So You Want to be a Homemaker? (Part 4)

Dear Single Homemaker,

I hope by now you see the path before you. You are starting to realize the uphill battle you must fight. But I hope you are also inspired to join the fight, that you are looking for your knitting circle, and that you’re changing your thoughts and habits. I hope you are already learning to guard and garden your heart, mind, and soul.

As promised, this letter is about tending your people. Now, first and foremost, you must hold two things in tension: home is for you and home is for your people. Much of life is about keeping the tension between two thoughts that seem to be paradoxical. Justification and Sanctification. Faith and Works. Being at peace with all men and that there are things worth fighting for. Holding the tension is how we keep balance and avoid ditches on either side that cause us to be extreme. So, people in the home. What is our middle of the road and what are our ditches?

Ditch one is making everything in your life all about you and only you. You do everything with only yourself in mind. Decorating, cooking, cleaning, everything in the home is centered around what you want and how you want it. Instead of creating a productive home, you have only created a personal hermitage for yourself.

Homemaking, hearthkeeping, and housekeeping aren’t homemaking, hearthkeeping, or housekeeping if it is done only for yourself.

This is a trap all women fall into. Those of us with the people living within our walls can easily make home a shrine to ourselves and berate all who would dare to sully our work. It is an easy trap for a single homemaker because you are generally alone. You aren’t constantly reminded that other people live here.

Homes and homemaking are to be productive. And that produce is cultivated when we serve others. Our greatest harvests are found when we are harvesting for others.

Ditch two is to make everything about everyone else and to forget that you live here, that this is your home. When you forget that this is your home, the place loses that special magic that makes people want to be there. My mom has the uncanny ability to make any space she’s in warm, inviting, welcoming, and comfortable. She has this indefinable ability to make her location a place everyone wants to be. Part of it is that every space is her space. My mom is a quilter, gardener, lover of her family, and someone who is fully into the country life of Yankee land. Her walls display quilts and pictures of her kids, grandkids, and generations past. She has plants and pictures of Vermont. Her home reflects what God created her to love. This is part of why it is a pleasing place. Mom’s entire home is a giant quilt you want to wrap up in. She doesn’t try to create a home for a different person or a different family. Home is my mom.

You want your home to reflect you and work for you because that will make people comfortable.

Now, the tension. If you make home too “comfortable” people won’t feel welcome. Meaning, if you let yourself get out of control people won’t want to be there. What if you walked into my home and my couch was littered with paper, books, coffee cups, and the odd plant? Where would you sit? Would you be comfortable? What if every inch of wall space held a quote or image of Tolkien? Would that make you comfortable or would you start to feel a little awkward? What if I let my home fall into disrepair because I loathe dealing with maintenance issues? Would you want to visit, or would you find my home a bit on the creepy side? Here’s a good one: I like skulls and bones and such, okay? I love them with plants. I love them with soft things. I love a great cow skull. I find them uniquely beautiful. If I let that get out of control and you came over in August to a flowerbed of bones and stepped into a home with skulls on the mantel…you would probably want to know who I killed and if you were next. This love of bones that I have must be kept in a correct balance or it starts to get a little…too personal.

Home is for me, so I have a cow skull in my flower bed. Home is for my people, so I reserve my realistic, plastic human skull for Halloween decorations.

Side Note: Moment of honesty, my hubby must help with the skull thing. I easily let it get out of control. But that’s the point. Home isn’t just for me; it is also for my people and our people help us be unique but not weird.

As a single homemaker, you must be a bit more extroverted about ‘your people’ because they don’t necessarily live within your walls. How do you go about this?

·        Find Your people: Do you have people? That’s your first step. Make sure you have people. Don’t limit yourself to just other singles. Start working on building relationships with women, older couples, kids, young families, established families, anyone. The easiest place to start is within your own family circle and your church. Find your people, grow that circle.

