Daughters at Home

Special Post for Home Taught Daughters

The Letter, 1913, by Thomas Benjamin Kennington, England 1856-1916

God wisely provided mothers to train their daughters at home. A daughter should learn about home making, while standing at the elbow of her mother. 

Mother-Daughter and Teacher-Student Relationship is Important:

There are several things that take place when daughters are taught at home by their own mothers. Firstly, they develop a relationship with the teacher, which is essential in any kind of worthwhile learning. A mother as a teacher is an authority that is tailor-made for the temperament of her children. If she has stayed home with them and nurtured them, discipled them, and taken responsibility to educate them herself, she is superior as a teacher, to anyone else in the world. A mother is a teacher who loves her child better than anyone else, for she has borne her and knows her from the cradle.

The Home Provides Whatever a Daughter Needs to Grow and Develop into a Future Wife, Mother and Homemaker:

Home is the best place for daughters, and there is nothing anyone else can provide for them that is greater than their home life. The colleges can't give them what they really need, physically, emotionally, or spiritually.

 The military cannot give young women what they need to keep their marriages together and their children obedient and loyal.

 Careers cannot give women the skills they need for home making. Any knowledge that these places claim you need, whether it be from the military or workplace, can be attained in other ways, if it is really needed.

 Ministries are often large youth groups, where daughters are used for washing dishes and sweeping floors--work they could be doing at home, to help their own mothers. Though many claim that they are "counselling" or teaching younger people, they would still be better off under the care of their own families, rather than working in someone else's ministry. Ministries can be worse than the work place, in that they rarely pay the young volunteers.  Parents often send money to support them while away from home. 

 These institutions do not support us in the belief that our daughters are raised to become wives, mothers and homemakers and should be home, practicing for that career. We must, therefore, stop expecting that any agency or person in the world outside of the home can provide the things our daughters need for life and godliness. 

 As soon as a daughter reaches her teen years, it will seem like everyone has their hand out, beckoning to her to come and join them in college, at work, the military, ministry, and apartment living with friends.  These people want your daughter because they can profit from her in some way. If a daughter has learned from her  mother  to enjoy home making, she will have no trouble resisting the friends and relatives and church members who want her to leave home.

Rest by the Pool, by Friedrich Peter Hiddeman, Germany 1829-1892

Homemaking is a Spiritual Thing, Not Just a Mechanical Thing:

 Daughters need to know that anyone can wash a dish or sweep a floor, but it takes a heart of love and concern for the family to become a real home maker. If home making is just a mechanical cleaning of sinks and cooking necessary meals, the heart of it is lost.

Study the Old Paths, See What the Good Walk Is:

Think about the things that produced a feeling of home, sweet home, in the past. It was the mother making homey things: sewing thoughtfully for her family's needs, and making her own table cloth and matching curtains. It was the daughters taking tea on a tray to a guest. It was the grandmothers who tended pretty flower gardens, which grown men can still remember in detail.  It was the women who sat in a chair with her feet on a small stool, contentedly knitting, while her husband and children were around her.

Taylor Caldwell remembered the scene of her Aunt Polly's home: "I would visit Aunt Polly for the soothing joy of being in a real home, among soft voices and gentle music, among fragrances and graciousness, topping it off with a real British tea..."

We go into the past because there we find a record of many things that women did when women's place was proudly in the home.  Things that factories produce today, women did at home to show their love for their families. Things like handkerchiefs, socks, shawls, sweaters, embroidered cushions, wall pockets, plant boxes, dish cloths, soap, aprons, painted plates, and much more, were lovingly hand made. Tables were lovingly set with plates and cutlery, adorned by hand made napkins. It was not so much the material things that made the house a home, but those humble touches, which made the memories, which made the home feel so differently than it does in our fast-paced world.


One reason I place the 18th century paintings here, is for a peer into the work and leisure time of families, when the women were home focused. 

