I'm Not The Homemaker Anymore

on earth as it is in heaven

Recently, someone told me they were proud of me for being a homemaker. They meant no harm whatsoever, but I felt my insides prickle at the label. I’m not a homemaker—at least not in the way I (and the person who said it) was raised to define the term. 

I looked up the etymology of the word  ‘homemaker’ this week and wasn’t surprised to find how recent of a term it is from a historical context. A fascinating graph¹ I found tracked its use and, surprise, surprise, there’s a massive spike of the use of this word in the 1950s, a not-so curious dip of it being less used in the late 1960s (i.e., the sexual revolution) and then another spike of it being used more than ever in the 1980s (i.e., the beginnings of the purity movement) 

I was born in 1989. My short three decades+ of life has been framed by the word ‘homemaker’ and the culture wars that have spring up around it.

I distinctly remember the time all of the mothers at our church were being honored. The pastor asked them to come onstage to have a tiny bouquet of flowers pinned to their shirt; my mom standing onstage with the rest. I was sitting in the pew next someone who knew my family. They leaned close to my ear and whispered to only me: “See all those moms up there? Your mom is the only one who doesn’t work outside the home.” I immediately felt their sense of pride and superiority at the observation.  

Some days the title of “homemaker” feels like a box I was born into; one I fit inside for a while but then I grew. Instead of being allowed to break free from the box, I was told to contort and twist and smoosh myself smaller to make sure I fit inside of it. I was told I could make the box whatever color I wanted! I could paint it with unique colors! I could even (occasionally) cut holes to peer out at the world from it! I should be grateful for the protection of the box! 

But at the end of the day, a box is still a box.  

Homemaking is everyone’s business

I was raised to define a homemaker as a married female who chooses to stay home, have lots of babies, homeschool the babies, cook all the meals, and generally do all of the domestic labor required to keep a house running smoothly. 

This role was revered and celebrated as ‘the greatest thing’ a woman could choose to spend her life doing for Jesus. This role was presented as the only option for me as an adult Christian woman. Sure, I could have dreams and goals and plans as long as they didn’t interfere–and revolved around–my “divine calling” of being the homemaker above all. 

But I don’t want to be the homemaker anymore. 

I’ve heard it countless times from men behind the pulpit: “The mama is the heartbeat of the home. She is the thermostat. Her mood dictates if the home is peaceful and welcoming.” Or the more coarse phrasing: “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

Pardon my lack of poetic wording but, ew. 

While I do believe it’s my responsibility to process my emotions in a contextually healthy way and manage the domestic labor that any able-bodied adult in a house would have while teaching those methods to my children, it’s not only my job. “The mother” is not the sole crux of holding the home in a peaceful state. Christ is. 

It’s absurd to single out wives/mothers and tell them they are the ones responsible for creating a haven in their home. Why wasn’t I taught that all of us under the banner of “family” (blood related or not) should be coming together, shoulder to shoulder to create our havens together?

The definition of ‘homemaking’ is more than just the married woman’s role. Everyone in our life should be taking part in the mission of homemaking. Our husbands. Our single friends. Our young married friends. Our married friends with no children. Our elder friends. Our parents and siblings and aunts and uncles and grandparents and mentors. Homemaking is everyone’s business. 

A messy, weird place

Part of me feels shaky to even broach this subject, but probably not for the reasons you suspect. I’m wary to talk about it because I recognize I live an incredibly privileged life in that I have the option to not work outside the home. Our life isn’t financially opulent by any means, but still, we can afford for me to stay at home and be the primary caretaker of our two young children. For the majority of the world, that option does not exist.

In recognizing that, I tread tenderly here. I’m critiquing a system that has, in many ways, benefitted me. I live with a chronic illness. Having a typical 9-5 work schedule would be possible but strenuous for me. My husband making the primary income for our family has allowed me the freedom to pursue my writing and other creative ways to bring in income. But those comforts haven’t come without a steep cost. 

Both me and my husband have suffered through individual mental health crises because of this arrangement. In short, the sharply defined lines between men and women’s roles in the home made for a painfully lonely, exhausting experience and we’re done with it.

As I wrote in this post: 

“When we got married, there were clearly defined roles assigned to us from our parents, pastor and mentors. As the husband, he will do this. As the wife, she will submit to that. He will take on this for the family. She will do that. He will stay in his lane. She will stay in hers. Let not anyone separate how these roles should compliment one another, etc. 

It makes me wonder, who would we be if we’d grown up differently? Would we be further ahead in life? Could the thousands of dollars we’ve collectively had to spend on therapy just to function in the world have gone towards a better living situation for our kids? Was I predisposed to depression and anxiety because of my genetic makeup or was it the culture of holy shame I was nurtured under that has caused them to be life-long companions? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. 

What I do know is this: Jonathan and I have had to fight tooth and nail to divest ourselves from certain beliefs we grew up under. It’s made adulthood and parenthood a lonely, tender journey because we’re forging new paths far away from the ones our elders or ‘village’ said we had to take. At times, it's made our marriage stressful as we’ve navigated the different roles than the ones we were told made us “good spouses”. Doing the opposite of what you’ve been told made you ‘good’ in God’s eyes can be terrifying. Shame likes to follow those choices like a hound after a deer. Sometimes the fear and pain of forging new paths gets taken out on the one who loves you the closest.”

Talking about this is a both/and situation. I have both benefitted and been bruised by this system. I am both privileged within it and shamed for expressing all of my God-given womanhood if I don’t define it in the same way as the faith tradition I was raised in. I am both grateful to have the choice to “stay at home” and gutted it took me decades to heal into the realization that it could even be a choice to begin with. 

Dismantling the twisted theology of “homemaker” while knowing most people would look at my life and only ever see me as one makes for a messy, weird place to write from.  

We’re all homemakers

I don’t want to be the homemaker anymore. Not because I don’t think the concept of ‘making a home’ isn’t a godly thing to participate in, but because I no longer believe it’s solely my job to bring it about. Instead of narrowing the definition down to it being a labor only a wife and mother can do, I’m inviting us all to fling open the doors and “make home” together. 

After all, Jesus told us to pray for God to make things on earth as they are in Heaven. And there, married women with kids won’t be the only homemakers, everyone will be.

1. https://www.etymonline.com/word/homemaker#:~:text=homemaker%20(n.),from%20make%20(v.).