Greetings, From A Lazy Housewife

(Found here.)

I was sitting in a meeting recently and the woman teaching began discussing how lucky women are when they get to stay home with their kids.  (Agreed, by the way.)  Then she talked for a while about how IF you are lucky enough to stay home with your kids then you better give your man a hot meal and a clean house and throw some lipstick on before he comes home.  (Did I mention that she had never had children?  Yeah.)

I hung my head in shame. 

Then I felt a little offended. 

Then some more shame.

I try, I really do, but my house isn't spotless and I don't know where the lipstick is.  We do have a hot meal every night but that is a bright spot in my many failings. 

Then recently I hear bantered around the news some talk thrown at a wealthy political candidate's wife because she stayed home with her numerous children.  Said critic apparently said this mother of five (I think) had "never worked a day in her life" or something of that sort. 

And of course there is some fab new book coming out written by a brilliant French intellectual which pisses all over that stupid cloth diapering, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, parenting set over here in the US of A.  (Just for the record, I don't believe that cloth diapering mamas actually LIKE human feces any more than the next guy.  Crap is pretty universally gross, no matter what it goes into.  People feel this way, housewife or not, cloth or disposable, French or anything else.)

As I pondered these words spoken and written about the modern mom/housewife/breastfeeder/woman/etc, I felt a range of emotions.  Some anger.  A few, "They just don't get it!" moments, and I was even a little offended.

Then I realized something that should have been obvious. 

I

DON'T

CARE

WHAT

THESE 

PEOPLE

THINK 

ABOUT

ME 

OR

MY 

LIFE.

Yeah.  That was about it.  

I like my life.  I am happy in it.  I enjoy my children and what they bring to me.  I still feel intelligent and I still feel like what I do has meaning even though the majority of my work resides within the walls of my home.  

Yes, sometimes when people say that the homemaker "doesn't work" it strikes me as a little offensive, but sometimes there is a reason for that.  My guilt when this comes up might be because some days I DON'T work as hard as I should.  I am GLAD I feel guilty about it.  Then I can work on it and try harder and be better.

When it comes down to it though, people can go ahead and bash, make fun, mock, disrespect, whatever.  I don't care.  I am pretty sure that if I met these people (who all happen to be women- WHAT is up with that!?) in real life I wouldn't even like them.  So worrying about what people I don't know, and wouldn't like, think about ME, is a total waste of my emotional energy.  

You don't want to be a housewife?  Then for the love of all that is holy- DON'T BE ONE.  But if you want to talk endlessly about all the ways that other women suck, don't be hurt when I ignore you, don't buy your book, or roll my eyes when you start talking.  

Greetings, from a lazy housewife.