A New Year At Home

Winter Twilight

by Helmut Glassl, Czechoslovakian

 It is important for women to reclaim their homes and take back their responsiblities as homemakers, not because it is easy, or because it is difficult, but because it is the right thing to do. Remember the old saying: If you want something done right, do it yourself. In becoming a homemaker, a woman is becoming a resourceful, do-it-yourself-er. This brand new year is an ideal time to begin the adventure at home.

  Before the modernists got a grip on the world, through education and the media, it was perfectly natural and desireable for women to claim the home as their responsibility and their place of work. If a married woman went to work somewhere else, her husband would feel ashamed that he could not provide for his family. If a man did provide for his family, but his wife went to work, she would be demeaning him as a man.  It was a great source of pride for a man to be the breadwinner, enabling his wife to concentrate on matters of the home. To see her happily making their house a beautiful place where he could bring home visitors and where the children could thrive and learn good values, was a great accomplishment.  

Winter Twilight

by Helmut Glassl

                                                
 Today, there are plenty of women who could be home, but they do not know that it is possible. Years of indoctrination in the public schools (and sadly, even churches), have programmed women to believe they must join the hunt, with men. Men, also have come to believe that in order to "make it" financially, their wives must work.

As this new year progresses, I hope women will ignore the fickle, prevailing culture, and go back to the Bible for their standard of living. They can stay home, confidently tackling the challenges of teaching their own children, and looking after their own husbands and their own property.

There is no reason to think you will be miserable at home. Homes these days have beautiful furniture and modern conveniences, such as running water, good drains, electric cook stoves, and refrigerators.  Women before this time had none of these conveniences, and yet they still managed to stay home. Life at home today is better than it has ever been.

Winter Sunrise

by Carl Valente

                                                   
                                            
                                                 
 I remember when the first news broadcasts loudly announced that it was no longer possible for a family to live on "one income."  Yet, many had done so, for centuries.  It was not necessarily cheaper to live, back in the days when the woman happily guarded her home and made it a beautiful refuge for her husband and children.  It was not even as convenient.  You could not buy cheap, manufactured things  and you had to knit your own socks. Home furnishings, such as cabinets or furniture, were more often home-built. House work was more labour intensive, (for example, washing clothes by hand, or growing most of your own food) and yet, even poor women stayed home. It was not a matter of affordability. It was a matter of doing what was right and what needed to be done.

Jesus said, "With men, it is impossible: but with God, all things are possible. " Mark 10:27.  Surely if God gives women the privilege of being at home (Titus 2) he would not prevent them from doing so.
                                               
If someone had poked fun at homemakers back in the 50's and accused them of laying around doing nothing all day, they would have been put in their place in short order.   Since they apparently believed that women did nothing, they would receive nothing from them: no meals, no clean laundry, no warm hearth, no amiable conversation, no shelter.  Today, the homemaker is expected to receive insults while accommodating the deliverers of such tripe. 

If someone made a disparaging remark about the messy condition of the house, mothers wasted no time putting the complainer to work cleaning it up.  If anyone came home and insulted the homemaker about her housekeeping capabilities, they would be expected to pitch in and make up for any of her inadequacies, or go elsewhere.  If anyone was not happy, they were expected to keep quiet and keep their resentments to themselves, or learn to clean up after themselves and not create more work for the homemaker.

Today, the homemaker seems to have lost the authority that women of old once had in their own homes. Today, a woman can hardly choose a color of drapes  or clothing, sew, have a hobby, entertain strangers, rearrange furniture, without interference from those in the home and outside the home who never lift a finger to wash a dish or sweep a floor in that same house. 

 Even after returning to the home from the ridged public work-force, women are finding that they are being controlled by the outside world. They are home, but somehow have lost their freedom.  They are controlled by the opinion of others. They are controlled by the bad manners and bad habits of others. This new year at home, I hope to show how you can be home and take charge of it and make everyone infinitely happier for it.

