Domesticity coming back into vogue?
This was an interesting read:For a while 'housewife' has been a word with a solidly retro feel, evoking a time of hand-cranked washing machines and a slavish desire to serve martinis to your husband. Nowadays, we have stay-at-home mums with packed calendars and their own personal trainers. But the word is slipping into our vocabularies again, championed by women writing homemaking manuals and online blogs devoted to art of domesticity.
The internet is awash with it. Posts are devoted to 'How to clean like a maid' or 'how to crochet a dishcloth'. Elsewhere, bloggers tell how they have knitted a cashmere hot water bottle cover, baked muesli cookies or cleaned their toilet naturally.
Read full article. (thanks to reader, Kate from London, for passing it along.)
I found the last paragraph especially thought-provoking:
Yet while these housewives might have opted out of the rat race, they're not exempt from the dog-eat-dog mentality. Blogs entitled 'My House Is Cuter Than Yours' suggest that having a perfectly turned out home is as serious an endeavor as that of any feminist corporate raider.
It is so easy for a competitive, comparing nature to arise in any realm of life - even when it comes to our roles as wives, mothers, and homemakers. I know I certainly have seen it happen and have fallen prey to it myself. I think it lies in our desire as women to be accepted. We want to be someone, do something, and prove ourselves. We want to impress others.
What we're so easily forgetting is that what others think of us is not important; what matters most is what the Lord thinks of us. Having a heart which is seeking to glorify Him in every area of our lives is so much more important than having a close-to-perfect home (something I'll never have, but can certainly stress myself out over trying attain!).
posted by Crystal Paine at 12:36 PM
7 Comments:
Crystal, you're right about one thing: anything, even the wonderful calling of homekeeper, can be a source of stress and competition when our eyes aren't on the King and His purpose for calling us to do what we're doing. Thanks for the insights.
I'm so glad you posted this. Sometimes we allow other people or pressures to be more of a taskmaster than Jesus Christ would ever be.
I think we do have to be careful in comparing each other among each other. It is simply not wise!
I agree totally! We must keep our eyes on Him, recognizing that He is the source of all our blessings. Being a homemaker is, in my opinion, definitely among my greatest blessings. I can't imagine doing anything else.
I have learned that instead of comparing myself to the woman down the street or anywhere else for that matter, I need to compare myself to Christ. We are all living in a fallen state, no matter how perfect we may appear to be. Trying to measure up to another is unfruitful. Jesus is the perfection we should all strive to attain. Yes we will fall short of Him also, but by keeping our eyes on Him and seeking to be like Him, we can draw closer moment by moment and day by day. So instead of thinking, "I wish I were like so and so" I pray "Lord I wish I were more like you". It has not been an easy lesson, and I have to remind myself of it often. But He is the only one we should concern ourselves about what is being thought about us!
Excellent points - I have to go read the full piece. I have some thoughts on this that have been really sitting on my heart lately - blog fodder, I suppose. ;-)
It's amazing how human beings can turn anything and everything into a competition. Thanks for the reminder to beware of that tendency in my life.
Blessings,
Heather-Doodle Acres
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