Families, communities, and nations are
strengthened when women can choose how to spend their own lives. Whether we are housewives or career women, we
are sisters with more things in common than where we choose to spend our time
and energy. There was a time when women
did not work outside their homes after marriage; then World War II took the men
to war and required the women to do the work ordinarily performed by men. Many women enjoyed the opportunity while many
preferred to be home. Not many years later
women who chose to stay home were looked down upon by those who had
“careers.” Now the stay-at-home wives
are being blamed for problems in the lives of career women. Can we stop the war on other women and pursue
peace among ourselves?
I personally belief that
every family needs someone to be at home, someone to “keep the home fires
burning” and to keep the wheels of the family greased and turning. It is usually men who go to work to provide
for the family and women who stay at home; those who are at home are called “housewives,”
“house husbands” or “homemakers.” I prefer
the term “homemaker” to “housewife” to “domestic engineer” but my favorite is “domestic
goddess.” Some people believe that the
stay-at-home wife lives a boring and unfulfilling life, but I do not agree with
them. I have never had a dull or boring
day - especially when my children were at home.
I always had more tasks to perform that I could possibly get done – necessary
tasks that were neither boring nor exciting – both inside the home and in the
community. The only thing I missed as a
stay-at-home wife was the pat on the back or the congratulations for a job well
done because little children, self-centered teens, and tired husbands seldom
think to say or do such things. The work
of a stay-at-home wife is usually taken for granted – but missed greatly when
it does not get done.
I always enjoy reading
about how much my work as a homemaker is worth and thought I would share one
such article. Porcshe Moran posted an
article in answer to her own question “How much is a homemaker worth?” “The
life of a homemaker is one that includes an endless amount of demands and
to-dos. Depending on the size of the
home and family, the position of homemaker can go well beyond the usual nine to
five. We examined some of the tasks that
a homemaker might do to find out how much his or her services would net as
individual professional careers. We only
take into consideration tasks which have monetary values and use the lowest
value for each calculation.”
Moran then listed the following tasks performed by
homemakers and the beginning salary of a career performing the same task: Private
Chef: meal planning and cooking - $200-$500 per day; grocery delivery service fees: $5-$10. “Total cost for services: $1,005 per five day work week x 52 weeks =
$52,260 per year.”
House Cleaner: Since “professional maids or house cleaning
service providers will charge by the hour, number of rooms or square footage of
the home,” there are different prices for different sizes of homes twice each
week: 900-square-foot, two-bedroom
apartment with five rooms - $59-$124; 1300 square-foot, single-story home with
seven rooms - $79-$150; 2,200 two-story, three-bedroom home with nine rooms -
$104-$180. There would be additional
costs of $20-$25 to clean the oven or refrigerator or to dust the
mini-blinds. “Total cost for
services: $118 per week x 52 weeks =
$6,136 per year.”
Child Care: “Homemakers provide full-time, live-in child
care. This type of service from a
professional provider would usually come with a host of perks including health
insurance, paid vacation and sick days, federal holidays off, dental and vision
coverage, and bonuses. The International
Nanny Association’s 2011 survey found that nannies make $600 to $950 per week
in gross wages, on average. Total cost
for services: $600 a week plus
perks/benefits x 52 weeks = $31,200 per year.”
Driver: An “elite membership” with a company “like Red
Cap” would provide a “personal driver” to drive the client’s own car. This service would be provided “365 days of
unlimited, round-trip service” for “$1,000 a year plus 33 cents - $2.03 per
minute. Total cost for services: $1,000 per year + [(estimated miles driven
8,000 miles/50 MPH) x 60 min/hr x $0.33 per minute] = $4,168 total per year.”
Laundry Service: “Professional laundry services charge by the
pound.” Example was given of a company
“in Texas that charges 90 cents to $1.00 a pound to wash, dry, fold, hang and
steam your clothes. Items that take
longer to dry such as comforters, blankets, rugs and winter clothes are
assessed at a price of $12-$15 each.
Total cost for services: $0.90
per pound x 4 pounds of clothes per day x 5 days per week x 52 weeks = $936
total per year.”
Lawn Maintenance: Basic lawn and yard maintenance “cost about $30
a week on average. Total cost for
services: $30 per week x 52 weeks =
$1,560 total per year.” I assume that
this cost is for those areas that require lawn mowing, watering, etc. all year.
For those areas, like Alaska, it could
also include snow removal.
