Wise Words on Wednesday ~ on being a housewife

Have you ever felt embarrassed when asked how you spend your days? Saying "I'm a homemaker" is no longer done with pride, and that to me is sad.

Of course, much of the world would agree that being a housekeeper is acceptable as long as you are not caring for your own home; treating men with attentive devotion would also be right as long as the man is the boss in the office and not your husband; caring for children would even be deemed heroic service for which presidential awards could be given as long as the children are someone else's and not your own.

by Dorothy Patterson quoted in the book Passionate Housewives by Jennie Chancey and Stacy McDonald

But society is wrong! Being a keeper of your home, a help meet to your husband, and a loving mother to your children is a worthy, admirable, and a holy mission.

Doug Phillips from Vision Forum puts it this way:

The household is the God-ordained seat of education. It is the first place where we are to develop and communicate a distinctively Christian aesthetic for culture. The home is not to be relegated to a mere place for consumption, but transformed into a powerful tool for industry and production. In the household (not the state welfare agency) we find God's true pattern for multi-generation, covenantal care. The home, not even the temple or church meeting house, has always been the God-ordained primary locus for daily worship. Our homes not only provide us with a platform to honor God's non-optional commands for one-anothering and hospitality, but they were designed to be the most powerful forums for evangelism and discipleship in the Christian's arsenal.

That does not sound like mousy homemaking or lousy housewifing, does it?

I have worked out in the "real world," I know both sides of the story. Being at home is tough work, but it is completely worth it. It is God's work, and I am honored to be called to keep my home and teach my daughters to do the same, and I am learning to do it passionately.