More On Housewife And Politics

I'd like to draw your attention to this blog post by Lady Lydia:
Tranquility at Home

Lydia writes: "...I feel it necessary to caution women at home from being too caught up in the daily reports of impending disaster. As Christian homemakers, it is very easy to let such news be our undoing. It can rob you of your contentment at home. The sound of the world's bad news can make you physically ill or mentally unstable when exposed to it daily."

Through the years I have discovered it to be true. It's very easy to get caught in the political problems of the day and lose your focus on homemaking. Most of the news we hear or read daily is negative, and even sometimes shocking or repulsive, and it can absolutely make a woman depressed. The same goes for modern entertainment where extreme violence seem to be a must for every action movie. It's interesting that men can usually better cope with it, probably because, as a friend of mine put it, they are supposed to be warriors and not so easily shocked.

Lydia further notes that "... the housework never changes, no matter what the world news is." That is a very wise observation. There are lots of women (actually men, too; but for the purposes of this article I'll concentrate on women only) who keep pining for the good old days. Such person often will say "I guess it was all right to be a homemaker in the 1950s, I wish  I lived then, but now the society has changed..." Now guess what, the society has changed, but God's Word didn't. Titus 2 was not only meant for those born before the WWII, it's still relevant now. In the year 2013 housework still needs to be done!

To quote Lydia again: "There are still things to be cleaned up, put away, and taken care of. There are meals to be prepared on time, and a husband to help. There are responsibilities at church, and our help is needed in the lives of our children and grandchildren"

Lydia goes on to describe how she tried to redeem her time and how worrying about the current political situation interfered with her domestic responsibilities. I will freely admit that I have been guilty of the same thing myself. It's easy to say to yourself that you will just read this news item, and then visit that forum, just to stay informed, and not to be " an ignorant housewife who does not know who is the president" and then you realise that the most productive part of the day is gone. More so, the political situation won't change because you read alternative news and conservative forums, but your housework and your peace of mind will surely suffer. 

Lydia points out that we shouldn't be trying to correct the whole world, because we can't. It's better to concentrate on things we can influence, such as the well-being of our families. There are too many women nowadays who have what I call a saviour complex. While they are out and about trying to improve the world, their own households are neglected. I believe that Love your neighbour quite literally means the person living next door to you, and we should concern ourselves with people close to us, not far away. 

I especially liked this quote:  "Most of us know a lot about the evils of this world, but not enough of the Bible."

That is something to ponder about, isn't it? Lydia suggests that while the wordly news stations are broadcasting all the negative things, we should "broadcast good news by our presense" and concentrate on creating a lovely life at home. Last time we went on vacation, I noticed one thing. We stayed in a family hotel in a small village, and spent several days without watching TV and with limited internet access and it felt wonderful. Life just went on, though I wasn't informed about the latest shenanigans of the corrupt politicians, liberal attacks on the family and other negative things. 

Here I feel obliged to put a disclaimer, saying that even a housewife should be aware of what's going on around her (as I did in my previous blog post on the same topic), but twenty minutes a day is probably enough to learn about all the major news, unless some disaster has happened. I'm also trying to avoid reading blogs which concentrate too much on the negative things, without giving a counterbalance.You know, the type which someone dubbed "despair porn" which is, in my opinion, a fitting name, as some people seem to be positively turned on by writing about doom and gloom. 

Finally, Lydia stresses that all this negativity can ruin your health: "Having your mind on too many problems is bad for your hormones, bad for your blood circulation, bad for your digestion, bad for your posture and unhealthy all around. The Lord told us not to think of the things of darkness, but to think on things that are lovely (Philippians 4:8) and to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit (Galations 5:22)"

 Or, as my husband puts it, women should get interested in gardening and knitting and leave politics to men (please don't throw stones at me:)