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What I'm trying to say with this post is that it's OK to stay home as a married woman, if you wish to. There is no need to invent excuses and you really don't need the permission of your colleagues, parents or in-laws. There is no law in Western countries which demands married women to hold a job so it's perfectly legal to be a homemaker if you choose so. The only person in your life who has to agree with your choice is your husband, and most husbands find it a great idea as long as their wives don't turn into domestic slobs, do some housekeeping regularly and are careful with money.
You also don't need to have children to stay home. Some ladies who wanted to stay home but couldn't get children went as far as to adopt which costs a lot of money, right after which they turned in their resignation letters. It's not that I'm against adoption, I'd just like to point out a simple fact that having children isn't a precondition to staying home. Adoption is a very serious business and one shouldn't feel pressured into it, for whatever reason.
Our society prides itself on such things as "choice" and "freedom" and "tolerance", which means that any lady who desires to be a housewife is free to choose this option and that her choice should be tolerated. If people harass you for your choice, kindly ask them to mind their own business. Really, you don't have to try to please your whole extended family or all the acquaintances, as long as your husband is fine with your choice, they'll have to accept it just as you accept the fact that they might choose differently.
Women who desire to be homemakers should come out of the closet really, as they have nothing to be ashamed of.
I don't remember who said it first (it was probably the lady who is writing What's Wrong With Equal Rights, I would so much to like to thank her!) but the brilliant answer to the eternal question 'What are stay-at-home-wifes without children contributing for the society?' is that they are ensuring that there is one stressed and angry woman LESS.
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
I wish I'd had that answer in my apron pocket when I returned home from work force :-)
They also don't compete for jobs with other women who may really need them because they are single. Most women compete for jobs with other women, not men. The reason for the laws restricting the right of married women to employment which existed in the past was to ensure that single women could find a job.
ReplyDeleteSuch a lady is also available to others and is a part of family/neighbourhood support network, she has some time to spare for the extended family, volunteering, stuff like that, plus she can take good care of her own and her husband's health, so that they will be less a burden to the socialised health care system. But really, it's not "society" business, anyway. It's a personal decision.
Yes, there's no limit to the contribution once a woman has been liberated from proving her value monetarily, as Larissa cleverly said it (Thanks! :-) )
DeleteDear Sanne
ReplyDeleteI like your post very much, but I must disagree with one point, not in your post but your above reply. Many women work in an office. Before WWI nearly every office position was held by a man. Now those positions are held by women, its not uncommon to go to an office and see only women working there. Those jobs could be done by men, who are instead unemployed.
This is even worse in Corporations, where not only jobs but promotions are denied to men because women have them. You quite right that single women still need jobs. But I think this is a problem for both men and women.
Mark Moncrieff
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
Dear Sanne
ReplyDeleteIt seems incorrect for a woman to have to prove her value monetarily by drawing in an income. Work should be a form of self-expression and if a woman really prefers to express her identity as a full-time homemaker, that's a beautiful and brave thing to do, in our society. There's infinite value in being a good homemaker and wife. A woman at home can support her husband, emotionally, spiritually. Her loving and quiet presence is a type of strength and value that cannot be quantified by money.
blessings
Larissa
Dear Mark, first, I have deleted the double comment, hope you don't mind.
ReplyDeleteAbout jobs, I was chiefly writing about the European labour market, where most women work for the government and work part-time. It's true they hold office jobs previously not open to them, but we are talking 19th century here. The laws I mentioned were taken in the 1930s, when office jobs were already available to women.
Since the number of jobs is not infinite, the idea behind them was that it was unfair that some families had two incomes while others had none, but the situation of single women who had to provide for themselves was also taken into consideration.
As the economy crimps, I won't be surprised as the old arrangements will return one day.
Larissa, welcome to the blog!
ReplyDeleteI find it almost sad when someone says it is brave to want and be a homemaker. That a women has to worry that it is ok. As I have said before I am now 67 and home-makers being home had been just a normal way of life to me till about 1970. Then the shift starting happening that more women were working than home. Then it little by little began to be hinted at that the women that used to be home had not been allowed to work. That their husbands wanted them home. That they felt like slaves and were unhappy at home. That it was not their wish. Bunk!! I know of no such thing. Now we have to encourage women that is is OK to come home again. Sad. I am very happy though that the idea is being said and many are listening. Come back home. :) It is like they are being rebels now to want to stay home and take care of their own families. :-) Years ago they were told by other women that they had a right to their own lives and to get out of the house!! Now we are telling them if they want they can reenter it! :-) It is kind of sad yet a bit ironic. So goes our upside down world.! Sanne thank you again for reaching out to others and telling it like you see it. It IS their choice and if the couple agree home is where she should be. Many men now though have grown up with working mothers and wives all around them and think this is the normal and only way. These women of such men need to be shown how to slowly convince their husbands on the betterment of them staying home. Many cannot see how if their wives stay home they can financially make it as all their friends have both working into marriage. I know it will work but they do not. Nor do they understand what it will take to make it work. It is scary at first on both sides. They argue that yes it worked many years ago but this is NOW! Well I am living in Now and it works and has for us forever. All this to say thank you again for a good post and I am still very glad you keep writing! Sarah
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome, Sarah! I always appreciate your point of view. Unfortunately, women seem to feel peer pressure more than men, though for the life of me, I don't understand why would a grown-up woman care for the opinion of others if she knows she is doing a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't have said it better. Well done.
ReplyDeleteWonderful post and comments. I agree with everything. I myself was so brainwashed that I actually thought I was work-orientated. I had to get recurrent depression and burn out and it took me five years before I realized that carrieer was not what I wanted; I was just trying to live my mothers life.
ReplyDeleteWe have freedom of choice as long as we choose same thing than everyone else. My parents would propably disinherit me if they new that I am not going to go back to work even if I heal completely. Or more likely they wouldn't believe I am healed; in their minds healing for me would be going back to work.
Isn't it silly that living like traditional women is nowadays socially totally unaccepted?
BTW, If you wondered where I vanished we just had a little vacation in Lappland.
I hope you had a nice vacation! It must be very beautiful in Lappland this time of the year.
ReplyDelete