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Who Decided Home Making Was No Longer Valuable To Society


Keeping a household running and tiny humans alive is a lot of work, so why isn't it valued more by society ? This is a concept I think about daily. No other occupation requires you to be on call 24/7 with few breaks and no vacation. It takes a multi tasking wizard to keep a house organized and operating smoothly.


The mental/invisible labour load most women carry in the household is staggering. It's no wonder so many feel burnt out and completely exhausted. Why does society not recognize the value in this labour? Why has it become the norm to accept a messy home, pre cooked meals and institutions raising our children?


Where did we go wrong!? I truly believe running a household is a full-time task that should be attended to by one partner in the relationship. The other option is outsourcing tasks to allow for both partners to focus their time on other occupations. Both options are great, the trouble is the later one requires additional finances, that not all families might have to spend.


We have reached a point in our society where the cost of living is so high, that both parents need to work in order to provide finically for their family. This has become standard practice, rather than one parent working and one staying home. The trouble with this is, the invisible load of running a household and raising kids still exists...despite both parents working.


The unfortunate part of the invisible workload is that it often falls on the mother's shoulders to carry. Not only is she working outside the home, but also completing the invisible labour in the home . It's no wonder so many moms feel completely burnt out.


This leads back to the question...who decided homemaking was no longer valued by society? Why is it that the extra work most women are doing in the home goes unnoticed? Why do we put a higher value on working an out of home job vs. raising the next generation?


I wish that I was a lot smarter and had studies or cultural statistics surrounding this topic...but I do not. What I can do is give an opinion based on the current trends we are seeing in society.


It seems that our society puts monetary value on a pedestal...almost to an extreme. Gone are the days of having to fetch water from a well, growing your own food or having to make your own clothing. To sum it up in nutshell...surviving in a modern day world doesn't take as much physical labour. The trade off, is that there is an extreme amount of value attached to earning money. Since the nature of homemaking doesn't involve making money...it only makes sense that society wouldn't attach a great value to it.


This has/is causing problems for women in more ways than one. It makes the ones who are homemakers feel undervalued and viewed as lazy for not contributing financially. It leaves the ones working, feeling torn between their biological desire to nurture and care for their children and their workforce obligations . The final category of women are the ones working who are loving it and have a good balance...I truly believe there are some women who thrive in the professional world and that's amazing!


The target audience of this post are the mother's feeling under appreciated, overwhelmed and frustrated with society's current views surrounding homemaking. To those women....I just want you to know society is wrong and the work you are doing is so valuable. The time you spend playing candy land for the 100th time in a day with your kid matters. Preforming the same monotonous tasks daily that keep your house running smoothly matters. The homemade dinner that your kids complained about, offered valuable nutrition for their little bodies. The clean clothes they wear too school gives them confidence. All of it matters and might not seem like it right now , but it matters. The work you do matters.


To those working moms who are feeling overwhelmed with all of it....you are doing an amazing job. The invisible work you do at home after the workday ends, makes a difference in your children's lives.


Despite society's lack of appreciation for homemaking ....it matters and is critical to the success of the next generation. You see, without your work where would your children learn how to cook, balance a budget , clean a bathroom or even do a load of laundry for that matter. They certainly aren't learning it in school.


Shouldn't raising the next generation be the most important task of our focus? It's time to start having these conversations and try to bring back the value that homemaking holds.

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