Living On One Income Vs Your Consumption Level

According to what children study at school, my country has about 70% of the population thinking that mothers/married women shouldn't work. Yet, there are more than 70% women working currently. How comes?

Though I didn't spend much time behind computer last week and couldn't bother to write something long and sophisticated, I did read some discussions. One of them was on an American twitter feed which is also regularly visited by my countrymen. It was in Dutch and the topic was whether women would be happier as housewives. They finally agreed that it was probably so, but "impossible nowadays because we are oh so poor compared to the 1930s and 50s, when it was the norm."

This statement is one I come across regularly on Dutch right-leaning resources. Is there any truth to it, though?

So how did people live in those times? We can find out simply by a) talking to the older people; b) reading books, magazines and watching TV programs from that period. For instance, my husband's paternal grandparents rented (not owned) a 2 bedroom apartment their whole life though his Grandfather had a very decent job. Their two children (they had more but they died in infancy) of different sexes shared the same bedroom. They didn't go on luxury vacations, either (needless to say, Granny was a homemaker. Long after the children left the house.) You get my point?

Some years ago there was an American lady who ran a blog about her life as a child  in New York City, in the years 1950s and 1960s (she was later forced off the internet by tolerant progressives). She mentioned, among other things, that in order to reduce their water bills, they didn't flush their toilets quite as often (usually mostly for number two if you know what I mean). Again, no vacations, either. BTW, the new consumerist trick promoted in my country is the idea that your children won't develop properly if they don't regularly go on vacation in far-away countries ( I shudder to think how our ancestors survived without flying 3 times a year to some hot place/ski resort. Theirs was a tough life!)

Enter Miss Silver stories, describing life in rural England in the 1950s. Wealthier people go on vacation to the sea-side, in their own country. (Children used to be sent to the village to visit Granny during summer vacations too, in those times). Most women, even childless, don't work when married. A one couple like this the book describes lets one of their rooms (most single men of modest means didn't own or rent a house, they rented a room (and here you can still see it shown in the TV programs till the 1980s) and they have a couch in their living-room which the wife bought with her own earnings before she got married, 30 years ago!

(And not to forget, that in the beginning of I Love Lucy Lucy and her husband rented a 1 bedroom apartment and in Honeymooners the working class couple rented a 1 room apartment where their kitchen functioned as a living-room).

The only entertainment of the lower classes in these times was going to the cinema on Friday night, by bus, as most people didn't own a car.

What I'm trying to demonstrate is that folks in these times weren't wealthier at all, their demands and their level of consumption were lower, except for the very rich. While Western governments constantly *itch whine about saving the environment, they simultaneously promote a 2 income lifestyle with a high consumption level, which is supposedly good for the economy (but bad for anything else).

Which way Western (wo)man? You choose. Just remember that you have a choice!

Your Favourite LOTR Characters

When I was young and romantic, I loved Elves. Now that I'm older and (hopefully) wser, I prefer hobbits. The hobbit way of life is very traditionalist. After all, LOTR tells us in the prologue that hobbits had faces with..."mouths apt to laughter, and to eating and drinking. And laugh they did, and eat, and drink, often and heartily...They were hospitable and delighted in parties, and in presents, which they gave away freely and eagerly accepted." (Unwin Paperbacks, 1978, p. 14). Plus, they lived till like 100+ years:)



They also were enviromentally friendly. Theirs was a simpler way of life:

"...for they love peace and quiet and good-tilled earth...They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom..." (Idem, p. 13.)

BTW, caring for environment should be a right/traditionalist cause, though by some strange reason, (some) American conservatives appear to think that right-wing is all about tax cuts for millionaires and support of big corporations and banks, not preserving the traditional way of life.

Hobbits also had big families who often lived together, just like the Victorian style British families so often described in Miss Silver books:

"The houses and the holes of Shire-hobbits were often large, and inhabited by large families...Sometimes, as in the case of The Tooks...many generations of relatives lived in (comparative) peace together in one ancestral...mansion. All Hobbits were...clannish and reckoned up their relationships with great care." (p.19).

I bet they didn't need a government official to combat loneliness. And, though not warlike, they were still proficient with arms. Si vis pacem, para bellum. In short, what's not to like?

What are your favourite  LOTR characters?

Hot, Hot, Hot

We are currently experiencing a heat wave combined with drought. It's not pleasant, and the worst is yet to come...

So in the light of this I can't concentrate and write anything decent though I had a couple of ideas in mind when I came back.

Instead, I'd like to draw your attention to a couple of posts by a fellow blogger:

one about housework in difficult times,
the other about the consequences of promiscuity.

