After visiting Homeliving Helper this morning, I had to smile my Pity Smile. Again. After being a happy homemaker for 27 years, I've been asked nearly all the questions Cinderella and her commenters had been asked.
You know, sweet, polite inquiries like, "As a housewife, don't you get bored just sitting around the house all day? Don't you feel trapped? What do you do without a car? Wouldn't you rather have a real job? How can you afford to stay home?"
All these years later I've reached a conclusion: some people just have no imagination. Some folks would never imagine that I, a mid-life homemaker, have the best job on Earth, especially at this phase of my life.
Hey, I can read books or magazines or recipes whenever I want. Sit in my backyard with coffee or go online whenever I wish. Clean the house at my convenience, work-out, take a walk, watch tv, paint walls, eat a snack or drink lemonade on the front porch (and preen in the sun like a Cheshire cat).
Trapped inside my house? You've got to be kidding! I can open a book and go anywhere in the world. I can turn on my radio or tv and visit other countries, cultures with my eyes, my imagination. I can even travel back in time by watching my black-and-white tv series dvd's (and be inspired to keep my house nicely the way June Cleaver did).
I can chat with people from across the United States or the world online. I can write in this blog and immediately, fine people from the world-over will read what I wrote. I can join email groups with people who love all the same things I do and discuss our hobbies, our families, and share pictures.
New skills are mine to learn, ones like decorating, gardening, knitting, saving money or read-up on history or health and wellness.
And on days when I feel like going out and about, I can take my husband to work in the mornings and have the car for the next shining 12 hours, and go anywhere and do anything (well, within reason and a 30 mile radius). I can drive to the town library and spend hours browsing, reading, dreaming or I can have coffee at any of our local supermarkets while sitting at a bistro table with a magazine.
Afterward, I can pick-up lunch at a drive-through window and then drive over to the park and sit beside the river with my lunch and a good book. I can even go treasure hunting at second-hand shops, have my hair done or visit with a friend either in her home or at a coffee shop.
Trapped at home, indeed! People spend years and thousands of dollars trying to find their dream home, and when they do find it, well, I simply cannot imagine feeling trapped inside the home for which you've nearly sweated blood.
Never has it been what you do for a living which makes you free. It's always been who you are, Who you know (Jesus), and how you look at what you do--those are what free you.
And I can't help but give a Pity Smile to those who don't have the imagination to realize that.
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