Somewhere in the middle of the twentieth century, women decided they could have careers, go to college, and do all the things the boys were doing. While that had some definite negative effects (sexual revolution, anyone?), there were good things about it too. Women and men are different, which means that they bring different types of thinking and different views to the table; as a gross generality, women take more easily to detail-oriented work, and empathize more fully (a handy trait in a doctor or a teacher or a social worker). We need both genders involved in building and maintaining our civilization, as well as raising our families.

But somewhere along the way, the baby got thrown out with the bathwater - sometimes literally. Not only were career homemakers sometimes looked down upon by this society of acquisition and materialism, but the entire job of making a home - the cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, and entertaining - was outsourced to fast-food restaurants, frozen-food proprietors, maids, babysitters, television, after-school activities, and restaurants.

While some of these conveniences can be good - recall that the woman described in Proverbs 31 had a career, a well-fed family, a well-respected husband, and hired help - there's something to be said for the act of making a home. Home-making. In her recent book, An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor talks about physical labor as a balancing vocation to her more scholarly pursuits:

I no longer call such tasks housework. I call them the domestic arts, paying attention to all the ways they return me to my senses. When the refrigerator has nothing in it but green onions that have turned to slime and plastic containers full of historic leftovers, I know my art is languishing. When I cannot tell whether that is a sleeping cat or an engorged dust ball under my bed, I know that I have been spending too much time thinking. it is time to get down on my knees. After I have spent a whole morning ironing shirts, folding linens, rubbing orange-scented wax into wood, and cleaning dead bugs out of the light fixtures, I can hear the whole house purring for the rest of the afternoon. I can often hear myself singing as well, satisfied with such simple, domestic purpose.

Kathleen Norris, in her lovely little book The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and "Women's Work", says:

Our culture's ideal self, especially the accomplished, professional self, rises above necessity, the humble, everyday, ordinary tasks that are best left to unskilled labor. The comfortable lies we tell ourselves regarding these "little things" - that they don't matter, and that daily personal and household chores are of no significance to us spiritually - are exposed as falsehoods when we consider that reluctance to care for the body is one of the first symptoms of extreme melancholia. Shampooing the hair, washing the body, brushing the teeth, drinking enough water, taking a daily vitamin, going for a walk, as simple as they seem, are acts of self-respect. They enhance one's ability to take pleasure in oneself and in the world. At its Greek root the word acedia means "lack of care," and indifference to one's welfare can escalate to overt acts of self-destruction and even suicide . . .

A mature feminism recognizes that subjects such as cooking can be difficult for women to address, as they have so often been seen as insignificant "women's work," but it also asks us to recognize that their intimate nature makes them serious and important.

Edith Schaeffer, from The Hidden Art of Homemaking (a delightful little book) points out that creative and artful home-making isn't just for wives and mothers:

There should be a practical result of the realization that we have been created in the image of the Creator of beauty. Whether you are married and have a family; whether you share a house or a flat with one or a number of people; whether you still live with your parents; whether you live alone and have guests in from time to time; whether you are a man or a woman: the fact that you are a Christian should show in some practical areas of a growing creativity and sensitivity to beauty, rather than in an gradual drying up of creativity, and a blindness to ugliness . . .

Which is all why I was pleased to find this entry at one of my favorite blogs recently - a blog that is widely read and neither faith-based nor female-oriented. The blog entry is titled "A New Homemaking":

Without the steadiness and identity that home can provide, there is little support for negotiating our way through the rough and tumble terrain of a human life. While home is always a work in progress and as subject to change as any other thing, it nonetheless also offers us the potential for stability and shelter.
And remember, home is not always just a place, it's also a state of mind, a way of relating to the world that is rooted in belonging. As adults, our homes reflect not just who we are, but who we've decided to be.

For a while there, home and homemaking took a real hit as we broke molds, discovered new roles and strode forth into a future laden with promotions, financial mobility, and lots and lots and lots of stuff. There's nothing wrong with wanting a career or providing materially for our families, except that we throw out the baby with the bathwater when we give these pursuits a higher value than the heath and well-being of our homelife and, consequentially, the planet we live on.

What I'm starting to see today, and what makes me happy and a little hopeful, is that people are rediscovering the value of homemaking, but in new and innovative ways. There are major changes: the new homemaking is no longer gender specific, it's not about the relentless pursuit of bigger spaces and more stuff, and it's not necessarily the classic nuclear family either.

Here's to the cultural re-invigoration of simple, healthy homelife.