“…But man made one grave mistake: in answer to vaguely reformist and humanitarian agitation he admitted women to politics and the professions. The conservatives who saw this as the undermining of our civilization and the end of the state and marriage were right after all; it is time for the demolition to begin…” (Greer, “The Female Eunuch,” 1970)
Being in the home is what I always dreamed of when I was young. But the existence can very well be isolating at times. Most of the women today have gone off to work and those that are in the home are not truly traditional in almost all cases. Family values mean very little in practice to most people today. My neighbors are not traditional and it is questionable whether any of them are truly trustworthy. There is no community because there are no women in the home. Families are broken apart and there are so many remarriages and men and women have children from several different mothers and fathers so frequently that most children are confused about who they are and where they belong in the first place. Most never have a stable home life.
The word “feminism” may have gone out of style but feminism itself is stronger than ever now in our culture. Most want to replace it these days with some kind of “complementarianism” (sorry if I misspelled. The computer doesn’t even recognize this word. I guess that’s how it always goes with the latest fads in society) which is the same exact thing and still promotes women in the workforce as opposed to them being sheltered in the home and provided for by a husband or father.
I remember as well when I was growing up that I felt kind of isolated. All the women have left their homes and there is no sense of community anymore. A young woman today doesn’t have older generations of women in the home to turn to for advice or to visit when she is feeling down. She has no mother or grandmother in the home teaching her to be a wife and mother and protecting her from the world and teaching her what she’s really worth as a woman. I remember my mother telling me to get a job and go to college. She also would tell me how she wished she had spent her twenties being selfish and pursuing a career. Like most today she would tell me about the importance of birth control and not getting pregnant. She really wanted me to have a career. According to her I always had a talent in music and a beautiful voice and she encouraged me non-stop to pursue a career in music. I also remember when I was young I always wanted her to stay with me but she would rush me in the mornings to push me out the door to go off to preschool. Everything was always so chaotic. I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t just stay with me. I was so messed up from being dragged back and forth between two warring parents. I endured a lot of psychological abuse especially in my teenage years and once I even ran away from home because the fighting between my parents had gotten so bad.
I struggled to find a place where I could fit in. I do remember the very rare occasion when I was a teenager going over to another’s home with a mother at home. Actually it only happened once and the woman wasn’t even a housewife. Her children were grown and she even worked part-time. But I still remember the warm-heartedness of the experience. She offered me some cheesecake she had made and I socialized with the family for a while even though I had no home of my own nor a mother at home to do the same in return. It’s the simple things like that that a woman in the home can contribute to society even if there are no children in the home. But such experiences are rare in society today.
Our culture is dying and I believe it is because women have left the home and men, instead of protecting women and children, have in turn declared war on them and abandoned their responsibilities. Modern technology has made our work easier (and has made men’s work easier as well) but that doesn’t mean we are no longer needed at home. A man can never fill in for a mother at home. A father cannot be the same. He is needed for the stability, protection and support that only he can realistically provide to the family. The husband’s paycheck is the stabilizer of the family unit but only if the wife is dependent upon it. The modern way that holds both mother and father equally financially responsible and liable for the family is not good. Society pushes women into the workforce when they have no real business being there. My grandmother would tell me when she was a little girl that society was much safer. Sure, there were bad people and there was always some crime but nothing like the problems we have today. In the past kids would walk to school and neighborhoods were safe. My grandmother would walk through the neighborhoods as a girl and everyone would just smile and wave at her. But not today.
“Few of these students had read Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique or other feminist classics. Only a handful had joined the campus women’s groups. It didn’t matter… They had grown up with working mothers, day care, and no-fault divorce…The students I interviewed had neither adopted nor rejected feminism. Rather, it had seeped into their minds like intravenous saline into the arm of an unconscious patient. They were feminists without knowing it.” (Crittenden, “What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us,” p. 18)
It is so hard to find women such as myself today. Even if you find some stay at home mothers they still hold egalitarian ideals. None of them really believe a husband should be legally required to provide for his wife or that the wife should be obligated to obey her husband. I don’t care if only 20% of women want to be called feminists, most of them still are feminists. Whatever name you put on it, it is still feminism (yeah I’m talking about you and others like you Sarah Palin).
Men are supposed to protect women and support women not the other way around. It is not my job to support the family or provide for my husband. That’s insane. My husband is a man (obviously) and can support himself and our child is legitimate therefore the obligation for that child’s financial needs should always be his. Ignoring human nature does not make it go away. The reality of the differences between the sexes is like the elephant in the living room (to use a phrase I heard someone saying once). You know, kind of hard to ignore it. It takes up a lot of space, eats a ton, makes a lot of noise and knocks things over yet we all just have to just pretend it isn’t there.
It wouldn’t be so isolating if women were in the home. When a woman is lonely or needs advice she could visit another homemaker. Young women would have good role models to look up to. When a housewife got done with her work she could visit other housewives and socialize or help others. Childless housewives especially could help the new mother at home or the just married young woman needing a little comfort or advice. Women would be in the home to cook home made food which would in turn make everyone healthier (especially with the obesity, heart disease and diabetes rates today) and cost less money. The neighborhood would be a friendly place and children could play together and walk around the neighborhood safely. Women would be happier and have a more gentle, nurturing and submissive spirit instead of the kicking a** and taking names variety of women we have today.
Today, however, there is only loneliness and isolation and women seek advice from the media and their role models are Hollywood superstars. Our culture is dying, our way of life is dying. The institution of the family has been almost entirely destroyed and every government institution seeks to further undermine the family instead of protecting it.
A woman’s place is in the home, whether there are children or not and whether she is busy all the time or not. Our civilization has been in decline ever since women left the home. Divorce rates have always correlated strongly with the percentage of married women working. And yes, you can afford to live off of one income! More jobs would open up for men and they’d probably receive better pay as there wouldn’t be as much of a surplus of workers as we have now. More than anything it would motivate men to make more money to be providers. Their pride would be in their family and husbands would feel and be essential to the family’s welfare.
B. A. Hunter 