The Value of a Housewife

Perhaps I never noticed before because I was never in a situation to observe, but it seems to me that there is little to no value placed on staying at home, raising the kids and taking care of the household these days.

Please understand, I believe in the rights of a woman to be anything that she wants to be. An astronaut, an attorney, President of the United States...whatever. I'm not opposed to women in the workforce, and, to take it one step further, I believe that women should be treated and paid fairly. Enough said.

However, it seems to me that feminism has sucked a dream right out of some women's hands: the dream of staying at home to raise children and tend to the home.

What does a housewife do? Well, it sort of depends on whether or not the family is set up as a Donna Reid situation or more like my family in which I work about 25-30 hours a week as a substitute teacher and split the household duties about 60/40, me holding down the 60%. Lee does the yard work, the trash and (more often than not) the cooking consistently. And, he works full time. I clean, do the laundry, and pay the bills consistently. We balance dishes, bottle washing and putting Nathanial down for bed.

It frustrates me that women who stay at home are somehow considered less ambitious or even less intelligent than women who join the work force. This has hit me hard after a conversation with someone from my church. Apparently, this person (who happens to be extremely educated and hard working) did not know I was out of real estate and asked me for comps for a rental home she and her husband has in a neighborhood not far from where I live. When I told her I was now substitute teaching, she said, and I quote:

"Well that doesn't pay dick..."

Firstly, I could not believe that word came out of her mouth. After all, she's so intelligent and I thought intelligent people used the word penis. It also just didn't seem proper seeing her position in our church. But that wasn't all. I took her offering suggestions of all the things that I could do that pay more extremely personally as I felt that she saw now value in the life I was living.

What I don't think she understood is that I work the job that I work to balance out my work-home life and be there for my family. Perhaps being at home and reading to my son and doing laundry and washing bottles and scrubbing toilets and paying bills doesn't "pay dick," but that doesn't mean there isn't any value in it.

After all...many working moms HIRE people and PAY them to cook them meals, do their laundry, clean their home and read to their child, and that is OKAY. More power to them. What I am saying is that there are people who get PAID to essentially be housewives.

So why is it when a woman, an intelligent, college-educated woman CHOOSES to work as little as she can and stay home to make her house the best place it can be for her husband to come home to, she's all of the sudden backward, simple, stupid, or, and I hate this one, not living up to her potential?

I have a 9 month old son. A 9 month old son who means the world to me and faces doctor's appointments monthly and physical therapy weekly. Could we use some more cash? Absolutely! We're in debt. We NEED more cash. But he also needs his mommy. And until we can figure out a different situation, this is how it has to be. And no value can be placed on that.