Here it is, my darlings. The ugly truth. I’m going to call myself a bad word. That’s right, a bad bad word. Now I don’t think it’s a bad word but society has claimed otherwise. If you are afraid, look away. Here we go….
I. Am. A Housewife.
There. I’ve said it. And shame on you if you sneer at the term, honestly. You may chose to work, you may have your profession that you earned and are proud of. I sincerely congratulate you for it. You (I assume) worked hard for your place in the workforce and that is to be commended. I too have spend my time in offices, and retail work, and the like. But I discovered, it was not where my heart is. I choose to stay home because it is where I feel happiest. I clean because I enjoy it. I cook because it is my passion. There is a thrill for me in the joy I see in my husband when I have a freshly made meal ready for him when he comes home from work. I have chosen to stay home and tend to my family because it is what I WANT to do.
Do I not have the right to chose this way of life as other women have the right to chose to enter the workforce? Is it not equally as unfair to EXPECT me to hold a 9-5 job simply because it is what most other women do? How is such a thing any different than a few decades ago when women were berated for leaving the home to work instead of holding the “traditional role”?
What then, becomes of us women who don’t want to do what is expected of us, but instead want to have the freedom to do what is our passion and take up that “traditional role”? We are scolded, shamed, called lazy, frowned upon, and constantly asked when we are going to buckle down and get back into the real world. What they fail to see is that THIS is our real world. This is our calling. To pretend to be happy doing anything else is just a lie. A lie we hold to keep other people happy? No thank you!
Remember also, that the choice to be a housewife is a difficult one. There are challenges to balancing career and family, of course. The plight of the working mother is plastered all over the media (along with helpful tips on how to ease the burden). There is the benefit of these burdens being offset by the ease of having a second income. Those of us who stay home and care for our households….
There is a misconceptions that women who stay home spend their day dusting here and there, perhaps folding a few bits of clothing, popping a frozen meal into an oven when Father is on his way home, and spending most of their day chatting with their girlfriends over wine and chocolates, and watching day-time TV. Oh, if only that world truly existed….. Reality is that there is a never ending stream of household chores to be done which you alone have the joy of tending to because, as the argument goes, you are home all day so what else do you have to do? There are also meals to prepare. Meals which you have to be very clever with because, with only one income, money is always tight and balancing all your food groups is a lot harder when you are feeding a full household on half the budget. There’s also other fun nuances of living on one income such as having to mend and make things that most would simply replace or purchase new, and finding ways to stretch out the life of every little thing you use because sometimes you have to pick between buying laundry detergent or milk this week.
Perhaps that is enough ranting for today. If nothing else, take from this an appreciation for those who cast off expectations and go for what they love. It’s harder to live it than you may think.
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