If you have any thoughts or ideas, feel free to share!

How Not To Get Overweight

As you probably know, I just returned from Germany. One thing which always gets me, is that they appear to have even more overweight people than we do, including young boys! Such luxury can only be afforded by a society which doesn't need fit young men for the army duty.

When folks talk about this problem, they will usually mention sedentary lifestyle and low impulse control like inability to refrain from eating too much, but there are at least, two other factors to keep in mind.

Cheryl Mendelson mentions in her book Home Comforts (Scribner 1999, p. 51) that too many people nowadays don't have time to sir down and eat normal meals, but keep "grazing" during the day, which easily leads to overeating and health problems.

And then you have the disappearance of home cooking and the abundance of junk/fast food. It's not only important to sit down to a meal, but also to distinguish between real food vs inferior processed substitutes. I tried to find a nice picture illustrating this point, but instead, stumbled upon a health blog which defines real food and presents a 100 day of real food challenge.

I'd like to add a couple of suggestions of my own. You'll also need healthy fats. The number 1 healthy fat is virgin olive oil, cold pressed. And then you have butter/ghee/lard/beef tallow. Personally I mostly use olive oil and butter but last winter our supermarket also had lard and beef tallow which I tried for frying. Lard is definitely better and keeps better, too (imo).

Also considering whole grains, some people have trouble digesting them or are on a diet to avoid kidney stones. I think it's OK to cheat and use a mixture of flours for home baking, and in the supermarket, you could aim for Italian bread sorts with sour dough, or spelt bread. A local supermarket over here offers an artisan bread sort made of spelt which is nearly white. It's pricy so I only buy it now and then.

If you freeze white bread and then defrost and eat it, it will lower its GI. Toasting it has the same effect. Also, I think fruit jam is OK, especially if homemade. Or, aim for the new sorts with less sugar (but no artificial sweeteners).

The more real food you eat, the less you will crave all the junk stuff:)

Parental Failure

When do parents fail? Outside of such objective criteria as having a child who turned out a junkie/criminal/whatever, a more subjective one would be when they don't succeed in transferring their own values to their children. A housewife who believes that God commanded women to keep the house and whose daughters/daughters-in-law all work. A Christian family whose kids  leave the church when grown-up. That sort of thing.

Now in my country, it was the baby boomer generation which collectively failed to teach their children the values they themselves were raised with. Most of the women of that generation stayed home yet they encouraged their daughters to pursue careers and value material possessions above welfare of the family.

Here is the question: were boomers the innocent victims of the brainwashing or did they choose to rebel? One thing I've noticed is that many of their representatives love their tellies and trust every word uttered on the TV. When you try to explain that some of it may not be entirely true, they will stare at you and even get angry sometimes. So brainwashing? I don't really know.

Most folks nowadays have internet, even the elderly. There isn't exactly a lack of info on various (controversial) subjects, you are only one mouse click away from it. And everybody is responsible for his own enlightenment, so to say, so there is little excuse for ignorance. So I don't know. May be, we shouldn't judge our seniors too harsh, but the parents of today would do well to learn from their mistakes.

I'm Back!

Home again and comment moderation is back to normal. Will write more tomorrow. I received lots of spam comments during these two weeks which were all summarily deleted. A gentle reminder in case one of them was genuine: please, don't post as an anonymous!

A Short Note

Thank you everyone who prayed. My father is recovering from his operation.
We are leaving today and come back in 2 weeks. All comments will go into moderation until my return.

Have a great time!

A Prayer Request

My father will undergo heart bypass surgery tomorrow morning.
Your prayers will be highly appreciated!

A Word Of Warning

Usually I'm the one who supports the principle of "never punching right", that is, not  criticising openly any fellow traditionalist who may be slightly to the right of me on some issues. I just choose to ignore certain things they say. So in this post I'm not going to criticise any particular internet personality or a blog or a YouTube channel, but I do want to discuss certain confusing (and sometimes disturbing) trends.

Imagine you are a young woman in your late twenties/early thirties, living somewhere in Europe (as some of my readers probably are). You have spent nearly all your conscious life starting with the age of 3 or 4 either at school or working. Now you are married and have a child. Your husband, a nice guy, suggests you take a couple of years from work, or may be, you have an extended maternity leave. You realise you actually like to stay home. You remember how until the 1970s or even later in some countries (like mine where it was till the 1990s) most married women and mothers used to stay home and "just be housewives".

