One of my friends, a very dear childhood friend, has a learning disability. It's not a very severe one as far as I know, but her two siblings always called her a moron. Her father was desperate to help her, but sometimes he would just end up yelling at her if she could not study at the minimum speed she was required to learn. They are our neighbors, so I could hear the yelling from my house's playroom (mom put our toys there so we could play freely and not trip any guests to their death c___c; and dad helped us organizing a town - my first attempts at town planning XD). My friend became absorbed in the idea that she'd find a nice, gentle man and she'd be his loving HOUSEWIFE, because she "failed" at college (she wanted to be a preschooler teacher). My mother taught me, being a housewife is a good goal - if that is what you WANT to be. If you want to go out and work, it's also good. Of course, seeing my family's course I was indirectly convinced that getting a diploma and work with all the joy and fighting it implied was the best way. My mom also (and quite cleverly) taught us, being a housewife is alright, but you NEED YOUR DIPLOMA in case things go awry, so you can detach and support your own children (in case the Prince is really a Beast, you know that is not rare). Never be fully dependent of a man (or anyone else, for that matter). From my friend's experience I came to wonder, is being a housewife the "lesser good?" Are housewives at home because they honestly can't do anything else? What are their skills to make them different from me? My mother taught me how to lead a house, from superbasic things like how to mix cleaners in the right proportions, through choosing cutlery by identifying quality standards, which are the best bedsheets and to cook and sew, how to put a table, among countless more things (wow... looking back on it looks like a lot of stuff o___o;). On the other hand, my grandmother was a housewife yes, but in fact she was a seamstress. She had her own business at home, and she helped mom pay for her education (my grandfather would only give the basic tuition fee, and mom and grandma covered everything else, from books to bus fares and well, all else). So grandma was at home, but she wasn't idle at all. She was busy. Even, she was a professional seamstress, even if she didn't have a degree on the wall. Was she then, really a housewife?
Housewives have strength in muscles I cannot say I use often. I clean my room only once a week. When I was a teen at home, we four daughters had a "week" each to take care of a specific chore. When it was my turn to "clean the house" for a week, man my underarms hurt from sweeping and mopping. I always liked best the "kitchen" week, because I like doing the dishes and cooking... Not so fond of washing the kitchen's floor, though. Do housewives slave all day at the house? Once a week seems more than enough, but again taking all the four "chores" on myself is alone a lot of work. I prefer to go awaaaaay to the office XD. But again, we did have a house helper from time to time.
Mom would cook special meals on the weekend, simply because she wanted to (when she didn't want to, we'd cook or just eat out). She'd pull out her fave cooking books and do awesome stuff. She still does. Now that she's retired, after the economic depression the country went through in the 80s and 90s, now she finally has time and resources again to buy pretties for the house and kitchen. Last time I was informed, she had the tiles of a bathroom replaced and bought new water gobblets.
And she isn't a housewife.
Dad's always been treated kingly c.c;. He can't cook, and I kid you not. He can do sammiches and bbq (in summer). Mom makes him treats. He sometimes does the laundry because he took to it in the late 1980's when he was out of job for a while during the last throbs of the dictatorship in our country; doing the laundry helped him with stress. Also, he befriended the neighbor's kitten and the kitten decided it was going to be our cat. But that's another story. Mom was the breadwinner for a while, then. She didn't change her behavior at all, only tightened the budget (she's always been a wizard of budgets. Hm. She has a post grade in Administration, among other stuff). She did (and does) all this, and she is not a housewife.
Dad was in charge of our school-related parenting. He was the one going to school meetings, he was always the one signing as "caretaker" in the school registering cards every year. He sat down with us to study math and physics (he's a Civil Engineer specialized in Structures). He'd read books to us and told us crazy stories ._.;. We'd run away on adventures when mom wasn't looking (like the time he said we were going for groceries and we actually went to the Hippodrome to see the horses in their stables ^0^!) and stuff. He's the laid back one. Mom is an Azrael c.c; (Bwahaha BD reference right there). Mom also helped with school (mainly to me, my sisters were jealous XD but again, they were teens, they had to do their own school stuff on their own already). We made rag dolls and handicrafts, and girly things. Mom sings very nicely.
My parents had four daughters. My brother died at birth, and he was the last one. I can only imagine the shock of being all ready for your baby, with a baby's room and all you would need and happy, and then the baby just won't live. I think about him, often. Mom has never been able to fully recover of his loss and I know. My dad and I are the ones who tend to his grave every year, before I came to Japan. Dad says it's just too painful for Mom. Lately she's been better on this subject, and she'll have my brother moved from his baby crypt to the family vault she's bought at the church where my parents married. Then she can go there every Sunday. My brother didn't live beyond those nine months inside of her, but yes he was loved, and he still is. Even I love him, and I never met him. He'd be 29 years old now.
In short, my mother is a working professional, a Civil Engineer. She's worked all of her life. She married a good man, they have raised four daughters, mentally healthy, all professionals now. Recently I have seen people in so-called developed countries starting to say women should go back "to the kitchen" and women saying housewives are better than working women. They argue a working woman neglects her children and couldn't ever have a "successful" home. I cannot agree with such ideas, seeing my own experience and my other friends's whose moms are working professionals. I think if people believe being a housewife is a "solution" for something, they are being naive.
What would have a housewife done differently, anyway? c.c;
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