Childless Women

 

I read an article a few days ago on another blog by a woman who stays at home, yet does not have children in the home.  She never had children or she has no children as of yet.  It was abhorrent to hear of the things this woman has had to listen to because she is practicing the freedom to choose what is right for her.  If you stay at home, I'm sure you can envision what she has had to endure and on what scale.

I think women are supposed to be at home.  I am of the opinion it is what we are made for.  I run across a great deal of women who say things like, "I wish I could stay at home," or "How can you afford to stay home?"  Once in a great while I'll be in a conversation where a woman will tell me, "I don't know how you do it.  I couldn't.  I'd be bored with nothing to do all day."  For the most part, the women I talk to typically feel they should be home.

It is an instinct I think, that God gave all of us.  Wolves hunt in packs.  Rabbits are skittish and get into gardens.  Men provide.  Women are keepers of the home.  When a wolf is shunned from a pack, it will seldom do well or live as long as it could have unless it finds another pack.  Men who have a hard time providing (and it happens to most at one time or another) feel inadequate and sit at home looking for things to do, lamenting the fact that sometimes it's just out of their hands.  A young man who is at home for a long period of time is like a fish out of water.  He isn't really at peace, even if he hated his job.  

Women who work generally feel like they have no control over the housework, or their relationships with their husbands and children.  They aren't generally truly happy.  They may even suffer from depression, or anger or power issues.  They have problems letting go.  They have issues letting their husbands be the head of their household.  They have a whole plethora of problems they generally don't even acknowledge.  Throw me in an office pushing paper all day, and my home becomes a haven for stress and chaos.

 Do women who stay at home suffer from depression?  Sure they do.  They are bombarded with advertisements and television telling them they are supposed to be productive members of society.  Their kids need to be perfectly behaved all the time.  They need to have large, seductive eyes and pouty lips, and they are supposed to be the CEO of McDonalds.  They have no worth otherwise.  They need to bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan.  Maybe if more women stayed at home we wouldn't have feelings of inferiority.  My guess is, in earlier generations, where most women stayed at home, there were less instances of them getting clinical depression.  I further ascertain, that until the advent of commercialism on such an industrial scale as it is today, women were also less inclined to be depressed...period.  Lastly, I think if more women stayed at home, we'd have more of a support system for when our children have wrecked the house, our husbands are in a bad mood, and dinner is burned.  As it is right now, it's hard to find other women like us who have been there, done it, and know it's the right thing to do...even when we're having a bad month.

This woman who has no children at home has no less of an instinct to stay at home caring for her family than a woman who has children at home.  And I say, good for her for choosing peace and joy.  Throw this woman in an office all day and both she and her spouse will suffer for it.

"But what does she do all day???"  Spoken like a husband who is ungrateful or spoken like a woman who has never been at home for more than a year.  My first year at home was spent finding out who I really was as a person, and what it was I was supposed to be doing at home.

I lost this woman's blog and I wish I hadn't, for it truly touched me, but I don't know what she does all day.  First of all, it's none of my business.  She has freedom and is practicing it.  For that, I am personally grateful.  She is fighting for her freedom.  Something she shouldn't have to do, but if you live in the USA then you're living in a country where slowly our freedoms are being stripped in lieu of "security", so yeah!  Good for her!  Secondly, I'd imagine this woman is about the business of her house.  I imagine she keeps a clean home most of the time, spends a good deal of time on dinner, and perhaps makes beautiful quilts, or cans jelly, or feeds her elderly neighbors, or any number of things.  I imagine a lot of things about this woman for she has been in my thoughts for days now.

At any rate, most people reading this post are probably stay at home women and probably feel the same way.  If you see a woman like this, grant her some encouragement, for she is coming under fire  even more than women who have children in the home.  What she lacks in knowledge of raising children, she has in other areas and I would love to draw upon her knowledge.  She has more time to throw into cooking, cleaning, and other things that maybe we have not even thought of yet and that's the thing that makes me want to find her blog.  I wonder, what haven't I thought of yet?  What else can I be doing to keep my home?

This woman has value.  She has great value to her husband and she has value to me.   I hope she doesn't ever forget that she is worth far more than rubies.  I hope she knows she is valued by those who would learn from her experiences.  I fear one day she will throw in the towel and do the easier thing, the more accepted thing, of working outside the home.

EDIT:  I found it!  Her blog is here and in my list of blogs I keep up with.  And here's a great older article she wrote.