What is Homemaking and Why is it so Undervalued?
Homemaking has gotten a bad rap since the early 90s when feminism branded it a demeaning endeavor. I will give an updated homemaker definition and give 3 reasons why we need to value homemaking as a vital role for positive social and economic development.
Are you a new mom who has recently found herself thrown into the world of homemaking? Maybe you are like me and you’ve been a mom for a while and find yourself in a new role of homemaking after years of working outside the home. Perhaps you’ve been a homemaker since having your first child.
Either way, I’m sure you have felt a sense of being less-than or not good enough because you are solely focusing on homemaking. With so many women working outside the home and social media praising women for their ability to gain high levels of success in their careers, it’s easy to think that choosing the role of homemaker is a cop-out.
I want to dispel this idea that homemaking is a role with little value and paint a picture of how indispensable homemaking is to supporting our families.
What is Homemaking?
The stereotypical homemaker
When we think of homemaking, we tend to picture that 1950’s housewife with her perfectly coiffed hair and apron ironing, doing dishes, making beds or cooking. The “typical” 1950s housewife was often pictured with a cigarette in her hand or standing in front of a tv as she did these tasks, giving the impression that very little thought or effort goes into any of these tasks.
Homemaking still tends to be associated with mundane tasks like laundry, tidying and shuttling kids to their activities. While these are often a part of homemaking, the real essence of homemaking lies not in the daily tasks, but in the weaving of all of those tasks throughout the day in order to create a home that supports optimal living for the family.
Society’s view of homemaking is narrow, like looking through a microscope at a single cell. It is why homemaking is so devalued. We see homemaking as merely carrying out simple tasks that take care of a house and kids. We’re told it’s easy; anyone with a few brain cells and a strong work ethic could be a homemaker!
Homemaking: the business of home
This definition of a homemaker can only have been developed by someone who has never been a homemaker! Anyone who has found themselves as the sole caretaker of her home knows that homemaking requires development and effort at a variety of levels. A homemaker is a visionary, a planner, a manager, a work horse, and a continuous improvement and efficiency specialist.
Homemaking is a business, and the homemaker is the solopreneur who must play every role inside of that business. Where a business is a place for professionals to develop, try out and hone their professional skills, a home is a place for our families to develop, try out and hone their personal skills and qualities.
A home is a place where REAL and meaningful living happens. And a home is something that requires a great deal of skill, passion and intention to create. It is through the art of homemaking that a house becomes a home for a family.
In the Theology of Home II: The Spiritual Art of Homemaking, homemaking is defined as:
“The deeply purposeful art of sheltering and nurturing the souls of others, offering them a place to grow.”
Carrie Gress and Noelle Mering
Why is homemaking important?
We are convinced that to choose homemaking as our purpose in a modern society that wants to see women proving themselves as “equal” to men, is to choose to go backwards. The messages of feminism and the “modern woman” brainwash us into thinking we have to apologize for putting our families and homes first over pursuing something outside the home.
How many times have you heard another stay-at-home mom or yourself say in response to the question what do you do?: “Oh, I’m JUST a stay-at-home mom,” or “I’m JUST a housewife”?
Ummmm…JUST?! Modern feminism has devalued the role of the homemaker so much that we believe the only thing that can make you worthy of self-love and pride is building a traditionally male career.
Forgive me for being so blunt, but screw that! Why are women devaluing other women? We should be building each other up and empowering each other to embrace our strengths and build a life around the values we choose as meaningful.
If you ask me, modern feminism is toxic in a way that “toxic masculinity” never was because it is turning us against each other. Traditional femininity and conventional homemaking deserve to be valued equally to pursuing more masculine, or modern feminist, roles.
In fact, I might be so bold as to say that homemaking is MORE important than any role we can perform outside of our home. Homemaking provides the nurturing and empowering of the current and next generation of people molding and changing our world for the better.
Homemaking creates a sanctuary
At its basic, homemaking is making a home. A home is different from a house because it provides more than just shelter and a place to rest your head. A home provides sanctuary from the outside world.
A sanctuary is a place of refuge. It is a place where you can feel safe to relax and be yourself. A home provides refuge from the expectations of others and society as a whole. Home is more of a feeling and atmosphere than it is a physical thing.
This is why so many people liken home to a person rather than a place. A person who feels like home, is a person who sees and accepts you for your truest self. They are someone around whom you can safely let your guard down.
Everyone needs the feeling of home in order to live a fulfilling and joy-filled life. Without a home that provides sanctuary, life would feel like a constant source of stress with no means of escape.
Homemaking nourishes growth and development
Homemaking not only provides a place to feel safe and relaxed, it provides a foundation to explore and experiment.
