Childlessness and Homemaking

I find it an odd thing sometimes that I’m so passionate about homemaking and yet my home is childless. I feel this most often at things like baby showers. I go to a baby shower and I’m excited. I’m excited to be with my friends and celebrate this momentous and wonderful event with women I love. Babies and children are a blessing from the Lord and a delight. I love children. But about 30 minutes in, I’m overwhelmed with all the baby talk. All the talk about something I have never and will never get to enjoy. It becomes harder and harder to sit and listen. It becomes harder and harder to engage in the conversation. I have nothing to add, nothing to share, no real understanding.

In a desperate attempt to feel included I start talking about true crime, military history, or writing. Yes. Good move me. Talk about something which only a handful of people care about, but they certainly don’t want to talk about in this setting. This is a baby space. A space to talk about babies with the expectant mother. Not a place for blood, gore, violence, or childless oddness.

By the end of the event, I’m generally in a tailspin of depression. I struggle and fight against feelings of isolation. I feel like a misfit. Not a cool, rebellious, edgy misfit, but a lost-in-the-crowd, missing out on the blessing, what did I do wrong misfit. I go home and talk with my single friends. There my True Crime leanings aren’t weird or out of place. I go talk with anyone about anything other than this great burden of grief that never seems to really die.

And then, once I get some distance, I ask myself, ‘why didn’t you talk about homemaking?’ You read all these books. You’re in the middle of all this reformation and education. This is something you’re passionate about. You feel like it’s an element of your calling to read all the homemaker books so that you can share them with all these busy moms. Why don’t you talk about that? And not only at showers? Why don’t you talk about it more openly ever? When people ask about your week, why don’t you talk about all the homemaker things going on? I do with a few friends—Rachel, Liz, and Lauren—but not as a general course. I kinda hide it from everyone else. I have to consciously think about talking about homemaking. I plan before Sundays what I will say that will allow me to talk about homemaking if someone asks how my week was. I have to be that purposed or I chicken out.

Why?

I think there are two reasons this happens:

First, our culture has drilled down into us that tending our hearth, homemaking, and domestic artistry is boring, useless, and that those who practice them are stupid, lazy, or boring themselves. So, when someone asks how my week was, I feel like everything I have to share is boring, useless, and has no value. What value is it when I talk about decluttering, decorating with empty space, creating comfort, searching for Hygge in summer, rethinking how I shop for clothes, and reworking my filing system to be more efficient, all coupled with my health issues and my continual struggle with saying no? Not to mention the delights and trials of being the wife of a pastor and seminary student who is always tired and always busy and always philosophical? I chicken out and say fine. My week was fine. Or I focus on some annoying maintenance issues just to try and talk. Wait. So I don’t express my joy at being a homemaker or I complain about minor providences? What is wrong with me? Why do I let the world dictate what I love and enjoy? Who cares if TV shows belittle homemaking? I know that it is a powerful, challenging, and much-needed job. I know it is where the Lord, my God, Creator, and Savior called me to be. Why can’t I talk about it? Because the world tells me I’m wasting my life? They think everything I do is a waste, so why do I let them sneak in and influence me?

Secondly, and very honestly—and maybe the first time I’m dealing with this—as a childless HearthKeeper, I feel like a fraud. I’m not in the trenches like my sisters. I’m not preggo, homeschooling, training, and dealing with constant chaos all at the same time. I read all these books about making home home and all of them, all of them, focus on raising children. Rightly so. They should. The number of women making homes with children in them for 18+ years far outweighs the empty nesters and the childless homemakers. A book about homemaking would hardly be complete without talking about children. The whole point of taking this path less traveled, of having the courage to be different, is centered on the fact that raising your children is one of the most important things you can do with your life. It is far more important than any other career. All careers rest on the career of motherhood. Without mothers we have nothing.

I believe that homemaking, child-full or childless, is the ultimate career. I truly believe that. But when I gather at something like a baby shower, with a group of moms all talking about mom things, I feel like a fraud. I can’t seem to untie my tongue to talk about what is so very important to me: homemaking. I feel invalidated by my childlessness. How do I look at this table of women and talk about homemaking when I have zero experiences with toilet training, nursing, growth spurts, or going into labor? How do I talk about finally re-arranging my kitchen and planning out my laundry room when everyone is talking about the blessing of having kids, or the trials of homeschooling, or the horror of teens? I get muddled, confused, trapped by my feelings. This is nothing anyone is putting on me, it’s all inside me. This imposter syndrome. And I make it worse. I don’t help it by confidently talking about home. I jump in on serial killers, murder, and whatnot. Great, that really helps my imposter syndrome. Good job me. 

And so, after a baby shower, I spend the weekend wanting to eat all the food and drink all the liquor. I huddle down and watch true crime. I cry. I hide. I share small parts of my pain with a few close friends. I vow to never attend another baby shower when I know I will. I try to focus on Book Club, church, the week. But it coats everything I do. The voices nag at me: What does it matter? No one cares about you. What is the point of you? You don’t have kids. You can’t help anyone. You’re a burden to everyone. You will never understand nursing. You will never understand holding your child. You will never have stories to share. You will be lost in the shadows and darkness because you are a fraud. So why don’t you go get a job and do something valuable with your life? That’s what other women do. If they don’t have kids, and even when they do, they work and work and work. Anyone can keep a home. Anyone. In fact, anyone can do it working part-time hours or less. Look at the waste you are. You worked retail and now you keep a home. Two pointless jobs that do nothing. Most women go on and do something. They raise kids, change the world, and keep comfortable homes and you, you can’t even keep a comfortable home when that’s all you do. What a waste of a human being you are.

Did I mention liquor?

I know I’m overreacting. I know I’m being dramatic. I know I’m not the only one who deals with things like this, and I know having children wouldn’t solve all this self-doubt. I know my identity is wrapped up in Christ. He is worthy of all and I’m worthy of nothing, but in Him and by Him I’m accepted and loved and valued. He has told me that He’s my friend. I know this voice in my head is crazy.

And I know, I preach to myself, and I know, that homemaking, HearthKeeping, domestic artistry, is valuable, good, magically ordinary, and exactly what I want to be doing. Childless or child-full, making a home is a good way to spend my life. Growing, learning, showing by example, talking when I can, embracing it fully, all this is what I want. I want it. I am a homemaker and I love being a homemaker. So do I keep going to baby showers? Maybe not. Do I listen to the lies that tell me what I do doesn’t matter? No. No, I don’t.

My husband is a pastor. It is my great honor to create a restful place for him. It is my great honor to cook and clean for him. It is how I serve my church. I love my sisters, both blood and not. It is my great honor to read all the books and share it with them. I pray often that I will help young women to learn to tend their homes and love their husbands and children. This is what I want to do and who I am and what I love. (“This is who we are, what we do.”- Rambo)

Lauren once reminded me that talking about dishes and organizing is a wonderful thing. And she was right. It is wonderful and not something to be ashamed of or belittle. 

I may not be blessed with children, but I am still a HearthKeeper. I will stand and back and love my fellow, child-full HearthKeepers to my dying breath. And like them, I will need help along the way.