Since you have just made a discovery, you are understandably enthusiastic about it, but soon realise that nobody (except your husband) appears to share your enthusiasm for homemaking and child-rearing. Your girl-friends find their small children a bother and can't wait till they go to school. Older women at the church tell you how their daughters all have great careers. Your mother-in-law, who never worked a day in her life since she got married right after quitting housekeeping school at 16, calls you lazy, unlike her own daughters. And even your own parents resent the fact that you are wasting your education they had to pay so much for. So, what's a girl to do?

You turn to the internet, where as we know, most traffic is in English, and type in "traditional housewife".  After stumbling across a couple of disparaging articles about how housewives betray the economy and are bad for GDP (which causes multinationals to lose 1% of their profit so that they will have to push more unlimited immigration to compensate) you find you first "traditionalist" blog. Wow, they actually say that it's God's will for (married) women and mothers to stay home! Finally, you can stop being ashamed of yourself and even start looking down at those among your family and friends who mock and belittle you. They are in the wrong, and you can be proud of yourself!

Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. Once you get hooked, because you finally get the validation you were missing all the time, you will keep returning to this type of blogs/vlogs/facebook/whatever and imbibe more of their teachings which aren't all equally savoury. You may, for instance, learn that it's wrong to use any form of birth control, even the NFP (approved by the Pope!) since God desires you to have an unlimited number of children. If you develop a health problem from countless pregnancies which can be life-threatening, you just have to accept it. It's probably just God's Will for you to die anyway. And if your husband refuses to have more kids because he can't provide any more, he's a sinner and you should deny him sex till he repents.

Alternatively, your husband is God and can do no wrong. If he wishes for you to work full time and himself stays home and shoots heroine the whole day, you should "cheerfully submit." The children should all always be homeschooled no matter what because all government schools are satanic (and socialist). In some Euro countries you aren't even allowed to homeschool, so I guess all little Germans are destined to Hell anyway.

Then come Proverbs 31 guilt trips (I covered this topic extensively on my blog so not going into detail here), conspiracy theories, bizarre modesty standards like floor length skirts and general distaste for any sort of entertainment, no matter how innocent. You can't drink a glass of wine with your husband. You aren't allowed to take your kids to the beach in summer (there can be topless women over there and your boys will see them, o horror!). You can't visit a girl-friend, that would be gadding around. You can't go to a gym because your fitness program is wicked (and satanic) etc etc.

I should add that it's not all Christians writing this sort of thing, of course, but in general those who aren't content with the way Western society is going these days. I'm not content with it, either, but still don't think we all should be quitting and going to live "innawoods" like hermits. That is to say, you are free to do it if you wish to, but don't tell me that's the only way because it isn't.

So after reading all this advice the poor lady more often than not gets extremely confused and either runs away from computer screaming and goes right back to work, or sometimes, tries sincerely to follow it, often with disastrous results. The truth is, outside of feminism and fundamentalism, there is also the third way, the way things used to be until recently.

The husband was the head of the family (and the law acknowledged it), but he wasn't a domestic tyrant and had duties, too, like providing for his family instead of playing vidya games the whole day long. The wife was supposed to be demure but also follow fashion trends to some degree. Families were often bigger but most people did something to space the children and would stop after a certain number (which was usually bigger than 2). Children went to school, but the schools were wholesome and taught kindergarteners 3 R's and good manners instead of propaganda. The wife kept the house but also went out to visit friends and had time to pursue hobbies and read books. Instead of shutting themselves off from the world, the families were all interconnected and lived in organic communities and spent much more time with each other than we usually do now.

Mind you, I'm not saying that it's wrong to homeschool or  wear long skirts or have any sort of standards, quite the contrary. But not everything you read on the net may be applicable to your country, culture and situation. Sometimes entertainment or sports is just that, not a part of a satanic NWO conspiracy plot. And you don't have to go live "innawoods", either. In other words, you can still be a housewife and live a normal, average life. May be, boring at times, but in general, quite satisfying:)

Feminists Celebrate A New Cause

Though it's probably not so new after all, since they have always had this rare obsession with bodily hair and functions. Sometimes, I do really feel ashamed to be a woman. In a world full of problems, the so-called women activists are busy with such trivial things as celebrating a new commercial because it features body hair. It's nice to know, by the way, that they support consumerism and big corporations. You don't need a fancy expensive razor to shave your darn legs.

Guardian even had an article how it is good for feminism, but I refuse to link to them.

In other news, the weather is great and we've had a very nice weekend by the river watching yachts and speed boats going by and enjoying ourselves. Life is good when you don't turn every detail of it into a social justice cause. And oh yes, not shaving your legs and armpits and then going out to the beach and showing yourself off is a sign of a low class behaviour. But feminists are free to engage in it. It's good to know who belongs where, so to say.