that people know how much work home keeping and homeschooling are, but remarkably to me, Bob said that there is still the perception out there that the housewife sits at home eating bon-bons and watching soaps all day! As if!
Then he told me about something one of his co-workers said about his wife today.
(Read full post)
Apparently, this guy’s wife makes more than he does. She’s not a housewife (obviously). Anyway, she was home sick and called him at work. She was lying on the floor sick and the kids were going nuts all around her. She asked if he could come home and help out.
As he was leaving, he remarked to Bob that since she makes more than he does, it makes sense for him to go home, so she could get better, but if she was a housewife, he would just stay at work.
Can you imagine?
Fortunately for me, Bob understands that my worth is not based on how much money I bring home. He doesn’t hesitate to take the day off if I need him to. In fact, I usually have to convince him to go to work when I am sick because he wants to stay home so I can rest. (Really, it is not that he just doesn’t like to go to work. He rarely stays home for himself.)
The housewife - especially the one home with children full-time - has a demanding job. How is it that this myth of the woman who sits around all day is still alive? Where did it even come from? Is it a product of the women’s liberation movement that portrayed homemaking as unfulfilling and unrewarding, even demeaning?
I wonder. Because in my world, being a housewife is not only rewarding and fulfilling, but is certainly not for the faint of heart. I can think of nothing else that I have ever done that was a greater test of what I am made of and what I am capable of.
Besides, we all know that if someone paid us for what we do, we would make more than all of our husbands. Not that our worth is based on how much money we make.
6:02 pm on October 5th, 2007
I’m not sure where that myth orginiated - but I think in part, those who have never stayed home or do not currently stay home full time wonder how we (I’m a full time stay at home mom who has done work/kid thing as well) have time to be on the internet, or volunteer, or read, or knit etc. All they see is that we are able to work in every now and then some “me” time around the wiping poopy butts, doing the housework, or homeschooling our tots, somehow we’re seen as lazing, bon-bon eating mamas. Never mind that when I was working full-time, I was guaranteed coffee and lunchbreaks - all “me” time - to eat or do errands or knit as I saw fit.
Does this make any sense? My natives are waking up now, so I must go. We’re off to our local firehouse open house!
6:22 pm on October 5th, 2007
Yeah, that makes sense. The reality is that we (at least I) have to work hard to fit in me time. It takes time management. And if I spend too much time doing one thing, I have to cut out another. And it is all dependent on how the kids are doing.
When I worked, I had much more “me time.” I learned to crochet on my lunch break with some ladies at work. And I kept a website, which would now be called a blog, about politics, which I wrote during my breaks and published from home.
Now I either have to get up early or blog after my husband gets home. It is rare that I can actually write during the day. For example, during this comment, I was asked three questions!
2:46 am on October 6th, 2007
I must run in more sane circles, because the most commonly asked question is, “How do you get it all done?” But I think most of the ladies I run into sort of wish they were in a position to homeschool…but not quite enough to make that situation a reality.
4:19 pm on October 6th, 2007
Oh, man. Thanks for the blood pressure spike first thing this morning.
I’m off to go shake my husband’s butt out of bed and tell him I plan to take a day off.