Are Housewives Lazy?

I'd like first to state that, yes, some women who call themselves housewives are definitely lazy. They can't be bothered to learn how to cook a decent meal, they prefer watching telly to cleaning the house, they let their children basically raise themselves, they don't take a good care of their appearance etc. I'm sure in real life we all know the examples of such women.

However, I'd like to point out, that their laziness is a character deficiency which has nothing to do with their chosen occupation of homemaker. If they had any other profession they wouldn't show better results. A lazy woman is just that, lazy, and she will always try to do the bare minimum of whatever is demanded of her. That said, it is often assumed that a wife and mother is lazy simply because she doesn't work outside home.

We live in the times when one is supposed to engage in some frantic activity the whole day, every day. When I was at school I remember we had to learn a poem by heart which began like this:

What is this life if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare?

That was an old poem, by Robert Frost, I think, and the situation has become considerably worse ever since, it's not that we don't have time to stand and stare any more, it's that standing and staring nowadays is considered practically a sin.

I encountered this attitude even on supposedly Christian sites, where some authors said things along the lines of, why does this woman write on her blog that she enjoys working in the garden? Or how dares that woman to describe her drinking tea with a neighbour during the day? Don't they know these hours could be used productively by working in home business and earning money? What's wrong with those women for Pete's sake? It's like if they never heard that Making Money should be the prirority for everyone, everywhere?

Women nowadays are supposed to have it all and to do it all. Our ideal is a successful career woman who is at the same time a great homemaker cooking delicious exotic dishes, a doting mother of several children, and a wife to her husband who retains her maiden figure well into her forties and fifties, looks hot, wears sexy clothes and can compete with any model out there. No wonder so many women are neurotic and suffer from various stress related maladies.

For more than 40 years now we have been hearing how women are strong and independent. Well, the Bible calls a woman a weaker vessel not for nothing. Women on average are more physically and psychologically fragile than men, and if they are to fulfill their childbearing function, they should be protected from strenuous work and too much stress and negativity.

It's downright unjust to expect from a woman that she fulfills both her domestic duties without any help from her husband and at the same times works to make a living. Homemaking and child-rearing done properly take a lot of time and energy and the wife and mother is entitled to have some rest now and then. If she has some free time, for instance, when the children go to school, why can't she visit her friend or watch a nice film? A homemaker should not be guilt-tripped into spending all her free time filling in reviews online to earn extra 50$ a year, or babysitting the neighbour's children because the said neighbour chooses to work.

You are not responsible for other people and their choices, except in a general sense as a member of  society. If someone you know takes a huge mortgage and as a result, both husband and wife have to work, it's not your fault. You should not feel yourself guilty that you can afford to spend some time drinking tea with your neighbour when she can't. You should not try to apologise for being a housewife. Just like being rich doesn't mean you stole from the poor, being a housewife doesn't mean you took something away from a working woman. Only communists think differently.

I want to add that personally I  sympathise with those ladies who want to stay home but due to circumstances have to work. It's a tough situation. My point in writing this article was to defend innocent homemakers who are under attack for their decision to serve their families at home. When you choose to live on one income in a two-income world it often means a considerable financial sacrifice, but it brings its own rewards as well. One of them is being able to divide your day how you see fit and have some extra free time. You forego material luxuries for the luxury of being able to stand and stare. Don't let trolls disturb you.