It would be nice if the homemaker could be just left alone to do her job in peace and explore her creative side to make the home a pleasant  place, but there is now a battle going on to eliminate the homemaker. The remarks aimed at her will be intended to break down her resolve. The debilitating rudeness she will confront, is part of the territory of the stand she is taking, by being a homemaker. Most homemakers go into it expecting to be fully free from conflict, as they just want to mind their own business. There are those who do not want you to be content or to mind your own business. They want to mind your business and get you to quit it. Therefore, it is necessary that you recognize all the tactics of those who are jealous of you and do not want to see you succeed in having a loyal family and a well-ordered home and house.

You will hear the discontented whining of those who follow the popular way of life.  They will not be happy at what you are doing. They will tell you that you are just a free loader, that you dont keep house well enough to justify being home, and that you dont get along with people. They may call you an isolationist, a hermit, a reactionary.  They will say that you are conceited and that you think you are better than other people. They will spout out the common phrase, "Yes, but not everyone can be a full time homemaker," as if that makes any sense at all. It is just a shot at you to distract and confuse you. If that does not work, they will call you "crazy" and suggest that you see a therapist. 

The Bible teaches to think on what is lovely, pure and good.  You should not be surprised at the resistance against this. The enemies of the home know you want a pretty house and a comfortable one that you enjoying being in, day after day. They aim to thwart that. They do it in several ways. One is to attack you or your sanity. They will ask you how in the world you find anything to do at home all day. They will say that you make "too big a deal" over house keeping. They will want you to relax your standards. When you try to keep the house orderly, they will say you are too obsessed with housework. Another tactic to break down your sense of who you are and what you are doing, is to accuse you of wasting your time.
                                                                
 When you become serious about  homemaking, there will be someone who will mock you. The tactic used to break people down, so that they fall into depression or discouragement, is to first make fun of something they are doing, or to trivialize it so that it seems silly and unintelligent. It will usually get a sensitive person to abandon the plan. Take, for example, wearing dresses at home or wearing an apron. Someone will try to run you down or make you feel so embarrassed about it, that you will go back to looking like everyone else, just so you wont have to endure the mockery.

  If trying to make you feel humilated because you have pink flowers growing in your yard, or you have thrown a pretty blanket over the back of your couch, or you are serving tea from a precious tea cup found at a favorite gift shop, does not work, then they will attack you.  They will tell you that you are living in a dream world. That is an old line. The trouble with these negative people is that they really are living in their own dream world: a world of bleak nothingness, where individuality is not allowed. They tear down any kind of creative enterprise, or any kind of home improvement.  They are impossibility thinkers who  produce nothing of value. The Bible says "By their fruits, ye shall know them."  If you look at the fruits of such gloomy broadcasters, you will see that he or she has left a trail of destruction in their personal relationships and their habits. These kinds of critics wallow in jealousy and the fear that you are going to succeed at something.  A lot of these attitudes should have been corrected in childhood, but the children were sent to be raised by outside sources. During their years in government schools, they were fed a diet of Marxism, a belief that people are just cells in a huge government brain, unable to think individually for themselves.  As Karl Marx was an arguer who could not even discuss the weather without turning it into an argument, his followers are also arguers.  It is the mothers who stay home and correct such poisonous attitudes, that will help the future generations. This is one good reason to educate your own children at home.The most poductive way to overcome such attacks, is to do it more and do it better.  The home will glow with accomplishment and you will grow in knowledge and skill.

Gathering the Winter Fuel

by Joseph Farquharson, Scotland, 1846-1935

Heating the home was a lot more work for the homemaker, than it is today.

                                                                       
Life at home is much easier now, and homemakers do not have to do everything by hand. They have access to instant communication via telephones and computers. They have grocery stores where they can get every imaginable thing to make the table interesting. There are books and magazines available on how to cook, sew, and decorate. When a woman discovers all there is to do at home, she barely has time to feel lonely or isolated or unsupported. This is a good year to be a homemaker, and I hope throughout the months, I can provide a few articles and ideas to make home living successful for both the young and the old.