The Last Straw:This Housewife Speaks Out

So yesterday I'm reading one of my favorite political columnists (who shall be nameless, lest her name cause an uproar and detract from my post--)

Like a bobble-head doll in the back of a speeding car, I nodded my head in agreement of her wise words. That is, until I read this half of a sentence:

"...limits can be set without condemning women to life terms in the kitchen."

Good grief.

If I had $5 for every time I've heard the kitchen referred to as a female prison, well, I'd probably be living in a huge, expensive Victorian mansion by now.

I've always told Naomi, "Any job is honorable because of the dignity you bring to it. Any career is successful only because you, yourself, make it that way. Basically, we get out of Life no more than what we put into it."

If you want to call what I'm doing a "life term in the kitchen," well, go ahead. In the meantime, I will tie on my apron and bake like a chef. (Why is it that a professional chef who cooks for a living, is greatly admired, yet we homemakers, who cook because of familial love, are looked down upon?. Hmmm. Can you say, "materialism-is-somehow-involved-with-that-attitude?")

And while the cookies are baking (heh, heh Hillary, and you too, Teresa--),I will sit upon our scuffed-up hoosier cabinet, lick the batter bowl and watch a documentary on the little kitchen tv. I'll then use my imagination--you've gotta have one awesome imagination to be a successful homemaker-- and create something beautiful for our home. Maybe I'll paint a room and save us a few hundred dollars by doing it myself.

Or maybe I'll just plain have another Fairy Day. After all, I'm the boss of this dream job and I can take an all-afternoon lunch if I wish. Or perhaps I'll drive to the bookstore uptown and intermittently study and dream. And drink coffee. And go any place else my contented-homemaker-heart desires.

And as I go tooling along, I'll glance up at the office building windows and feel bad for all the women imprisoned inside their cubicles. Bad enough to pray they'll be released early for a lovely evening at home and bits of extra fun in the kitchen.



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