Home is a Place of Freedom to Develop Interests:

The Home Quartet, 1882, Mrs. Lushington and Her Daughters, by Arthur Hughes, English 1832-1915

Home is the best place for grown daughters to develop talents. No other place can provide the kind of atmosphere and encouragement needed to pursue her different interests.  I have seen the productiveness of daughters at home. There, they are free to make a beautiful quilt, sew a pretty dress, design a scrapbook to display family memories, make cards and gift-baskets.  Music is a wonderful by-product of daughters at home. I have heard sisters sing in harmony while washing dishes. I know women whose homes have that wonderful, homey feeling, because of the talent of their daughters.  There is more time at home to perfect these talents.

A Daughter's Presence Warms the Home:

Many women can recall the bleakness of the neighborhood when women went to work, en-masse.  Going for walks was a cold and lonely experience, when passing darkened houses with no homemakers to light the home.  Daughters at home make it a bright, homey place just by being their for their Papas and Mamas, to provide a pot of tea and serve a snack. I know some girls who are not particularly interested in hobbies, like painting or other arts, but they love to keep house. They get their buzz from seeing a clean floor or a polished table; a cooked meal and a freshly arranged bouquet of garden flowers on the coffee table. There is nothing wrong with that. They will always be happy, as long as there is house work to do. Others find some kinds of work tiring, and will need to have the perks of fancy work or pursue artistic and musical interests.  It does not matter, as long as they know that the care of the family and the keeping of the home is what God expects of them. To neglect it is to put God's Word in a bad light.

The Test, by Thomas Armstrong, British 1831-1911

The Privacy of Home:

It is important for daughters to be at home to protect their own  privacy. At college, a work place, in an apartment with other girls, in the military, and even in a ministry, there is gossip and false teaching. Remember that the world does not support the real needs of the young woman who has been taught to pursue the Biblical excellence of being a wife, mother and homemaker.  If she has been taught these things, there is no reason for her to leave home, except to go into her own home some day when she gets married.

No Need to Ask, "What Will I Do Now That I'm Grown?"

If a daughter has eagerly developed the art of homemaking, there is no need for her, or her mother, to ever ask the question, "Now that I have finished my home education, what should I do? " for she will be busily putting to practice the many things that she has learned. Grown daughters can now let their mothers rest and re-create with their own past times, by doing much of the housekeeping. 

Colleges cost a good deal of money, and even the scholarships are not completely free. The little it prepares a girl for a long-lasting marriage and the skills to have a stable home life, it would be better to use the money, if the parents have it, to give to her at her wedding, to help with a down payment on a house.

News From the Front, by Alexander Rossi, Italian, 1870-1903

Look to the Homes, to Find the Wives:

Men who are looking for wives, should inquire of parents if they know of any parents with daughters at home. College, the work place, the military, and sorrowfully, even churches, are not providing the kind of women whose goal is to get married and raise up a generation for the Lord. If you are a man, hoping to find a homemaker for a wife, you will not likely meet her at work, because she will be home with her mother. This is the training ground for future wives. The college is not. The military is not. The workplace is not, nor are ministries or apartment-sharing friends.  Women who are learning to be wives, mothers and homemakers, will be at home, helping their mothers, until they are in their own homes with their own families. Young women who have been home, caring for her own family, will adjust more easily to caring for their husbands in their own homes. They will have had the training and the practice that makes it natural and easy to be contented at home.

Expect Insults and Intimidation:

Home is where God put the family. There are forces that have always worked to destroy the home, so that children will no longer respect their parents and follow their guidance. We should always hold on to high standards regarding the responsibility toward daughters. The rest of the world does not think this is "healthy" and wants to separate these young girls from the care and protection of their fathers and mothers, to get them under the control of colleges, employers, captains, ministers, and friends.

 God placed parents in their lives for more than just feeding and clothing them and teaching them up to a certain age. As parents grow older, they become more wise and wary of the snares of the world, and are able to advise their daughters better than anyone else. You can expect a lot of resistance to your beliefs, so do not be astonished at the tactics that are used to intimidate you. 

