No Longer Quivering
The Transformed Wife’s Lori Alexander has been on a real rip lately about staying home and keeping house. Some of it is extremely hypocritical, like where Lori bashes women for using housekeepers when she herself had household help. Some is just silly, like the time her frequent commenter Trey ordered her followers to make sheets. The message that constantly flows through these posts is this: Enjoy being a homemaker, but don’t you dare use labor saving devices.
Sorry, but I love my Roomba and that’s not likely to change anytime soon..
There are three different Lori Alexander postings I want to talk about today. I am cramming them together because too much TTW is not good for the mental health of anyone, least of all Ms. Alexander. Not a good headspace to inhabit even for a few minutes.
It’s almost as if they (Lori) are scrambling to fill up every hour of every single day! Or at least cram them so full that you’d never think of doing something selfish. Something like exercising, going to get a facial/hair cut/manicure, or anything else that makes a woman feel happier. No happiness, nothing allowed that eases your stress levels or allows you a momentary escape.
Let’s examine exactly what is wrong with Lori Alexander’s ideas on staying home all the time. There is nothing wrong with being a stay at home wife and mother if that’s what you and your spouse have agreed upon, just like there’s nothing wrong with working. It’s what works for you and your spouse. Where Lori makes it problematic is if you read much of her posts on staying home you’ll come away with the idea that it’s not so much about ‘God’s Way’ as it is a raging case of shut-in-ism. Someone so afraid to leave the house for most any reason, perhaps even blossoming agoraphobia. It’s tragic, not admirable.
Here’s Trey’s advice on not being bored from Lori’s blog, which sounds like something that might lead to mental illness –
I picked this particular suggestion of Trey’s because of how ridiculous it could be. While Trey suggested that women in the past grew flax and cotton to spin fabrics he insists that is not practical but that his other advice to raise all your food is. See, here’s the thing about sewing, gardening and canning, these are not cheap hobbies! Gardening takes seeds, tools and fertilizer. That first year you’re going to be way in the hole financially. Canning takes a pricey initial investment in jars and canner, not to mention the yearly outlay for lids. Better for most people to carefully plan their shopping than to garden.
His ideas on making sheets is one of the silliest for this reason~ Sheets are usually wider than most fabric available. Except for extra wide backing available for prices up to $30 bucks a yard at quilting shops. Doing the simple math you’ll see that by making your own sheets you’ve spent far more money on fabric, even the cheap stuff, that you would running down to Target or Wal Mart to buy sheets.
What are Lori and Trey so frightened you might do if you had extra time? Think?
From two days ago when Lori is ordering people to be happy doing everything the hard way.
Again, there is nothing wrong with taking the “me” time to get personal grooming done if that makes you happy. Being able to take time for yourself results in a happier you, that spills over into every aspect of your life, taking care of your kids, interacting with your husband. Notice that everything Lori lists as not to be done are all things someone who is a shut-in with emotional problems would find frightening.
Notice too that Lori only gives an out on the housekeeper thing to those who are ill. Which, conveniently, she was during much of her marriage as she claims.
But here’s the thing with that. There are oodles of reasons why you might want household help that do not have a thing to do with being ‘selfish.’ Full disclosure – I have household help, but we also have a pool maintenance team and a group of gardeners that work on the house weekly. I could easily keep the house clean, run the pool skimmer and mow the lawn, but I don’t. It’s considered selfish and rude here in Central America if you live in a big house with a house name emblazoned on the front wall, and you don’t hire others.
Living here among the local people, who are living in poverty, you’re better off employing as many of them as you can. It’s reasonable, you’re giving gainful employment to the poor, and it’s not about you. Everyone benefits from the arrangement. This does not mean you still don’t have to clean between visits, like if a family member gets the stomach flu and you have the task to clean up the bathroom afterward. Even with a maid there will be cleaning.
This is why I object so strongly to Lori Alexander’s advice on housework. She seemly cannot know all the myriad of circumstances that people are engaged in. Perhaps that mother is hiring someone that really needs a job to help out with the house while she homeschools her flock of children. Maybe she’s overloaded with responsibility. It’s better not to make assumptions about what others do, and not to automatically equate it to sin. Lori needs to learn to mind her own business.
The final bit of Lori to discuss is yesterday’s posting where she talks about reaching out to conservative radio host Dennis Prager and fobbing off on him her website address. He then goes on a rant about a 50 year old career woman that regrets she was not a stay at home mother. I don’t buy this. It sounds very much like Prager spun this tale up of whole cloth from research on Lori’s TTW website. What do you think?
None of this is any business of Lori Alexander’s, Dennis Prager or that Trey! Why do they not understand that they have no say in the decisions of others?
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