Lessons from the 50s Housewife

I don’t know if you saw this, but it’s worth your read — and don’t throw eggs at me. A woman lived for two weeks within the script and culture and diet and customs of the 1950s housewife, and she wrote about it.  I read the post and thought it was interesting. This is her 11th lesson; you can go to the link to see #1s-10. (Intro post with all posts linked.)

How about you? What do you think?

And here’s a bonus #11: There’s Plenty of Value in Being a Homemaker
As I began to live the 50s housewife life, with the idea that I was in charge of the business of our home, I started to gain a much better appreciation for the job and the person who took the helm of such an enterprise sixty years ago (and that lovely picture to the left is of one such lady, my Grandma Price with my grandfather).

Running a home, cooking the meals and managing the money requires dedication, planning, organization, physicality, decision-making skills, an eye for detail, creativity, intelligence and patience. Doing this all while catering to the schedules, preferences and needs of the people you love, depend on, and some days – can’t stand! – is no small feat. But what I found interesting is that I was not only busy – but I felt surprisingly accomplished each day.

Every day, I saw the results of my efforts. And every day, myself [sic] and my husband directly reaped the rewards of those efforts – and perhaps that was the biggest revelation. Day in, day out – people go to work for other people. What’s so wrong about going to work for yourself and your family? Or discovering you really don’t need that much money or stuff to be happy and successful? How is that we think devoting oneself to our major life investments – that being our health, our relationships, our home and our financial management – investments that we are the controlling stock holders in – is somehow not contributing? Or isn’t something to be admired like anyone else flourishing in their career? Or is insulting to feminism? If anything, isn’t making your quality of life a priority – if that’s what you want to choose – rather empowering?

… And those are just some of the rambling thoughts I have while I’m making the bed and fixing Patrick a bacon sandwich. Ha.