Grandma:
"My grandparents didn't have any money to spend on luxuries for their home, but you know what? It was always clean, everything had its place, there was never clutter, and it always looked like a pretty little place that you'd want to visit for the day and drink some lemonade. My grandmother scrubbed her walls and her floors, and they sparkled. She had pride in her home - her two-bedroom home where she raised nine children who were always clean and well-behaved."
Darla Shine, Happy Housewives, New York, Regan books, 2005, p. 73.
I think Lydia Sherman said it well: Home is being seen as a casual place of leisure, the opposite of work and school. People are used to being told what to do so being at home can be overwhelming because there is no boss.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite quote about homemaking is from Miriam Lukken's book Mrs Dunwoody's Excellent Instructions for Homekeeping: ''We often take our homes for granted. But when we steep ourselves in our home, a deep sense of place begins to emerge. Life becomes more meaningful. We begin to have a greater spiritual awareness of what our home is and should be. Perhaps our most inspiring thought is that our homes, if we are to live well in them, require and deserve a lifetime of the most careful attention. A home absorbs caretaking like a sponge. All the hours we spending tending to it are never in vain, for everything we give to our home, is in turn, given back to us. Our homes will be only as generous and nurturing as the effort we invest in them.''
I wached BBC:s father Brown. It is delightful show, but sometimes slips to feminist propaganda. There was on one episode doctor, who sold drugs for "Housewife in their golden cages to make their lives worth living".
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought: if 50's housewife really were unhappy, it proves that women indeed are the weaker vessel and quite unable to do anything without male supervision.
Can you imagine men being miserable, if someone else pays the bills and they have all the freedom in the world to do WHATEVER THEY WANT with their time?
No one is more free and independent time-wise than a housewife. If a woman is not happy as one, it is obvious that she is just too stupid or weak-minded to manage her own time and pursue her own interests. Usually that sort of women do not have any own interests.
Imagine how boring one must be, to need a job to make you entertained and interesting.
I went slightly off-topic, I am afraid. But my point is: money has never been the real issue here. Issue is, that far too many women are not competent enough to be housewifes.
Miriam, agree, we must bond with our homes:)
ReplyDeleteBlanka, weren't the original stories set in the 1920s? When it's a modern show, you can always assume it will be full of propaganda, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteAs for your 2nd point. I remember like 10 years ago there was an American guy who wrote blog posts saying that the workplace functioned like a daycare for modern women because they otherwise didn't know what to do with themselves. He said they had minds of 3 years-old, lol!
Yes, fr Brown is short stories by G.K. Chesterton.
DeleteInteresting, what you wrote about that guy. I feel that modern "empowered" women are so much LESSER(if that is actual word) than women used to be. When I compare my mother and mother-in-law, to my grandmothers at the same age... Neither of my grannies worked outside home, and when old, they were so full of wisdom and patience. Never complaining or anything. Boomer women, on the other hand, are constantly complaining about every little ailment and it seems to me my mother hasn't grown spiritually or as a person at all during the 50 years I have known her.
Since we women are the once who should keep the moral standards of society high, it is very very sad if women stop growing.
Bible tells us how older women should be guiding younger ones. It just broke my heart when I realized that I had overgrown my mother...If she was like her mother was, I good look up to her forever. But no, she is almost like teenager. And I see it everywhere, old women wont be wise anymore. Just teenagers with saggy bottoms. They even dress the same. I actually dress "older" than my mother, since I actually have dignity to maintain.
We used to be guardians of so much, and we threw it all away. For a paycheck.
It seems I have some misogyny and not-honoring-your-parents to confess this Ash Wednesday Evening Mass...
Yes, Happy Belated Ash Wednesday! I became a misogynist after teaching classes full of female students, lol! The stories I could tell...About older women (Boomers/Silents). I remember how I went to a ladies' Bible class as a newly wed. We just joined a "good conservative church" and I was waiting for older women to teach me wisdom as a young wife. The 1st thing one lady asked me is why I didn't work and started telling me about her daughter's great career as a lawyer.
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