You are not Behind, Part 2

Again, this is a soft exploration of the bud of a theory. This isn’t set in stone in my mind. I’m still mulling it over, examining it from different perspectives, and testing it against observations. I welcome any thoughts you might have!

We often feel like we’re behind in our labors for our family. But we’re often not. Previously, we explored the influences of a culture focused on corporate career building. Now, let’s look at how feminism can pollute our thinking.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed that while feminism constantly throws men under the bus as dangerous, lazy brutes who are the root of all evil, it also tells us to be men. Feminism isn’t the love and exploration of being women (strengths and weaknesses) created in God’s image. Feminism is ugly and angry and filled with manipulative hate while at the same time trying in vain to be what it despises.

Second, Men and Women aren’t the Same: Men are powerhouses. They push and push and push and push. Men often handle jobs with physical or mental brute force. (I do understand that not all men do all the time, I’m painting in broad strokes here to explore an idea.)

Women don’t. We’re designed to go long but not intensely. We’re designed to get up with kids in the night and raise little things. We don’t push, we plod at the rate of a child while still putting dinner on the table for our husbands. You know the odious picture of the man coming home from work, putting his feet up, and breaking open the paper while his wife is still cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the kids? What if there is a kernel of truth in that ridiculous picture? (No man should ignore his family when he gets home from work.) What if it’s that men have pushed hard for hours and now they're done, while women have moved for hours softly? Women have stopped to eat with a 3-year-old, listened to long stories, read books, nursed babies, listened to teens, and planned out a menu. Our work has different rhythms than the work at a job. This is why it feels like our work is never done, why we are going longer than our men. It’s because we’re going differently. (Also: PLEASE REST!!)

When I watch my husband work and then stop at 5 and rest while I’m still putting dinner together, it’s easy for me to allow my feathers to ruffle. But stepping back from the fact that the world has told me this is odious, is it? I know that he has been reading and studying and carrying so much on any given day while I have moved more slowly from this task to that to that. It’s not that our work in the home isn’t a burden or isn’t difficult, but it is a different pace. We are not in competition with our husbands nor should we compare ourselves with them.

You may think of things as frantic when you have kids, but because you have kids life is going to move at a much different pace than it would in a job. You have to stop, slow down, train, talk, and educate. You have to stop and look at flowers with a little human who has never looked at flowers. Your husband hasn’t seen a flower in hours or even days.

Feminism tells us to be men, to go on the aggressive, to attack. Think about the totally different type of aggression it takes to bake cookies, teach a child to read, clean a bathroom, and grow squash. It’s not that men don’t or can’t nurture. It’s that we do it differently. A hug from Mom is different than a hug from Dad. Both are great and necessary. Feminism tells us that Dad’s hugs are horrible but that we should all hug like Dad. *Facepalm*

Remember in the article about being feminine I stated that whether we have children or not, all women are mothers? I think this goes back to that. That at the core of our being, whether we’re intense or easy-going, spontaneous or planners, leaders or followers, we women have been designed and gifted to work around children. We’re designed to move at a different pace and to be able to handle that.

Side Note: Thinking of this always reminds me of Tom Bombadil and Goldberry in Lord of the Rings, as well as the Ents and Entwives. Men and women are different even when they’re engaged in the same activities and that is good. It’s good to be different. It’s good to be the slow to his push, the soft to his brute strength, the calm to his intensity. We must not let the world take diversity from us!

Home is us, focused or not, dealing with things like women: call the plumber, feed the baby, feed ourselves, change the wash, answer why questions, plant seeds, start dinner, change the wash, wash dishes, wash faces, set tables, sing songs, change the wash. It’s not so much multi-tasking as it is task switching, like a dance, moving from this to this to this and back around. This movement is a great skill. If utilized and embraced it brings calm comfort. It sounds (and feels) frazzling, but if we look at it as a gift, it will become a good skill set, this ability to move from thing to thing.

Try not to consider things in the home and people in the home as interruptions. See them as all wrapped up in the tending.

Think about the aggression needed in a career trying to climb the corporate ladder or even the different aggression your husband shows in training your kids, playing sports, and yard work. Loosely, men are conquering in their aggression. Not meaning tyrannical though it can have that sinful expression, but conquering. Women are nurturing in their aggression. (Which can also turn tyrannical, let’s be honest.) Even when we tackle the same task, we go at it very differently. Sometimes with some individuals, this will seem subtle or even swapped. There are always exceptions. But by and large, women are nurturers and men are conquerors.

The feminist tells us men are evil while saying we should behave in a conquering, competitive, jocular manner. But we’re not men. We’re totally different and we will ruin our homes, families, churches, and culture if we pretend we’re all the same.

We must guard our hearts and garden our femininity. Don’t stamp it out. Nurture it. Let’s not allow the power-dressing, power-hungry, angry, blue-haired women to tell us that being Feminine has no value. It is weaker and softer. It does flourish best with a man guiding, guarding, and protecting it. That doesn’t make it less valuable, but more! Think for a moment about the courage of a warrior. It requires great courage to carry the burden of providing and protecting your family. Now, think about the courage it takes to be the one provided for and protected. It takes great courage to be the woman left behind when your warrior goes off to war. It takes great courage to trust yourself and your children to your husband’s provision and leadership. Ultimately, that trust is in our good God, but being a woman is to have courage. Don’t let them feminist taint that or rob you of it by telling you to be a man.

Managing a home is best done under the wise leadership of a good man and it can pull from many corporate resources and management techniques, but homemaking, housekeeping, tending a hearth, and creating a temporary space for eternal souls isn’t the same thing as working a corporate job, and it’s not done the same way as a man works. That’s a good gift from God and we should embrace it. When we start to really dig into femininity and homemaking we start to see how big these things are and how much mental work it takes to keep everything in its proper place. Let’s do the work of guarding and gardening our hearts so that we can better serve our families in the tending of our homes.