The cleaning and tidying roles of a homemaker help a home feel calm and peaceful. But it is the functionality of a house, designed by homemaking, that supports the people who live in it to play and practice.
A homemaker plans her home around the activities that she and her family enjoy. She creates spaces for those activities and includes the materials that invite people to engage in them.
When you combine the feeling of safety to be one’s self with the open invitation to play with different interests, a home can help individuals grow and develop. It is in this way that homemaking allows the people in the home to reach their fullest potential
Homemaking models empathy and love
By merely engaging in the daily routines, tasks and roles of homemaking, we are modeling for the rest of our family how to take great care with things that you value and love.
Each and every task and activity that a homemaker engages in on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis, is intentional. Homemaking consists of both big and small choices that come together to lovingly nurture, care for and support ourselves and our family.
Creating a vision, defining our values and purposefully and intentionally working within and towards them is the perfect model for a high quality life. By embracing our own purpose as homemakers, we show our children and partners that they too deserve to pursue their own purpose. By showing care and love through homemaking we manifest the same level of love and care within them.
Why is homemaking undervalued?
To understand why homemaking gets such a bad rap these days, we need to look at feminism and how it has developed through the years. The feminist movement has developed through three waves over more than 150 years to become what is modern feminism.
A History of Modern Feminism
In the first wave of feminism, the focus was on suffrage. The first notable event in history that sparked the feminist movement was The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. Men and women came together seeking more equality for women. Over the next 120 years, strides were made in helping women gain the right to vote and taking a more important role in politics as well as being seen as more than a husband’s property.
In the second wave of feminism, beginning in the 1960s and ending in the 90s, the goal was to have complete equality for women. Their main victories were in sexual and reproductive rights.
In the third and current wave of feminism, beginning in the 1990s, women wanted to go beyond equal rights and gain equal respect. They fought against what they saw as oppressive masculinity and the “patriarchy”. We continue to see words like “toxic masculinity” and “patriarchy” tossed around. But, sadly, the original goal of modern feminism: respect for women and equal value of their contributions, has been lost.
If you want to learn more about the history of feminism you can read this article.
The effects of feminism on homemaking
Modern feminism will see the discarding of anything traditionally associated with femininity in favor of taking over as many traditionally masculine roles as possible. Forgive me if I’m not seeing it right, but how is replacing femininity with masculinity creating respect and appreciation for women? To me, the message is “Being a woman is bad! Instead, be just like a man. And then you will be worthy.”
“For decades now, the entrenched wisdom has been that women’s unhappiness is largely due to the fact that home life demeans us, and the remedy is for us to demean it in return.”
Carrie Gress and Noelle Mering
Feminism has gone from empowering women to demand equal respect for their uniqueness and contributions, to devaluing those women who dare to choose a more traditionally feminine role.
The problem is not in our innate femininity or our proclivity towards nurturing, caring, creative and domestic roles. The problem lies in society as a whole never acknowledging and seeing the value that these roles provide to the social and economic advancement of society.
What modern feminism has wrong: not valuing femininity
When someone feels that they are valued, they feel that:
- Their work is appreciated.
- They are part of a bigger community of people who also engage in similar work.
- Skills can be developed to a level of expertise in which they are sought out for input, advice and instruction.
- The outcomes and results they achieve are acknowledged and appreciated.
Somehow the feminist movement skipped right over achieving all of these things for homemakers and decided to get validation by becoming the thing that was being valued: male roles.
But here’s the problem with pretending to be something else in order to get accolades, it creates something called imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is something way too many women experience regularly. It occurs when they don’t believe they deserve the success that they achieve because they don’t feel that it can be attributed to their own efforts and skills.
A call for revaluing homemaking
Women are out there every day achieving amazing things. And I’m sure all of it is due to their hard work, tenacity and skill. BUT, and hear me out…maybe they actually are imposters because they are reaching for someone else’s goals. Maybe they feel like a fake, because they are trying to be someone that they aren’t in order to live up to someone else’s standards.
The direct result of modern feminism shoving the masculine role down a woman’s throat is a greater sense of being devalued! Especially since all of those same women are still trying to perform their traditional roles at home.
What if we stopped striving to show men that we can do what they do just as good or better, and we demand appreciation for the innate qualities we contribute?
Now, I’m not saying that we need to remove a woman’s right to choose a career or role outside the home. Or that women don’t possess the ability and skill to be wildly successful in any role they choose. All I am saying is let’s fix the message to one of: traditional femininity and homemaking is critical to the positive development of our society as a whole.
“There continues to be a disconnect between loving our homes and recognizing the important and real value of a homemaker.”
