The Return of the Homemaker

Over the New Year’s Day holiday TV stations ran marathons of old TV shows. Viewers could pick from science fiction with The Twilight Zone, the 1980s fare of blended families with The Brady Bunch, and the one that found its way onto our small screen, The Honeymooners. This show peeks into the lives of two men (one a bus driver and the other a sewer maintenance worker) whose wives were stay-at-home housewives. In addition to my personal recollection of my parents and grandparents thoroughly enjoying this half-hour comedy, (recorded in front of a live audience), I was tickled at the almost non-stop laughter that came from my 16-year-old daughter. Here was a show that had as its presupposition that a woman cared for and managed her household (even when there were no children present) and that a man’s job was to provide for his family. Yet, the wife never came across as stupid or subservient. The show enforced the Biblical reality that it is not good for man to be alone.

Many would argue that The Honeymooners depicts a culture that is long gone. Not so, says an article entitled “Return of the Fifties’ Housewife” :

"She sews, cooks, knits, gardens and raises chooks. The housewife is back – with younger women embracing traditional domestic crafts in droves, new figures show.

Sewing machines have rocketed off shelves in the past six months, with Lincraft reporting a 30 per cent increase in sales.…

"Demand for sewing classes has increased – and one of the biggest growth areas has been knitting yarn, with a 10-20 per cent increase in sales compared to this time last year."

The new housewife also appears to be turning our backyards into vegie gardens, with sales of vegetables and herbs surging across nurseries over the past 12 months, according to the Nursery and Garden Industry Association…

"There has been a substantial shift in our mindset to a more old-fashioned, frugal lifestyle – that real waste-not-want-not approach," said social analyst and AustraliaSCAN consultant David Chalke…

"There are a confluence of forces - the global financial crisis, environmental concerns and a new cocooning - which are pulling together to form the new homemaker."

I would submit, however, that there might be more to this trend than a bad economy or the other explanations rendered. I see it as a repudiation of the failed promises of women’s liberation and gender equity, correctly identifying them for what they are: attempts to dissolve the family unit.

However valuable learning to sew, cook, garden, and manage a household is, they must be subordinate to a solid understanding of Biblical law and how it relates across all the disciplines of life. That is why a focus of the Chalcedon Teacher Training Institute* is to help women prepare for their high calling of a Proverbs 31 woman by means of directed study and mentoring. For any who would like to participate, contact me @ lessons.learned@yahoo.com.

* See "Taking Homeschool to the Next Level: Equipping Parents for Kingdom Advancement," Faith For All of Life, Sept./Oct. 2008. Available by subscription.