Why I Decided to Become a Housewife

By Taisa Efseaff Maffey

Recently, I’ve been asked on more than one occasion, “So what do you do?”  I must admit I wasn’t quite sure how to answer.  Since I’m no longer working outside the home, do I answer that I’m a stay-at-home wife?  A homemaker?  A housewife?  I immediately threw out “homemaker” because it evoked laughable images of me hanging up floral curtains and valances fresh off the sewing table.  “Housewife” similarly made me think of a lady in the 1950s with short, curled hair and red lipstick, showing off her tiny waist in a full skirted dress and apron.  Dissatisfied with labels that carry inaccurate connotations, I continued to wonder about how I should have answered that question.

It was several years ago now, but I still remember how shocked and offended I was as a single 20-something girl when I learned that the woman leading women’s ministry at my church was encouraging married women to quit their jobs and stay home if they were able, even if they didn’t have children.  I understood and appreciated the concept of the stay-at-home mom, but this was a stretch for me.

“So what are they supposed to do?” I asked my friend that had informed me of this outrageous news.

“Well, she encourages them to focus on taking care of their home life, planning and cooking meals, cleaning the house, running errands, all of that,” she explained.

I was stumped.  “But how long does all that actually take?” I asked doubtfully.  “What are they supposed to do with the rest of their time?  What about developing their professional skills and doing something meaningful in the world?”

My friend, who at the time was also single, shrugged her shoulders.  “I don’t know.  Personally, I couldn’t imagine not working.  I would go crazy and probably rearrange the furniture all the time.”

I simply couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  I knew women to be intelligent, highly skilled, multi-tasking, efficient beings.  My own mother worked full-time while I was growing up, raised four kids, chauffeured us to and from extra-curricular activities, helped my dad with his printing business, served actively in our church, volunteered her time with an elderly neighbor, co-produced a church publication for many years, and had dinner on the table every evening.  What’s more, a large majority of my teachers had been women, and I had been told over and over in school that women could do and be anything they wanted.  Clearly, this woman in charge of women’s ministry at my church was selling the female sex short if she thought they should stay home to cook and clean.

It wasn’t until I got married that I began to rethink my opinions about what it means to be a woman and what it looks like (or should look like) in practice.  My revelation came about something like this:

I was working full-time, and Ethan was working full-time.  Besides work life, there was home life, but home life still included work.  After getting off work, there would be groceries to buy, dinner to cook, a kitchen to clean, clothes to wash, and meals to plan for the rest of the week.  Of course, this is also after dealing with some of those other things that come up in your personal life that you have to somehow fit in during the workday: dry cleaning to drop off and pick up, packages to drop off for mailing, cars to take in for fixing or maintenance, doctor/dentist/chiropractor appointments, bills to pay, computer problems to fix, unexpected issues with bank accounts and credit cards and health insurance that require phone calls and waiting on hold to sort out.  And then there are those really fun days where you end up having to work late.  It’s amazing how many wrenches are thrown into the works of everyday life.

At this point, I can imagine two reactions to what I’m describing: 1) “Well, there are two of you to share the workload in your personal life, aren’t there?” and 2) “Yeah, that’s life!  All of us have to deal with that stuff, too.  And some of us also have kids!”

In response to the first reaction, I would agree that when there are two people working full-time, in theory the same two people should each be responsible for half the chores, tasks, and errands required in their personal life together.  But practically speaking, this doesn’t work.  A study released last year by the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that women still tend to do most of the housework: “On an average day, 19 percent of men did housework–such as cleaning or doing laundry–compared with 49 percent of women. 42 percent of men did food preparation or cleanup, compared with 68 percent of women.”  Is this because men are lazier, careless, or unhelpful?  I can’t say that about any of the men in my life.

I believe that by nature women have a general nesting instinct and can’t help but take the initiative in caring for the home and the needs of her family.  I believe this to be an innate female characteristic that is difficult, if not impossible, for most women to ignore.  I say this based on observation, personal experience, and what I know to be true Biblically.  So what ends up happening is the woman suffers from an incurable urge to take care of all the things that need to be done in her and her husband’s personal life.  And so when she comes home from work, her second job begins.  Even the best husband in the world can’t keep up with her when it comes to her responding to this instinct.  I know because I’m married to him.

