joining the forums

[Annelise]

Hi. I hope you all don't mind that I've joined the forums. I'm not yet a mother or a housewife, I'm a nineteen year old college student. However, I've known since I was about 13 that I did want to be both of those things, but not in the ways I'd seen it done before. I was grown up home-schooled, and was taught that wives were to be submissive to their husbands. I balked at this. I knew that I was both a feminist, but that I always wanted to be a mother, take care of my family, and home-school.
I usually get two responses. One is mostly from girls my own age. They claim that you cannot be a housewife and a feminist. They say that it's letting yourself being oppressed by males. I tell them that being a feminist doesn't mean going into the work place and trying to be a man. It means having the freedom to decide what it is exactly you want to do with your life, and being able to work towards achieving those dreams.
The response I get from the women older than me is that I'll change my mind when I have just one kid. What people don't understand is that I've seen this done with my stepmom, and to some extent I've done it myself. For three years, between 12 and 15 I took care of five children (my brother who is a year and a half younger than me, and 4 children who were all under the age of 7, two of them my siblings) for six hours. My stepmom was going to college, so I was in charge of meeting their needs, cooking, cleaning, bathing, doing all the normal mom activities. I loved it, and I'm better at it than I am at anything.
I joined this because I want to start learning more about being a feminist housewife, so I can just start getting insight and advice for when I become one myself.

[evelyne]

hey there annelise! i'm also a college student, curious about feminist housewives and thinking about my future. i'm the opposite though, i don't want to be a housewife but i'd like my future husband to be one. i have huge career goals but i'd also want to give my kids many siblings. i'm starting to think if i want to have kids, i'd probably need my partner to work at home. so often at my school we talk about career goals and all that jazz, but people never mention how they'll balance their work life and their home life. it's not like all these students don't ever plan on getting married and having kids; i don't understand why our future family life never factors into these career goal conversations. you're lucky you've got an idea how you want your life to turn out! don't let anyone tell you what you want from your life of course haha. i think at our age we're just supposed to be open-minded and roll with it when things don't go exactly as our teenaged-selves planned they would. are you at all worried about how you'd support yourself if you ended up widowed or divorced? i think a lot about plan B's, and C's, and D's and so on....

[Marta Jespersen]

Hey evelyne, annelise. I too am a college student but, unlike the both of you I'm wife and mother on top of that. The way that I balance it (since I'm working now too) is well a whole lot of chaos. There's never a set schedule of things to do or activities to partake in. The kids have their personal schedule in terms of meals and bedtimes but other than that we're extremely flexible. My husband is self-employed so his hours vary from day to day and I work in the retail industry which means that my hours vary daily (only nice thing is I'm guaranteed 40 hours). While we're at work or on a date we have my husbands mom watch the boys this way we can guarantee that our values are being taught to them and that they'll grow up surrounded by people who love them rather than by strangers. As a student but moreso as a woman I have personal goals that I want to acheive but, as a mom the needs of my family come first. I have surrendered myself to the "mom syndrome" as I like to call it. Only after my family is taken care of and fed etc. do I take care of myself. That most often means putting workouts and showers and manicures etc. off.
A lot of women look at it negatively and believe that old cliche "Nobodies happy if mom's not happy!" That's not true in my house. I fully believe that a good mother is selfless and gives fully and completely of herself. Just like the righteous woman described in the book of Proverbs. For example last week I worked over 50 hours because that's what was required of me and I made sure that supper was ready (or at least that my MIL had instructions as to what to make) the house was tidy enough to live in--not necessarily perfect--and that the dishes got caught up. My husband helped out as much as he could by taking care of the kids and making sure they got to bed on time etc. I planned his birthday party and executed it with great precision and at the end of the week I sat down on the couch and took a deep breath and gave my husband a pedicure. I didn't ask for anythingin return except for him to get up and grab me a glass of water and a tylenol.
What I'm trying to tell you by this is that it's completely up to you how you balance things out and make things work. For me it works to run myself into the ground serving my families needs as well as my own (work is my escape from the crying and tantrums...it's really refreshing to be around grown ups). If there's one thing that my mom has taught me about being a good mother and an honourable wife is that you have to give your entire self to your family you can't just give them a portion of yourself. If you're children need you emotionally becuase they've just been through an embarrassing break up with their significant other than you have to be completely open to what they need to say. You can't get angry at them because they tell you that they found out their boy/girl friend has been spreading rumours about them and what they did or didn't do sexually. As a mom you have to accept your kids for who they are and you can't stifle their growth all you can do is make suggestions as to which path to take. Whether that be Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, New Age or none of the above you can only try to teach them your values and morals. My son (2 years old) holds doors open for just about everyone young, old, male, or female becuase it's the polite thing to do and it makes him feel good. It's all about your beliefs and tolerances.
I hope that this helps.

[Marion]

I really enjoy your posts, Marta. I think there's a real dichotomy between the selflessness proscribed by many, if not most religions, and the mild degree of selfishness inherent to ideals like feminism.