The Happy Housewife: Not An Oxymoron

I had been wanting to write a more in-depth blog entry on the concept of housewives in the 21st century. I intended it to be warm and heartfelt. Possibly humourous at times. I thought I could find a semi funny picture to put up to illustrate my point.

However, this is what I most commonly found:

I promise to sound like a completely over-dramatic prat.

“Great advice Mom! Thanks for shoving your ideals down my throat!”

This just sets my teeth on edge. This is just all a bunch of My Generation Feminist brainwashed propaganda rearing it’s ugly head once again. For My Generation Feminists, there can be no such thing as a “Happy Housewife”. Apparently every woman who decides to stay at home to take care of her kids is missing a few nuts and bolts upstairs. Or are completely miserable with their lot in life, have no opinions of their own, and have no interests besides her husband and kids.

However, being a housewife takes a lot of patience, love, and a metric ton of work. I can’t imagine having two full time jobs. I’d go insane. I could never go to work Monday – Friday, 9am-5pm, then come home and work again. Helping kids with homework, making dinner (or helping to make dinner), spending the weekend making sure the house doesn’t start to look like a horrifying episode of Hoarders. On top of all of that, you have to work to keep your marriage/relationship alive with your partner, try and instill life lessons to your kids so they don’t end up in prison or addicted to meth, and after all of that, finding time to sit and relax in the bathtub with a glass of wine and a good book. There just isn’t enough time in the day for me to do everything I would want to do. I barely have enough time to go to school and spend time with my boyfriend.

Truth.

I have never had any real desire to have a full time job. I never really wanted a career. I wanted to take care of my household. I wanted to spend my time rearing my children, spending time with my husband, and creating memories that everyone could take away with them. I never wanted my kids to grow up in day care. How do I know they are teaching them the values I want them to have? I’ve been a full time nanny, so I have a very good idea what it takes to care for very young children (and by full time I mean there were times when it was 10+ hours a day, 5+ days a week). At the end of the work day, I did get to hand the offspring back to the parents, but for those 10 ish hours there were no breaks, there were no other people to hand the child off to when he was throwing a full blown temper tantrum. It was all me. It was stressful. I perfected the art of a three minute shower (one of my jobs was as a live-in).

Always.

But the most important thing that came out of those experiences, was the inner knowledge of myself. Of finding new wells of patience I never knew I possessed. And it also helped me learn my limits. It was great training, it helped me know what kind of parenting I wanted to embody.

This one.

And this one

My Generation Feminists also need to realize that romantic relationships will crumble if you don’t spend time working on them, or simply spending time on them period. I’m not surprised there are so many divorces and separations going on. The priorities list tends to read like this: 1) career, 2) kids, 3) house, 4) significant other. And the second the relationship hits a real rough patch speed bump, it comes down to cut and run time. My Generation Feminists are notorious for the disposable relationship view. If it ain’t working, let him go, cause you don’t need a man. Sure you don’t need a man. You do, however, need to stop being self centered. No wonder they become cynical man haters. After all, it has to be the man’s fault that you can’t sustain a relationship. Men just haven’t gotten with the times! They want to subjugate you! They want to take away your free rights by desiring to spend time with you!

That’s a sign of a good marriage.

Ladies, if you can’t sustain a relationship, take a look at the least common denominator before you start blaming everyone and their uncle. Sometimes the malfunction is you.

As for me, I’m going to continue to have a grand appreciation for housewives. I will continue to defend my decision to become a housewife whenever a My Generation Feminist accuses me of “spitting in the face of every feminist in history”. Because there is nothing wrong with being a housewife. In the end, the only people “brainwashed” are the My Generation Feminists who believe this:

…Said no housewife ever

Instead of this:

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