How Not to Housewife…

My son looked at me carefully over dinner last night and said, ‘are you less stressed now that you’ve left work?’ It wasn’t a question. Somehow, the whole of yesterday seemed to run away from me, like a leaf in the wind; I just couldn’t catch up. You’d assume, with no paid work and just a house to keep, that my day would be relaxed, time for coffee and a book, maybe even some ironing. After the dentist and ferrying the children back to school, I polished and tidied, had a brief call with the doctor and prepared lunch. I wrote myself a little list of baking and cooking I wanted to get done, as well as the hoovering and washing the floors. All of it felt achievable within my no-paid-work timetable, however six o clock rolled around, with me sweating and dashing about in the kitchen, checking I hadn’t burnt the sourdough crackers, burning the oat and raisin cookies, struggling to find any room in the two ovens for the fruit cake. Supper was 45 minutes late in the end and I was on the verge of tears of exhaustion, the hoovering and floor washing consigned to a well intentioned line on my to do list. But when I really felt I had failed was when my son, eyeing me keenly, asked if I was less stressed. Nobody wants a clean house, freshly baked snacks and a harassed mother.

On reflection, my biggest surprise was how I could be so busy and actually, so over-busy with just housewife work. ‘Just’. I’ve known for awhile that two full time senior careers within one home doesn’t work so well for us — my husband and I have lived that reality for the past 10 years and are still feeling it’s residual stress and pervasive burnout. I had never appreciated though, that the work of keeping a house and a family is fully full-time. It’s busy, busy work. I have not swapped one full-time senior paid role, for a part time cleaning hobby. This is seriously exhausting, full-on work and it’s tiring. I would caveat that there are ways of doing this work, same as there are ways of doing paid work too. I could buy all of our food in, I don’t have to bake. I could get food deliveries and do less cleaning, just attending to the minimum. But I am doing what feels right for me, what feels like a level of work and effort commensurate with my husband’s. I don’t want to sit and have extended coffees and watch youtube, whilst he barely manages a lunchbreak.

But I also don’t want another supper like last night. I want my kids to see the joy in hard working homework. I want them to feel the satisfaction I feel in putting a home cooked meal on the table, from scratch and seeing them hoover it up because it’s really delicious. I want to show them my gratitude in having precious children and a wonderful husband to care for. So I’m going to work on relaxing into this hard work a bit more, trying to manage my schedule a little better so that I’m not on my knees come five o clock. And having compassion on myself when I make mistakes and everything is late (and burnt).

This is taken from the Loaf and Quill, my weekly newsletter where I share my reflections on the creative process, faith and homemaking whilst eating a large slice of buttered sourdough and hot tea. If you enjoy my writing and would like to continue receiving these Newsletters, please subscribe and share this publication with a friend. Thank you https://ethelhardy.substack.com/