Carrie Gress and Noelle Mering
How do we help people see the value of homemaking?
It seems like “revaluing” the role of the homemaker is one too great to take on. We are, afterall, fighting against over 30 years of the current feminist wave that persuades us to believe that our value can only be found outside of the home. But if we simply focus on the 4 ways to make someone feel valued, that I mentioned above, we can get there!
Strategy # 1: Appreciating homemaking
In order for others to appreciate the value of our homemaking, we must first value ourselves. You will hear me say a million times that modeling is the best way to change someone’s behavior. If you model feeling appreciated through your words and actions, people will start to believe and feel it too!
So get out there and talk about all the value that you bring and speak about it with immense positivity. I speak from experience here! Here’s how conversations used to go with my husband:
“I wish you could see how long it takes me to clean the house and do the laundry.”
Or I may have said something like:
“I know that I don’t always keep the house perfectly clean, but I try my best. I wish there was more time in the day for me to do it all.”
Can you see how this is just setting my husband up to view my contribution as not all that important. I’m literally manifesting his undervaluing of what I have to offer.
When I started talking about all of the things around the house in a positive and value-forward way, he eventually saw the value that I spoke of. People will treat you the way you show them you want to be treated. And if you devalue yourself through words and actions, then so will other people.
However, if you speak highly of your roles, responsibilities and contributions as a homemaker, you will manifest all the appreciation you deserve.
Strategy # 2: Create a community of homemakers
“Nothing great is ever accomplished alone.”
Usman Mustafa
No one can make any great change by themselves. You may be able to inspire great change as a singular person, but it takes a whole community of people with the same idea to push forward real change.
Homemakers need to come together in order to build each other up, inspire one another, and brainstorm ways to get their message out to the masses. If we are all saying the same things, at some point that message is going to gain traction and attention. The more something is heard, the more someone’s brain is open to actually hearing it.
Also, communities of similar-minded people help each other see their value because we reflect it back to each other. As we know from our previous strategy, the more we value ourselves, the more others will value us.
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
Helen Keller
Strategy # 3: Teach, learn and pass down the traditional skills of homemaking
It’s sad to think about how many skills have become obsolete or lost as a result of modern feminism devaluing homemaking. The domestic arts, as they were once called, were things that girls began learning and gaining skill in during childhood and throughout adulthood.
Just as skilled work was learned through apprenticeship, so too were the many domestic art forms that make up homemaking. With more and more Mom’s placing most of their time and energy on careers outside of the home, modern homemaking has been whittled down to tasks like tidying, laundry and the occasional home-cooked meal. Not only is there not enough time to spend doing these skills, but even less time to teach those skills to our young girls.
There is so much pride to be developed when learning and developing the different domestic arts. A sense of pride in one’s skills and constantly progressing in those skills helps others to see that work as meaningful and important. Things that are meaningful and important are valued!
Strategy # 4: Acknowledge the greater role homemaking plays in society as a whole
The value that homemaking brings to our immediate family and the functioning of our home is important and enough. But the fact is, making and sustaining “home” has a greater impact on society.
The quality of a person’s home has a direct impact on the quality of their life. People who feel comfortable, safe and at peace in their home have greater physical and mental well-being. When people enjoy a strong physical and mental well-being they are able to accomplish important and vital work towards their purpose. The more people we have living out their purpose, the greater our world is for it.
We call it “Mother Earth” for a reason! The nurturing and life-giving systems of our natural world have allowed our species to evolve at an extremely quick pace. The same nurturing and life-giving systems are reflected inside the home by homemakers.
The Meaning of Homemaking: A Video to Inspire Your Valuable Work
Lisa Bass, creator of the blog and youtube channel Farmhouse on Boone and podcast Simple Farmhouse Life is one of my biggest inspirations. Whenever I’m feeling unmotivated or negative about my role as a homemaker, I watch one of her videos and within minutes feel inspired to begin tackling my homemaking list. In this video recording of her podcast Simple Farmhouse Life, Lisa and Rebekah Merkle discuss the meaning and importance of homemaking.
I hope you enjoy and come away feeling just as empowered and inspired as I do whenever I tune into one of Lisa’s videos, podcasts or blog posts.
I hope that you can come away from this blog post with a renewed sense of meaning and purpose in your homemaking role. The work you do every day is vital to the health, well-being and joy of your family and yourself.
You can decide that society and other people don’t have a right to influence how you feel about homemaking. It is your right to deem yourself deserving of value and kudos for all of your hard work.
Help me spread the word of “revaluing” homemaking and share the image below on your pinterest board. Let’s build that community of homemakers who finally helps the world see our value and importance!
