Thursday 8 June 2023

Roads

 Warning: long, discursive and a bit weird.

synonyms for housewife: homemaker, family manager, home economist, home engineer, lady of the house, mistress of the house, wife and mother.


You know, the world would probably not run without housewives. (And the occasional house husband, of course.) A woman with top intelligence and drive can manage a fulfilling and successful career and wife/motherhood. But most women do not have the opportunities, the work ethic or a very helpful spouse, all of which are what makes the career path possible. Yes, I hear you muttering, there are a lot of single women out there managing work and children. Yes. There are. The point is, though, that it can be very, very hard. Ask a childless, unmarried career woman how easy it is to have a dinner party solo, just in passing. She could certainly use a helper, a gofer, someone to shop, clean, manage the laundry, run errands, garden, all that. A helpmeet. Synonym for wife. To have the time and resources necessary to climb most work ladders, a person needs that support. That wife. Politicians almost have to have one – preferably blonde, sweet, the mother of two and a half adorable children, and ready at any time to pose with said children and the photogenic dog.  Most successful people have one. Having the support leads to success.

I am defining ‘success’ in saying all this. A successful career, as opposed to a ‘job’, or a succession of jobs, is specific, in this context. It is the path of choice for the woman in it, and a path that leads upward to recognition and reward, to responsibility and promotion. A successful career satisfies the person in it and the person gives satisfaction. Sure, a lot of men do not have successful careers, for various reasons.  But my point is that many more women than men end up dead-ended, struggling, underpaid and unappreciated. If, instead of a struggling worker, the woman is a housewife, all of these things are also very likely to be true. Yes, there are housewives by choice. If they have not been persuaded by custom or family pressure, good for them.  Those few, those happy few. As they say. The rest of womankind is, um, held cheap.



Is it fixable, do you think?  There is one road, a path that runs through education combined with both the ability to profit by the education and the opportunity to use it. For this to work, the education has to be relevant and suited to the individual. The things taught have to be related enough to the work world, to confer value and impart both knowledge and desire to know and do. I have worked in the peripheries of the education industry all my life and I do not have a high opinion of a lot of the curriculum, which tends to lag reality, or some of the teachers, who tend to live in yesterday instead of tomorrow. Somewhere in there it would also be really good if the student learns to think, just a little; but I have digressed. 

One thing that cannot be changed is that it is the women who gestates and produces the children. And, after the pregnancy, a lot of the caring for the newborn falls to the mother, especially if the child is nursed rather than bottle fed. Although it is tiring for both parents, raising the children falls mostly to the mother, in our society. The same thing is true of housework and, just generally, gatekeeping. In a two-person household, these tasks tend to fall on the wife of the house. She may hear ‘How can I help?’, but lifting the burden requires looking at its shape and weight and figuring out how to share, truly share it, without being told to do each individual task. The gatekeeper, the scheduler, has the responsibility and must make the time to do the planning, telling, reminding, list making, locating and researching. True even if there is an empty nest – guess who ends up disposing of the egg shells. 

Ah, I now hear you saying. You just need to simplify. Then the burden is less. I hear that in a lot of ways from a lot of sources and I think it is just plain wrong. Simple solutions to complex problems do not exist. Sorry. Whether you are the leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition or married to a worrier, you are, please believe me, wrong. “You don’t need to iron my handkerchiefs” says the helpful spouse. Well, no. But rough-folded handkerchiefs do not fit into the drawer properly; they take up twice the space of ironed ones. To simplify, one could use paper tissues. At, sadly, a cost both to the weekly grocery bill and the environment, not to mention the task of making sure that a tissue does not go into the wash in a pocket. Paper tissues are make using bleach, oh dear, but the cloth handkerchiefs require bleach, or at least saline solution, if the user has a cold or a nosebleed. And around we go. Simple? Nah. 

Disclosure time: I am a housewife. I have been a housewife, more often than not, for sixty years and counting. Yes, I have studied, worked, volunteered, all things I did in addition to my day job. Um, perhaps I should describe it as my day-and-night job, because housewifing is not something that you
can quit at 5:00 PM, hang up your tools and go out for a drink. Especially not if you are a mother; disclosure requires me to add here that my househusband was a willing and creative babysitter in the evenings and certainly made being a mother an easier job because of that. I do not, am not, able to judge if I have been a successful housewife, though, because what is the standard for success? Sixty years of marriage to the same man? Two successful children raised, launched and applauded? A grandchild well on the way to at least a chance at a satisfying life?  Am I, then, a success judged by my past ability to do my job? I repeat, I have no idea. Am I satisfied with myself? Well, no. 

It was the road I chose, but the road not taken haunts me.


10 comments:

  1. I have thought of the road not taken in my early life recently. I have concluded I can’t change anything and I work at finding the joy in my life as it is now, every day. It makes me a happy person, without regrets. I hope you will find some peace with the road you chose!

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    1. Marie, I would not do one thing differently, were I to have the option at evey fork in the road. What gets me going, though, is that the world is not set up for women and that they take a lot of punishment, even in societies that give lip service to equality, such as ours. I have tried, all through a long life, to be of service, to make things better, and I guess it is never enough.

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  2. This is heavy for me this morning, but I don’t think we really have the choices that we think we do. We settle into our roles due to circumstances and personal proclivities and muddle along somehow. Sue took a similar path as you, so we have not enjoyed the expensive treats that some have, but we have been more or less content and happy.

    That probably didn’t make any sense, but I will say in passing that your conclusion really frosted me off. 🤓

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    1. I knew you would get that one. There were two, though. The clue is pretty obscure, I guess.
      There is a lot more to life than expensive treats ... they don't last very long, in my observation. It's the simple things that last.

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  3. It's the Mental Load that will always do us in. My husband still has no true understanding of the planning aspect of everything. He is a willing participant of chores, but I HAVE TO ASK OR TELL HIM. That will always be the rub. And getting ready to host anyone for a holiday or a weekend at the lake requires total commitment from me; he has zero idea what it entails no matter how many times I tell him. He simply says, "Well, I'll help you with everything." The logistics, the planning, the pre-Everything is the killer.

    And how many times did I do all of it while teaching and with small boys? How did I ever manage? I was Superwoman.

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    1. You were. No question. In killer heels. Laughing about the planning thing. My father was just the same. My husband is, very much differently, a planner in some respects. We are having company for dinner on Monday and he has written me out a menu. I get my instructions in many things. Good thing I love him.

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  4. That is an interesting post. I haven't thought about success. I don't think life is win/lose, though. You do the best you can with what life throws at you. I was a single mom, and
    Thanks for visiting. I'd love the source of plant support. I have ordered one, but I'm not sure if it'll work for the orchid or cherry tomato planter. It is win/lose.

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    1. Jenn, it is not win/lose that I suffer about, but rather lose/lose. I have a daughter, unmarried, with an amazing career. She has a friend with two children, a failed marriage and a second marriage, who is an amazingly good writer but whose skill has never been properly recognised. I find that extremely sad. Both women are bright, educated and from almost identical backgrounds. And, I find this very funny, both of them have from time to time wanted to be the other one. There is not one good answer, but the question, for me, will not go away.

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