Ahh. The holidays are upon us. The house is decorated to the nines, you have slaved away in the kitchen to prepare a feast fit for Kings and Queens, the children are well dressed and well behaved. You are expecting the first guest to arrive any moment now. In the back of your mind, you ask yourself, “Why do I do this every year? “  You are not alone in your thinking. Many women ask the same question during the chaos of the holiday season, but keeping up appearances, and with the Jones’s, seems to be the status quo for this time of year.  How did this happen? We woman have fought our own war to free ourselves from the enslavement of the husband. We have proven ourselves strong, independent, and capable of making our own money. Well I hate to break it to you sister but the holiday season use to be every day of the year not too long ago. Moreover, our husbands love it, live for it, and are secretly lobbying for those days of the perfect wife to come back.

You remember those days don’t you ladies. When it was a wife’s duty to be up, dressed, with makeup and apron on making breakfast before the husband and children woke up in the morning. A good wife kept the house in pristine order, because you never knew whom your husband or children might bring home. You never went to bed with curlers in your hair, God forbid you turn your husband off before he closed his manly eyes for sleep. We weren’t backseat drivers because we did not know how to drive and always asked our husband’s opinion on every thought that crossed our minds. Back when the divorce rate was non-existent.

My, how have times changed. We still get dressed for breakfast, just not for our husbands anymore. With today’s ADD/ADHD children, who can really keep a house in pristine order?  So is good housekeeping a dying art? Are there any women out there who are content with being the perfect wife and mother and not the dynamic woman of today?

I have seen a few women of this dying breed hanging around bake sales and hiding in their garages hosting scrapbook parties, their more successful counterparts snickering behind their backs at their subservient ways. Many wondering why these women don’t go out, get a job, use that college degree sitting your sock drawer and make something out of your life.

Just the other day, my daughters’ teacher slapped me in the face with how wonderful it must be for me as a “home engineer” and how she wished for the same freedom, I have. I found myself giving her my pedigree of accomplishments and current aspirations and dreams on the spot with a slight indignation in my voice that caused her to retort with an, “Oh. You are an ambitious one.”  What the heck! When I got home, I thought, “What is wrong with being a housewife?”  Is it such an embarrassment to admit you take care of the children, the home, the cooking, cleaning, landscaping, sewing, and tend to your husband even though you are tired? I am a housewife and then some. So what I have a degree (or two), I chose to take care of and raise my children instead of sending them in to the care of a person who may have suspect morals. I take pride in making my floors reflect like mirrors. I see nothing wrong with wanting to care for my family and home and making it a priority in my life.

I know the world doesn’t place a premium on housewives and all that really entails. Instead, we watch perpetrators of what a homemaker is on television. We ooh and ahh over their glamorous lives. The Real Housewives of who gives a flying fart. There is nothing real about those woman and more than half of them are not even wives. Come on people. If you want a real glimpse into the life of a housewife, stroll on over to my house and hang out for a day. You will find no nannies to change stinky diapers, chefs to cook, maids to dust and do the endless piles of laundry, and certainly no gardener to pull weeds at my home.

Most women want what I have but can’t handle what I do. There is more to being a homemaker than cooking and cleaning and eating Bon-Bon’s while watching Days of Our Lives in television. We run the house and everything in and pertaining to it. It is an enterprise, an ever-evolving business.  Homemakers should be more akin to Captains of their own fleet of ships, keeping them in tip-top order, steering the children in the way they should go, helping our husbands through the maze of life. That is nothing to be ashamed about, it’s good housekeeping.

I could continue on my rant stating how the world would be a better place if only women went back to their positions of days of old, but that would get me death threats. I will simply state, women are needed in the home as well as in the workplace. Our absence in the home is painfully obvious and as the intelligent, creative, jiggling artist that we are, certainly more of us should make the time to be a homemaker in addition to our roles as working women. So during this holiday season women, please don’t bash, belittle, or put down your friendly neighborhood housewife. All that you are doing during this hectic time of year is only a taste of our everyday lives. After the hustle and bustle of the New Year party is over and you are back to your life as a professional woman, remember your time as a homemaker. Remember how hard it was to make sure the home was in order, keeping the kids clean and well behaved, and how your husband was happily bragging to his buddies about your famous Beef Wellington you make every year for Christmas. Think on those things when you see that “home engineer “at the next PTA meeting, offer her a cup of coffee, good conversation, or a babysitter for an hour. She will certainly feel more appreciated for what she does and you will too.

~Y