Homemaking

[Warning: rather ornery post ahead.]

I’m a little tired of all this hullabaloo about making the job of homemaker into something that sounds more valuable than it really is.

Now, get me straight. I’m not talking about mothering. I’m not talking about being a wife. I’m talking about homemaking.

Even the name makes me wince. Face it, chics, we’re house-wenches. (We are also a lot of other things, but the “homemaking” part is just a lot of menial tasks, regardless of what you call it.) I am so sick of Relief Society lessons on the way the “feeling is different” in a house that’s been mopped lately, that dried flower/wreath arrangements and “Return with Honor” signs decrease the amount of contention in the home. Sick of it, I tell you.

I’ll grant you that living in a pigpen makes me uptight or downright grouchy, and that my grouchiness usually spreads to the entire family and soon enough, woops, there goes the Spirit. I’ll grant you that we’ve been asked to hang pictures of the temple up, etc. I’m not saying that the environment doesn’t influence things.

To a point.

But think about it. Is it the disorder that’s making people ornery or my response to it? If I could live in perfect serenity despite disorder, would my children be more healthy than if I were a stress-case but the house was spotless?

It’s not the WORK ITSELF that’s sacred, people. It’s my attitude about it. And I don’t see how announcing to the world that scrubbing the toilet is a sacred duty is going to change anything about it unless I truly believe it (which is just a change of attitude).

So, although my house isn’t a disaster area, I’m going to let the dirty dishes sit out on the counter a little longer than maybe another woman in my ward would while I (fill in the blank).

Did you think I was going to say “read to my kids”? Or “scrapbook”? Because those are OK things to do instead of the dishes, right? But what if I’m just blogging or doing e-mail? Is that OK? Well, I believe that it is—IF the blogging makes me more serene instead of less.

So I guess when I say “it’s not the job, it’s the attitude,” I am acknowledging the value of calling your scrubbing sacred—if calling it that is what helps you change your attitude. But don’t make me call it that. For me, it’s just scrubbing. I do it if it bugs me. (I’m sorry if it’s not often enough for you so that you wince when you come visit me, or makes you not want to come at all. That’s sad. I’ll miss you.)