There is a slow and quiet movement of women out of the workforce, and back into the home.
I know many, many woman who made this choice after going to college and being in the workforce. Woman younger than me seem to be continuing the trend. This despite the fact that when we were children it was difficult to find one of our moms who didn’t work.
And yet the stations of mother and home keeper are still looked down upon.
It wasn’t always this way.
Once motherhood and so-called “woman’s work” was esteemed, held in the highest honor.
There was a time a family’s very survival hinged on the woman-of -the-house raising a bountiful garden, and properly preserving the harvest for the winter months. Homeschooling wasn’t a choice, it was a necessity because there was no school to attend. Well-behaved children were a testament to the greatness of the woman behind them.
Manufactures knew of the high place woman held in society. So in the beginning of the industrial age they began to develop products designed to make her life easier, and to line their pockets. Suddenly woman at home had free time. Eventually they came to fill that free time with full-time, out-of-the-home jobs.
I am glad that I don’t have to scrub my laundry on a rock, or butcher the chicken that I roast for dinner. But I wonder if these modern conveniences that free our hands of hard-earned callouses, aren’t the very things that contribute, in part, to our devaluation?
It doesn’t matter if you make the best tasting pickles in the county, because anyone can go to the store and buy a jar of Vlasic. Socks are so inexpensive, why spend hours in the evening darning them? A perfectly starched collar means nothing with today’s wrinkle-free fabrics and relaxed dress codes.
If video killed the radio star, perhaps the vacuum cleaner killed the pie baking champion.
The skills, the knowledge handed down woman to woman, generation after generation were made obsolete, replaced by consumer goods. What was left to say that woman was worthy besides competing with man in his world?
I’m not suggesting that you toss your washing machine out, and purchase a washboard. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t work outside the home. But how do we recover the social dignity of child rearing and home keeping? By extolling what we do best.
While it is true that the most difficult house-hold chores were replaced by machine and automation, the most important contributions of women in the home remain the same as they were for over 5,000.
We possess a nurturing a spirit; a soft-touch that can ease the most broken of hearts; an instinct that knows when our offspring in the other room are in danger; a strength of spirit to remain vigilant at the hospital bedside of a sick child night after night.
These God-given abilities can not, and will not ever be replaced by man-made invention.
I think there really is still a lot of respect out there for women who work at home (I mean, that their work IS there home and/or children). And, oh my goodness, I am so thankful for dishwashers, laundry machines, and TIVO!
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Great post, and all so true!
I feel like applauding. I’ve long felt this way since becoming a SAHM. Not only have these modern household appliances sort of devalued our work as homemakers, they have also made it so that we don’t need to live in as close of community with our neighbors. We can do it all totally by ourselves. There’s no need to interact with neighbors if we don’t want to — we have everything we need and can do everything that needs to be done alone.
Great post! Mind if I repost it with a link on my blog?
Very well said! I use to feel I had to work, but finally realized I needed to be at home!
This was so eloquently written and I agree with every word.