Monday, 8 March 2010

Making a home

I've been thinking lately (much have too much time on my hands!) about how I came to be a housewife.
Obviously I got married. That was way back in 1998. A year before that we got a house - 1997 - when I was twenty three. But at that time in my life looking after a home and a husband were not the main focus in my life. I certainly took on the lion's share of the housework, but my efforts only occasionally reached bare minimum. I did most of the cooking, but our diet included many pub meals, things in jars and liquid lunches!


Our first son James as born in 2003 and this is when I suddenly thought I should become a proper housewife. After all I had just left my proper (ie wage paying) job and really ought to make myself useful all day at home. Except of course I had a small baby to look after, and that was quite alot harder in real life than my wolly pregnancy brain had imagined.. I had a crisis; I was rubbish at this. I was lonely, I missed talking to grownups, I missed getting drunk in the afternoon, I missed spending my wages on shiny shoes and cigarettes. Eventually I found some mummy friends and settled into a routine of playgroup, coffee and watching CBeebies.

Then I got pregnant again and Anthony was born in 2005. I can't really remember what happened next; it's all a bit of a blur. House was still a mess and while I had no desire to return to work I still hadn't really accepted that homemaker was a valid occupation.

I think alot of change happened around 2007. I found Flylady and gradually I realised I was in charge of this house and I was going to accept the responsibility. So not all the mess was mine, but I was the one who had the time to do something about it. I bought a pinny as a symbol of my new found domesticity.  I don't really follow Flylady's routines anymore, but I still visit the website when I need to find some inspiration.


Poppy came along in 2008, my last baby. I decided to really enjoy her infancy, her dependency. I felt secure and confident in my familial role. As she comes up to two years old I am still not the perfect housewife, but I don't really care about that. I feed my family home cooked meals and freshly baked cake. I provide them with clean clothes and cuddles. I take time to do my hair and make up, I buy fashionable clothes and shiny shoes. Sometimes the house is cluttered and dusty but there are more days when it is fairly tidy. Very occasionally I even dust the skirting boards.

Mostly I am happy, and that is what I think makes a home.

5 comments:

  1. Love this post and it is oh so true for me too!

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  2. Brilliant! I found shopping habits were very easily transferable too, instead of clothes for me, i'd have some things for the baby and a cream cake for me ( just to keep my strength up you understand!)

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  3. Wonderful post! I think being a home-maker/housewife is a role that you have to grow into. Like you, I got married young (22) and had my first baby very quickly and then another a year after and so on and I have got better at housework and organising myself. I'm still far from brilliant, but occasionally, I look at myself as my twenty year old self would see me and I'm bloomin impressed! I can rustle up a roast dinner with trimmings whilst making a desert AND listening to the Archers, sorting dirty washing and stopping Minnie from eating all the cream crackers. My multi-tasking has got better and I get more pleasure out of my role than I did when I was younger and have much more respect for it too. Lovely post!

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  4. Forgot to say, the pictures are beautiful!!

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  5. What a lovely post to read this morning, and beautiful children (although you know that already :-)).
    So true x

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