·        Small Apartment: If you’re limited on space, start with one woman over for coffee. Try to get in a regular pattern of having different women over. See who you click with. Have a couple over for dessert in the evening. Set up a small game night with a couple of older couples. The main thing is that even if you can only have one to three people over because that’s your only sitting space, do it on a regular basis. Get in a routine. You will quickly find who you resonate with, and they will become your people.

·        Still Living at Home: This takes a bit more work because you will have to coordinate with your family and the Matron of the Home: your mother. Start by embracing the members of your home as your people. They are your people. Parents or siblings still living at home are your first group of people. Start by producing for them. Next, express to your mom your desire to have other people from your church over. Start small, just like if you had a small apartment. Or, if your mom is on board, start big. Have two women over for coffee, or have all the women over for tea. Play to your strengths and start weaving a knitting circle.

Now, you’re starting to think about having people over, this lets you find your people. And yes, I strongly encourage you to start with family and church. I’m not saying don’t have people from work over, do! They can become your people too. Just keep in mind that you are just starting down this path. You’re a baby. You need to shore yourself up. You need to train. You need to find your cadre to have your back before you step into a fight. New recruits don’t survive on the front line. Get over your pride and realize you are the new recruit. Get your knitting circle established before you start inviting in people who will attack you or discourage you.

With a knitting circle growing comes the tending. This is where the home starts producing, and you find yourself being a real homemaker. You start pitching in. From the wealth of your work, you start to give. When you get to know people, you start to learn about needs. This is where you plug in and become part of the knitting circle yourself.

-        Cooking: Nothing says love like food. Nothing! Single ladies, this is a great way for you to serve. Cook and share. This doesn’t even have to be having people over. Cook something and give it away. Cook a pie, cookies, muffins. Learn about your people's dietary restrictions and make something they can eat. Do you know the fastest way to make a good friend out of a mother, or any homemaker? Cook them a meal or part of a meal! They will love you forever.

-        Remedies: if you enjoy home remedies and herbal concoctions, share them with others. Share your yogurts, fire ciders, tinctures, infusions, bags of herbs, or anything like this that you produce. Make extra and share.

-        Creativity: most of us have some sort of creative outlet. Think about how you can use that to lift others up. You write? Write someone a letter. Do you paint or draw? Paint or draw something for someone else. Garden? Share flowers and veggies. Music? Play for others. There are thousands of ways to use creativity in the home and share it with others. (Check out The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer for more ideas.)

-        Cleaning: share recipes, experiences, or even work. Offer to come help deep clean and then ask for help in return. A job shared is a job halved.

-        Church: Look at your church building, really look at it, and see what it might need to help make it feel more homey. Look at the people. What do they need? How could you help? Don’t take on the world. You aren’t God. Take on your little circle and engage. It will take time for the ball to get rolling, but get it rolling.

The more you work at this, the better you will get and the more production you will engage in. Serving others, tending our people is what this work is all about. Almost everyone loves a good Found Family story. We want that special united group that is there through thick and thin. Your church family is the ultimate found family put together by God himself. Put together for eternity. These are your brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles, grandfathers and grandmothers. Are they perfect? God doesn’t save perfect people. But they are your people. Single ladies, I can’t emphasize to you enough the gift you are to your churches. I can’t begin to put into words how encouraging you can be to the rest of us if you take seriously the tending of your church family. If you stand up and say these are my people, this is my family, and I am going to stick with her through thick and thin, you will be a huge blessing.

Don’t try to do it all the first day. But do try. Start somewhere. Start engaging. Get to know this family you are a part of and claim them as your people. See, love isn’t a feeling it is a choice. Faith isn’t a feeling it is a choice. This family isn’t a feeling it is a choice. Make the choice and start fighting for her, for us. Start by being in your church every Sunday. This is your home to tend. Start by making friends and finding ways to connect. Start thinking about what you are producing and how you can share your excess, delights, and experiences. Think about how you can serve and enrich others. When you do this, you will have really grasped what home is all about. Home is about our people. Everything we do, every act of creation, display of beauty, tasty meal, cleaned bathroom, washed clothes is an expression of love, a choice of love, for our people. This is homemaking.

Love,

A fellow homemaker