The Next Generation Of HearthKeepers

Gather in, HearthKeepers, with your daughters, granddaughters, nieces, and honorary daughters, granddaughters, and nieces. Little girls, big girls, gangly girls and graceful girls, girls just losing their teeth, girls with pigtails, girls who love their daddies, girls who love horses, and girls who love pink, girls who will one day tend hearths and homes of their own. Gather them in close. Pour them a cup of tea in that special mug they are always eyeing and tell them of this world that is their right and responsibility. Tell them of this space they will one day manage to the delight and wellbeing of their families. Let them see what expanse lies before them, what magic, what light, what hope is theirs to cultivate. Gather in with your daughters.

My Mom diligently taught me many things about homemaking which I’ve been able to springboard off of, develop, and use. She gave me a magnificent foundation. I, and my sisters, am richly blessed by both her example and her instructions. I have Aunts and women who are older than me who have shown me, again and again, the delights of homemaking.

Homemaking has always been my dream.

I went to college intending to use my degree as my fallback plan on the off chance that something happened to my husband, forcing me to be the provider for my family. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad plan or even a bad philosophy. It is good to have a backup plan because when things go sideways we don’t want to be left staring off into a future with no idea how to manage. I think it is wise as women to have a plan for what we would do if we lose our husbands or if we never marry. Plans are good. Plans are also only plans. They’re not set in stone. I’ve changed my life-backup-plan several times as I’ve gotten older. It’s a backup plan, not the gospel.

Now from where I sit on my couch as a forty-year-old homemaker, on an early winter morning, coffee steaming beside me, I think it would have been more profitable if I had viewed college, and all of my education, with this mentality: Homemaking is a complicated and amazing career, and I have the opportunity to support my Mom’s training with some formal education.

I wish I had looked at homemaking as a career from the start and picked classes that strengthened the foundation my parents laid, instead of looking at my education as a backup plan.

Unfortunately, even into my homemaker-honoring home slipped the philosophies that as a woman I needed a career plan on one hand and homemaking on the other, even if the career was never used. I never looked at homemaking as my career choice. If I had, I think I would have gotten more out of my education. I would have had more purpose and better goals. I could have been intentional.

I ponder on raising daughters I will never have and wonder how I would teach them to look at homemaking. It would be a constant battle against the world’s lies. That’s the truth. If we have daughters, we are in a fight all the time. Be aware of it! No matter what we say and do, the world is pulling our daughters away from home. Be intentional. Stay in the fight. Give them truth they can wield and for the love of all that is good and right, don’t wing their training. Don’t think they’ll pick it up. Don’t think they’ll love HearthKeeping because we love HearthKeeping. The lies of the world are subtle and strong. Terrifyingly strong. We must train our daughters up.

If I had daughters, I would want them to not just say, “I want to be a mommy or a wife,” but to say, “I want to be a homemaker,” and train them in that field on purpose.

There is a little part of me that, still influenced by my culture, jerks against that philosophy, like it’s somehow belittling of my nieces to want them to be homemakers instead of lawyers. How equipped would our daughters be for anything in life, any career, if they are good homemakers?

Homemakers manage many things, wear many hats, follow directions, research, build, grow, budget, and are flexible. Homemakers are managers. We nurture, but each in their own way. We craft, beautify, and produce many things daily. Homemaking builds confidence, grace, and showcases weaknesses to work on. Training our daughters to be homemakers trains them to be content, confident, find joy in things, and not to base their worth on a paycheck.

Whether they just go straight into managing their own homes, have a big or small career, or own their own business, we would have daughters equipped to handle any of these situations.

Let’s bring Home Economics back. If you don’t know how to do something, trade classes with someone. I’ll teach how to sew, if you teach gardening. I’ll teach how to teach, if you teach canning. I’ll teach basic home repair, if you teach baking. I’ll teach budget, if you teach nutrition. Don’t exclude the single and childless from this. They both have skills to bring to the table and things they would like to learn. Remember, this isn’t about homeschooling or marriage, this is about HearthKeeping. Remember, this is an art and a craft and a job all at once. Remember, the older women are to teach the younger women how to work at home.

Maids—unmarried, young HearthKeepers—you are in a learning stage. Homemaking is a huge undertaking. You are under attack. You need to guard your heart and mind about how you think of homemaking. You need to honor it. You need to find women who honor it and sit at their feet. Don’t let the world take this greatest of gifts and responsibilities from you. You are also being watched by myriads of little girls at church and in your families. When you babysit, do you think about supporting older women in their choices to be homemakers? Do you speak of your desire to be a homemaker with little girls? Pay attention to how you interact with girls even in the nursery. Let them hear you talk about keeping your hearth.

Matrons—married, active HearthKeepers—we are the front line. We can choose to hope our daughters want to be homemakers, or we can actively light the way for them. We must speak truth to them. We must tell them that women are weak, gullible, independent, fearful, manipulative, and contentious. That is our natural state of being. We must help them develop gentle and quiet spirits, learn to control their words, see men as providers and defenders, not stupid things necessary for making babies, or as the domestic ones. We must help our daughters, granddaughters, and nieces see that homemaking is a career, a viable one, and the best one. We must light the way for them.

(I’ve ready many a story about women who come home but have zero domestic training because their mothers didn’t think it was important. Let’s not do this to another generation.)

Crones—married/widowed, retired/retiring HearthKeepers—you have a wealth of experience to bring to the table, and some of it will be about what not to do. You have grown up with feminism and you probably regret some of the ways you raised your daughters. Please share with us. Please don’t let us ignorantly make the same mistakes. You’ve done this already. Help us. Don’t unplug now that your nest is empty. Plugin with the maids and the matrons. We need you desperately. And please, encourage the women who are raising the next generation of homemakers. They’re going against the grain, constantly under attack, constantly having to practice discernment, constantly in the battle. Pray for the maids and matrons around you. Pray for the single and the childless as well as the women with full quivers. Pray for marriages, education, jobs, and homemaking. Even if no one has come to you to use your knowledge and experience, you can still pray. You know how hard this is.

This is a call to action. We women, moms, grandmas, aunties, sisters, kin, need to start purposely training and raising the next generation of homemakers. We can’t wing this. We can’t hope they pick it up. We must train with intention. Pause those movies and speak the truth. Show them good examples. Read books. Let them manage for a week and then talk about it. Train your daughters on purpose to love, manage, and honor this great career. Don’t let the world rob them of it. Don’t let the world take home from us.