So You Want to be a Homemaker? (Part 3)

Dear Single Homemaker,

We’ve talked about who you are and what you will face, now let’s talk about work. If you are a single woman, you probably have a paying job to support yourself. (I understand not all of you will, but most will.) This is a good thing. Work is good. God made us to be working creatures. We do not function well when we are lazy. It messes with us both mentally and physically. Every human regardless of age or health should be productive.

There are a couple of things you need to keep in mind as you work your paying job and establish your home. First, our world is communistic, so your paid, outside-the-home job is over-exaggerated right now. When I was growing up, it used to be that parents trained us in a strong work ethic both at home and on the job. Now, the job is all-encompassing and young people must be taught boundaries. I work with a young lady who told me she’s always available. That’s not healthy. Work should not be able to reach you 24/7. You should be a reliable and diligent employee while working, and then you should be able to go home and not be on the clock. I ran into this when I was working in retail. We had apps and such that let us sell clothes all the time. The problem was, even while they tried to sell you on how it would help you have a bigger commission, they didn’t talk about how it made you available to customers all the time. All the time. Church. Important family events. Emergencies. Customers could reach you all the time and the company made you feel obligated to respond. That’s a communistic mentality. Communism says only the state and work matter. You are going to have to do the hard work of setting and communicating boundaries.

Side Note: One of the things that strongly impacts this as well, is people no longer have homes to go home to. They have cold apartments, and all their friends are at work, so that’s where they want to be. Or your manager isn’t happy in his marriage, so he wants to work as much as he can, and so you must. It all feeds into everyone overworking and always being on call. Work is satisfying and can give you a sense of purpose and comradery far more instant than the hard labor of family, homemaking, and church. We have to stay on guard.

Second, paid work isn’t the only type of productivity. This is another lie of the world. If you would like to endanger your life, tell a homemaker it must be nice not to work. If she doesn’t deck you, well, then it’s your lucky day. Homemakers work all the time. We’re just not paid with a paycheck. We’re paid with cleanliness, beauty, coziness, happy people, good health, and so much more. Our pay is the fruit of our labor. Our pay is the frugal use of the income coming into the home. Our pay is everything in the space around us, mental, emotional, and physical. Pay isn’t only income and it isn’t only outside-the-home work. You must start to value productivity. Productivity can be veggies growing in your backyard or on your porch. It can be learning to roast a chicken and make bone broth. It can be teaching yourself cross-stitch, crocheting, knitting, weaving, and quilting. It can be learning how to clean an oven or making your own cleaning supplies. Productivity is what a home is about. It’s taking money and turning it into something so much more. Homemaking is magic. It is productivity taken to a whole new and fulfilling level.

So you want to be a homemaker, but you need to work. Work is good, but it isn’t everything. What do you do now?

Watch your mentalities. You aren’t here to make some powerhouse career. You are here to keep a roof over your head, to be wise, to feed yourself, and to be generous with others. Be diligent but keep your job in the right space. Make friends, but understand that your real found family is and should be your church family and your knitting circle (both of which, Lord willing, contains your blood family or parts of your blood family). This means keeping a certain separateness about your job. (You can do this if you are a diligent and reliable worker when you are there!) This means not working on Sunday and not letting your job take over your whole life. This means always looking at your job as under the umbrella of your homemaking, not the other way around. Homemaking is at the top under church, your paid work is under homemaking even if right now it needs more focus.

Some ways to work this:

·        Keep clear communication with your boss about your boundaries.

·        Be willing to forgo promotions (get wise advice about this!).

·        Use the expendable elements of your income on your home as much as possible.

·        Start saving up a nest egg to bring into your marriage.

Pray for wisdom about this. It will take a lot of thought and prudence to decide whether to accept or reject promotions, to set boundaries, and to communicate with your boss. Keep in mind that your goal is to be home and make room for your husband to provide and for you to produce. Pray, pray, pray. If the Lord doesn’t provide you with a husband, remember that your monetary provision isn’t the whole picture. You want to have a productive home and, even more importantly, handle your singleness well in the church. This might require you to make sacrifices like smaller apartments, roommates, or moving back home so you can work a less demanding job. Talk with your deacons and their wives. Tell them you don’t want a career, you want to focus on your home, but you must work to provide for yourself and not be a burden. Get their advice.

Talk to older homemakers and find out what they wish they had done. I wish I’d focused more on a nest egg. I wish I’d focused more on being intentional about my homemaker education. I really did not understand how much time I had in those few years before I was out on my own. Many women regret the debt they bring into a marriage. Think beyond what the world tells you is necessary. Trade school or certificates might be more valuable than a four-year degree and a load of debt. Watch your spending and make choices for the life of homemaking you are building, not what the world tells you must do to be safe. (No one is safe. Get that into your head.) Entering marriage with a nest egg is a great gift. So is entering marriage unburdened by debt.

Be willing to sacrifice. Go back and read the previous article in this series. The path you are on requires the greatest of courage in our day and age. It will also require sacrifice. You will be viewed as a failure. You might work the lowest job on the totem pole and not accept promotion or growth because your priorities are home and church. This will require sacrifice on your part. You won’t be wealthy or possibly even grow wealthy. Keep your goals in mind. Wealth, travel, and big homes aren’t everything despite what the world says.

Side Note: I understand that some of you are facing the truth that a husband isn’t coming. I do understand that. You need to think about your provision into old age. You really do. Get help. Get advice. See what you can do without sacrificing your church attendance or your health. You must be prudent and balanced here.

Be prudent about the type of work you choose. There is a whole world out there of work, far more than you can possibly imagine. Start thinking about how to provide for yourself and grow your homemaking skills. Work in retail in a shop that sells home goods. Become an herbalist or nurse. Be an accountant. Work with plants. Cook! Think about all the skills you could focus on and how you could use them in your home. Don’t limit yourself to just fast food, banking, or even teaching. What are you interested in? How can you earn an income with that interest? How can you grow your skills? Maybe you want to explore plumbing or electrician work? Maybe you become a general contractor? Or an arborist? Or maybe you find something you can do that lets you work from home so you can actually be in your home? Don’t limit yourself. The world is a huge place and with the internet, there are a plethora of options out there for everyone. Maybe you make a plan to start working in a nursery while taking herbalist classes and then switch to cooking and then electrical work so that you are constantly growing skills you can turn around and apply to your home. Think outside the box dear single homemaker, while always thinking inside the box of home!

Work is good, but not all work is paid. That is what you need to remember. Your focus is your home, making and tending it so you can tend your people. Your people. Always look at how you can tend your people because that is the point of all that we do!

We’ll talk about that more next!

Love,

A fellow homemaker