In response to the second reaction, I would argue that a life where a woman wears herself out by working double-duty simply doesn’t make sense.  In other words, it can be too much for a woman to work a full-time job outside the home as well as work a full-time job inside the home.  When I was working double-duty, I was constantly stressed out.  Granted, I was working in a stressful environment for demanding people (also known as lawyers), but it was more than that.  I felt like I couldn’t keep up with both worlds.  And I felt horrible that at the end of the day, Ethan got this anxious, irritable, gloomy version of myself that even I didn’t want to be around.

I distinctly remember listening to a sermon that changed the way I thought about working women.  The pastor brought up the specific issue of working moms and then referenced the curses that man and woman received after The Fall.  After Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, the man would have to continuously work hard for food and provisions while the woman would suffer in bringing forth children (Genesis 3:16-19).  The question the pastor posed next blew my mind: “Why would a woman ever want to take on both curses?”

At this point, I can imagine a couple more reactions to what’s being said here: “What about a woman’s dreams of having a career in addition to being married and having kids?”  In other words, why shouldn’t a woman be able to be a wife and mother and have her dream job?”  Gosh, if you know a woman who takes great care of her family and home life, has a great marriage, works at a job she loves, and doesn’t feel stretched too thin, I would love to meet her and see what that looks like.  My point is that a woman can be a working wife or mom, but can she do it without sacrificing something?  Can she do it without feeling like she’s carrying an extra burden on her shoulders?  I don’t believe so, and I don’t believe God intended for this to be the case.

Another possible reaction is, “What about the woman who has to work out of necessity to support the family income?”  I would agree that this is a common issue in today’s world.  I definitely wasn’t working during the first year and a half of our marriage because I enjoyed it; it was a paycheck.  And having ObamaCare forced on us certainly made it harder for me to quit my job or take on a part-time job without benefits.  But even still, when I think about it, we could have managed financially even if I had stopped working back then.  It would have been tight, and we wouldn’t have been able to spend money on extras like eating out, clothes shopping, new furniture, trips, or to put much money into savings, but we could have managed on one income by making some sacrifices.  We ended up choosing not to make those material sacrifices, but it was in fact a choice.

My point here is we are always sacrificing something.  I grew tired of sacrificing myself and our personal life for a job.  I began praying for a way out of my job so I could focus on my job as a wife.  God ended up answering that prayer (and several others) by providing Ethan with a better job in Seattle.  Accepting the job meant sacrificing our life in beautiful Bend, but we knew that the sacrifice would be worth it, and it has been.

Since I stopped working outside the home, I am no longer stressed out and rushing around all the time.  When Ethan comes home from work, we can both enjoy eating dinner and spending time together.  Weekends are more enjoyable because we don’t have to spend them doing chores, running errands, or grocery shopping.  We spend less money on eating out and we eat healthier because I cook our meals and make Ethan lunches to take to work.  We don’t argue about who should be doing which chores.  We don’t argue about something not being done because each of us thought the other would handle it.  For us, life works better this way.

So how have my opinions about womanhood changed?  First of all, my teachers were wrong.  Women can’t do or be anything they want.  Women want to have it all – healthy marriage, great kids, rewarding career, and overall happiness – and they feel like they should be able to do everything it takes to obtain and sustain these things, but this is a ludicrously impossible expectation.  All you have to do is look at the prevalence of divorce in this country, of kids with behavioral problems in our schools, of teenagers who are sexually active and/or experimenting with alcohol and drugs.  I believe a major contributor to these sad statistics is women who are overextending themselves with work and don’t have the time or energy to apply themselves to maintaining their marriages and families.

What it comes down to is priorities, which change over time.  My priority as a single girl was to get my degree and then get a job that made me feel important.  If I could tell the teenage and 20-something versions of myself anything, it would be that my worth as a woman does not depend on having a good job or career.  Today, my priorities are to be a good wife, have a happy home life, and pursue the kind of work that God puts on my heart to do, and I now see way more worth in that.

I’ll admit my priorities today aren’t sexy.  I think it would sound a lot cooler if I could say I was a hot-shot attorney, an editor for a publishing company or magazine, or a businesswoman who traveled all over the world.  But the reality is that the women who are doing those things are sacrificing other things, arguably more important than having an impressive career or contributing to the family income.

So what should I answer in response to the question, “So what do you do?”  I guess it doesn’t matter if you call me a stay-at-home wife, a homemaker, or a housewife.  I’m just thankful I can now call myself happy.