Those Phrases:

Such phrases as: "Don't you think your daughter is old enough to decide for herself" really mean, "I want to decide for your daughter. College recruiters want to decide for your daughter. The military wants to decide. The ministry wants to decide." When you hear phrases like that, you know that they are trying to get the daughters out from under the teachings of their parents, and get them in their college, their factory, their office, their army, their ministry, and their apartment. No one decides for themselves. Either they decide the way they are taught, or the way someone else has taught. There is nothing new under the sun,

Another phrase, "It is none of your business, now that she is 18" is designed to put you off so that they may insert their agenda for your daughter. They say it is none of the parents business, but they are making it their own business. The Bible says to train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.  The college recruiters (usually a handsome young man recruiting young women, and a pretty young woman recruiting the men) do not believe that your daughter should  continue in the homemaking way she was trained. The military does not want her to stay home and follow the way she was taught; the ministries do not support the family in their efforts to teach their daughters to be keepers at home; the workplace will not reinforce the way she should go. They are all telling her to depart from it.   There is no substitute for the government of the home. It is mighty. It produces sons and daughters that marry, have children, practice a religion, make a homelife, and teach their own children to do the same. The family has a right to train up their children in their own beliefs. The world does not think the grown children should continue in the way they were taught. They think they should depart from it.

A Mother's Duty:

 As a parent, you are obligated to guide your daughters into the right way of life. The Bible says that younger women should marry, bear children, and keep house, in that order. The world says that young women should spend their youth in colleges, workplaces, military, ministry and apartments. This is a waste of good womanhood, when it should be used to strengthen the home.

The Bible, The Ultimate Guide:

One can present all kinds of reasons for daughters to be home under the care of their parents, but the Bible is our last stand. There is no example of sending daughters off to work, to the military, to college, or even to ministry, just because they are not married. That is a 20th century plan, and a trend, which needs to be unsettled and thoroughly refuted.

Things Daughters Need to Be Doing:

1. Continuing in the good homemaking habits they have been taught by their parents.
2. Making their parents home a clean and lovely place. A mother with more than one daughter ought to have the nicest, cleanest, prettiest house. A large family should not mean a messier house, if daughters will do the work.
3.Making things for their mothers and her home: clothes, quilts, decorative items. They can also make things to sell, like the Proverbs 31 woman. Remember, she gave her products to the merchant, to sell. She did not sit around all day in a shop.
4. Start getting  curriculum ready for future children.Make Bible lessons for littleones, complete with little illustrative crafts.  Begin a notebook with things in it they might use.
5. Make her wardrobe. If marriage comes suddenly, she will not have time to sew, and if children follow quickly after that, she will be glad she had plenty of clothing.
6. Keep her own room clean enough for it to be a good testimony to her homemaking skills.
7. Learn new skills: ceramics, sewing, knitting, painting, making things from nothing, cooking from basic ingredients and not mixes or cans. 
8. Learn to manage money and to substitute no-cost things, such as making cards and gifts, or making her own curtains.

For further research, some readers might find this of interest:
The Mis-Education of Women
Tooley, British professor of education, takes to task the U.S and British educational systems for succumbing to feminists in the last 30 years and misdirecting young women into early careers instead of marriage and motherhood. The result is what he calls the "Bridget Jones syndrome," young women suddenly realizing they're squandering their prime opportunities to marry and reproduce. Refuting educational policy in the U.S and Britain that promotes gender equality, Tooley argues that boys and girls are different and should be counseled differently on life and career choices. He counters the arguments of famous feminists Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Greer, and Betty Friedan with Bridget Jones' Diary and vignettes of unhappy young women who have sacrificed personal lives for careers. Echoing Friedan, Tooley announces that the "problem that has no name" is the misdirection of feminism. First published in England to scathing criticism, this book is sure to spark vociferous debate in the U.S. as well. Vanessa Bush