Home Health

Did you know that men who kiss their wives goodbye in the morning have a lower rate of heart disease than men who don’t?

– Lelia Lawler –

The Summa Domestica

The above quote is a familiar image. The threshold kiss. The man heads out and the wife heads in for the day, each to serve the other through their work. As Norman Rockwell as that image is in our heads, not all of us have husbands, have husbands leaving, or have husbands leaving at a kissable hour of the day. What is the truth behind the above quote? If we look at it not as telling us how things must be but as a kind, guiding hand, what do we learn? How is it that men who are loved and appreciated have less heart disease? As homemakers, how does this affect our home health management?

Healthcare 101: Physical Touch and Affection

It has been proven time and time again that physical touch lowers stress. We live in a lonely, isolated world where that aloneness is often described as being touch-starved. Many of our men and our children are in a physical affection famine. The cavalry isn’t coming. No paratroopers are raining down from the heavens to give everyone the hugs and kisses they need. But if we’re here, manning our posts, we can give all the hugs, scrunches, kisses, and more to make sure our people are not starving. When we take on that work, we are lowering our husband’s stress level, our kids’, our friends’, and ourselves’.

We all work diligently to get food on the table. No one in our homes is emaciated, but are they famished for affection? Do you make space for intimacy with your husband? Do you hug him? Do you kiss him? Nothing builds him up more than this—is it a part of your homemaking? Is hugging your kids with that special kind of hug only a mom can give happening? Do you see this as your responsibility?

We’re not prioritizing or homemaking well if our men and our children are starving for a hug, pats, playful punches, shoulder rubs, forehead kisses, hair stroking, and more.

What about our broader circle of people? Learn to be a hugger! Side hugs, arm pats, handshakes, and fist-bumps are all great ways to appropriately show affection to those outside our intimacy circle. They’re great ways to tend to our people who aren’t blood-related. Don’t be foolish about sexual attraction, but don’t let our over-sexualized culture keep you from physical displays of affection or physically displaying affection. Learn to be a hugger.

Physical intimacy and physical affection appropriately handled are vital to our homes, ladies. Home can’t be a place of cheering strength or merry durability if it is cold and devoid of physical touch.

If you don’t have room for this 101 of health maintenance in your home, you’re doing it wrong. Start looking at adjustments that can be made to give your family room to hug, pile on the couch together, and for you and your man to have plenty of time together. Make it a routine, a habit (that means work), to make sure everyone gets hugs. After breakfast, after dinner, waking up, before bed—make sure it’s normal and expected.

If you’re single or widowed take extra care to be a hugger. Especially with your church family. You need physical contact and affirmation. If you feel awkward, start with fellow women and make yourself hug them. Get hugs especially from moms. They give the best hugs. Don’t let the awkwardness detour you. This is necessary medicine for physical and mental health.

Healthcare 102: Keeping an Eye on Things.

Who do we think has a better feel for our families, us or the doctor who sees them a couple of times a year? (This should be an obvious rhetorical question.)

To be good homemakers we must observe our families on many different levels, including their health.

This requires us to stay observant. It is easy in the day-in-day-out routines of life to take health for granted and stop noticing things. We grow accustomed to idiosyncrasies. We don’t notice small things that speak to deeper issues like regular headaches, exhaustion, skin issues, hair issues, dull eyes, and more. We grow accustomed to them and just view them as part of living in a fallen world. Or we use the excuse that he’s a grown man, when we have been called to help him.

We must keep a vigilant eye on our people, ladies. We must note problems. We must see, really see our families. We can’t tend what we’re too lazy to notice.

Healthcare 103: Environment and Nutrition.

If we are all in on our responsibilities and we’re taking care of our people with diligence and humility, we’ll be able to work on our environment and nutrition for the sake of our families.

Environment is creating clean, orderly, beautiful, and cozy landing spots for our husbands, children, and friends. When we open windows, fluff pillows, change sheets, iron shirts, and set tables we’re practicing healthcare. We’re tending body and soul to keep our people bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Without this care, health issues—mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical—will spread like weeds. When we plant flowers, hang art, play music we’re practicing good healthcare.

Side Note: It doesn’t take a genius to notice that when women left the home mental health issues started to climb generationally. Where we have to stay on guard is being lazy in our homes. Being home and being a homemaker are two entirely different things. A homemaker is working hard to tend her people not just sitting around. She takes responsibility for the wellness of her family.

Nutrition is the same. Research, research, research. We need to accept the challenge to develop our skills in the kitchen and develop our understanding of what bodies need. We need to not buy into what the government tells us is health. It’s on us to figure out what our families need.[1]

Maids: Young maids, this is a great time of your life to learn about natural medicine. Natural medicine is what a homemaker uses most because we’re generally doing the work of maintenance, not reaction or trauma (though knowledge of those areas is helpful). Learn about foods, fats, herbs, tinctures, and fermentation. A good place to start is with your own body. I recommend getting Honoring Our Cycles by Kate Singer. It’s a short book that will help you learn about your body as a woman, which is important because the female body is complex. The better you understand your body, the better you can maintain it, speak intelligently with doctors, and make wise choices.

Now, before you have kids and a husband, is the time to start developing a sense of health. This is a beautiful gift to bring into your marriage if so blessed.

Single ladies, you can become the distributor of herbal and nutritional well-being to your people with care and study. Study, craft, share, grow. There is no age too early or too late to learn natural medicine.

Matrons: It is never too late to take the reins of your family’s health away from the government and insurance companies. It is never too late to start learning how to face a winter season with a cabinet full of fire cider, tinctures, and more. Start small, read books, listen to podcasts, get help, and take over your family’s health. You know these people better than anyone. You love these people better than anyone else. This is part of our glory! Healthy thriving families!

Crones: If you struggle with shame over the ways you didn’t tend the health of your family with the diligence you should have, seek Christ’s forgiveness, and start now. Like the maids, you can sharpen your skills and your mind and share what you’ve learned. You can also give us perspective. We know our goal isn’t to escape death. That’s not how this works. Our goal is healthy families before death comes. You can remind us of this.

Ladies, we have the rich gift of being the huggers, menders, and tenders of our people. Look at this power, this magic that we wield! Lowering our husband’s stress level, caring for bodies and souls, the power to make them strong or weak. We can’t shrug off this responsibility. We must repent of our laziness in this area and set our hands to the plow.

If you would like some help in this area, our group chat has threads on cooking, cleaning, gardening, and herbs. Join the casual conversation.

[1] I can’t recommend Nourishing Traditions and Nourishing Fats by Sally Fallon Morell enough. It will break you free from the mess that is the food pyramid and help you start understanding why the ‘experts’ seem to change their minds every few years.