When all these “salaries” are added together, the
average homemaker is worth approximately $96,261 – just for these
services. There are many other services
performed by homemakers – such as nursing sick children, teaching or helping
with homework, handling the family finances, coaching sports teams, serving in
PTA, etc. - that were not factored into this price.
I also enjoy hearing or reading statements about the
value of my work, and I was pleasantly surprised to see an article posted by
Selwyn Duke entitled “The Most Interesting Career: Housewife.” His
article consisted mainly of the following quote from G.K. Chesterton’s book What’s Wrong with the World, but I found
it to be very profound and true.
“Women were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow;
on the contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad. The world outside the home was one mass of
narrowness, a maze of cramped paths, a madhouse of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and protecting
the woman that she was enabled to play at five or six professions and so come
almost as near to God as the child when he plays at a hundred trades.
“[…] When domesticity, for instance, is called
drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work,
I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral
of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar.
But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling,
colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give … up; I do not
know what the words mean. To be Queen
Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and
holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets,
cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals,
manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the
mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other
people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own
children about the universe? How can it
be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to
someone? No; a woman’s function is
laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of
her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”
I searched for other information about stay-at-home
wives and found a site where “Miss Crabcakes” asked
men to answer the following question:
“Do you prefer a stay-at-home wife?”
The comments on the site illustrate the fact that the background of the
commenter influenced their choice. I got
the idea that some people consider housewives to be “ladies of leisure,” but
others recognize the value of homemakers in the neighborhood during the work
day. I was touched deeply by this
comment: “I definitely prefer a stay at
home spouse. My mom was a single mother
who worked too much to ever watch over us.
I was raised by a baby sitter which kind of sucks. To have a stay-at- home dad or mom would be
ideal; however, this is only if you can afford it.”
This comment reminded me of a statement made by one
of my own daughters when she was a sophomore in high school. I have been a stay-at-home wife and mother
for most of the past forty years, but I did work outside my home for a couple
of years after my youngest child started school full time. I took her to school, went to work, and was
home again about the time the younger children got home from school; my teenage
daughter came home to an empty house.
One week I decided to take a couple of days off to clean my
cabinets. My daughter told me that she
was excited all day about coming home because she knew I would be there. Her comment made me stop and think about what
I was doing to my children. If my
working outside the home affected my teenager like that, what was it doing to
my younger children? My job was
eliminated a few weeks later, and I was home full time again.
Every career person could concentrate more on their
jobs if they had a “wife” at home taking care of the home front and doing such
things as buying groceries, cooking dinner, running errands, etc. In fact, there are people who claim that housewives are to blame for the plight of career women. “But new research from Harvard, NYU and the
University of Utah, adds another layer to the debate over gender discrimination
at work, and another (possibly just as important) person to blame: your boss’s stay-at-home wife.
“In the paper “Marriage Structure And The Gender
Revolution In The Workplace,” researchers illustrate how employed men with
stay-at-home wives tend to `exhibit attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that
undermine the role of women in the workplace.’
Among other things, they have a negative view of the very presence of women
in the office, large percentages of female employees and female leaders. But the most troubling finding was that men
whose wives don’t work `deny, more frequently, qualified female employees
opportunities for promotions.”
A successful businessman once told me that he
preferred to hire men whose wives were not working outside the home. He said that such employees performed better
on the job and were more dependable.
Because their wives at home
managing the family, the men could concentrate on the job of earning money.
Apparently, it is now a status symbol to have a
stay-at-home wife. This site posted
the following thoughts on the subject.
“Add this to the list of decisions that women are now criticized for
with regards to their life decisions. If
it isn’t the Mommy Wars between the stay at home and working moms, then before
that it was the women who chose to get an education and work for a living
instead of choosing to settle down and get married with children. Today we have Stay At Home Wives. Ahhh, let the games begin….
“Why knock something that works for someone
else? This isn’t 5 steps back for the
feminist women movement as some have said outright; this is a choice, and we
should be happy that more women have the choice to work, not work, work inside
the home, work outside the home or … sit at home eating Bon Bons all day while
curled up on the couch.
“Stay At Home Wives can get involved in volunteer
projects, pursue hobbies, go on vacation, pursue interests they may not have
been able to in the past all while running their homes like well-oiled
machines….”
All women have value and perform essential tasks
whether in the home or outside the home.
We are sisters who should be supportive of each other in our life
choices. We should understand that
whatever we choose to do, we will do it to the best of our ability. As we take our places as responsible members
of our families, communities, and nations, we will bring added strength to
everyone around us.
