If you desire to be a great homemaker, you must:
- always have a perfectly clean house
- always make homemade food from scratch, using the finest ingredients
- keep your closets wonderfully organized
- have perfectly behaved children (who never have crusty boogers on their sleeves)
- never run out of toilet paper
No pressure.
Drop kick it with me, friends! I despise these expectations we think others are putting on us that we most likely are really putting on ourselves.
The real definition of a great homemaker:
- Loves her family {check}
- Feeds her family {constantly}
- Can close the closet doors {thankfully}
- Relies on God’s grace while raising children {unceasingly}
- Picks up cheese and apples while she’s making a slightly panicked toilet paper run {might as well be efficient}
Want to see what I made my family for our Sunday Dinner today?
It’s a take-and-bake pizza from the store. Couldn’t I have made a homemade pizza? Well sure if I….wait – you know what? NO. I couldn’t. That’s why I bought the pizza. Our weekend has been so full of awesome fun, unexpected appliance break-downs (the washing machine and the dishwasher in the same day, really?), oodles of guests, and because it’s springtime – soccer games. If we were going to make it to church and soccer games today with food in our bellies and a mama who had at least gotten a few hours sleep, lunch was either going to be a package of raw, frozen hamburger – or a store bought pizza. We went with the pizza. (You’re welcome, kids.)
Does great homemaking always mean “make it homemade?”
So let’s consider: Since I bought a pizza from the store to feed my family for lunch, am I a homemaking failure? Since my new/used washing machine just got installed yesterday and I have yet to use it or clean up the mess the delivery guys left all the way down the stairs while they took out the old washer, am I a homemaking failure? Since my dishwasher was broken and I pulled out the paper plates for our company on Saturday morning, am I a homemaking failure?
Sigh. I’m pretty sure I am. Woe is me. I failed to be perfect. I may as well throw in the (dirty) towel.
Or not.
Homemaking is homemaking – no matter what it looks like. My heart is for God and for my family. I always work hard and do my best. Today, my best looked like a store bought pizza. Today, I blessed my family by feeding them, worshiping with them, and cheering them on at soccer. Joyfully, I have a case of toilet paper on hand so that I can check that off my list of mama emergencies.
Homemakers…unite! Bring your imperfections, your crusty nosed kids, your broken appliances, and your unmade beds. Be empowered to keep on doing what God is calling you to do. Keep working hard, loving your families, and rocking this homemaking thing.
And if my closet door is ever open when you come to my house, please look away very quickly and act like you didn’t see a thing.
Hallelujah! Those words will be a balm to so many. Thank you for speaking truth, encouragement, LOVE.
Thank you for this, Laura. All too often that perfectionism bug bites me and I think I have to do everything perfectly…from scratch… with a smile on my face. After 24 years of marriage and 23 years being a mother, I should know that perfection is a lofty goal that isn’t always reached. But I do love my family and care for them the best I can. That should be good enough.
Truth!
Great Homemaking Doesn’t Always Mean “Make it Homemade” and “God Is Bigger than a Free Range Chicken”… Two quotes that I seriously need to get printed up pretty and hung on my wall. I’m telling you, I think I beat myself up just as much as I love on my family. They are happy, well fed and content, but I’m busy girl Martha running around like a chicken with my head cut off instead of finding peace and grace at the feet of Jesus. Thank you for finding time in your busy today to post this. I think so many bloggers post about doing every thing so “right” all the time, that readers like me need to hear that sometimes it’s ok to take a short cut, and that it can still bless our families.
Thank you. I needed this today. :)
Thank the Lord for grace! Mine today: sweet husband asked for take-out from fave BBQ for his birthday lunch today! Being way with-child with #5, I didn’t even blink & say “are you sure, i’ll make you a special meal!” That cheeseburger was great & I needed some iron anyhow. (: Hey, we do what we can, and trust that we are enough…because He says we are! Thanks for the reminder Laura!
Thank you for sounding this note. We homemakers can be so hard on ourselves when we fail to live up to some perceived notion of perfection. I’m guilty of this over and over and need to be reminded to give myself a little grace here and there.
Laura you crack me up!
This is what I needed to hear today! We too have had a busy weekend redoing our bathroom tub tile, setting up a bed for child who has been sleeping on the floor for years, getting out and sorting clothes for the new season and trying to keep up with meals. As messes face me everywhere I look I am encouraged by your post, we are not alone. And this is real homemaking: caring for the needs of our imperfect families and their needs. (and the messes that accompany them) Thanks!
THANK YOU LAURA!!! I woke up this morning practically in tears about all that I needed to do today and here it is after 8pm est and am I done with it all yet? Nope. So I’m taking 10 minutes to check my email and was feeling quite guilty about it until I came to yours. Now? Well, the kids have been bathed and fed, the kitchen has been cleaned and I’m tired. So I think I’m gonna go watch a mindless tv show and zone out for a few. As far as the rest of what I had to do today? Well, there’s tomorrow!
Yes, thank you for the encouragement! I also needed this today…badly. You are a great homemaker.
The washing machine and the dishwasher? Hmm … that’s a strange combination. I’ve often heard that washing machines and dryers “mate for life”, so I hope you don’t have a third appliance poop out on you!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I have had a week full of sleepless nights and “mommy guilt,” so I so needed this reminder!
YES! I struggle with this, fight this a lot! It’s OK to buy the doggone pizza dough – it’s ok to make the boxed mac and cheese because you don’t have anything else to feed the kids right now. You’re not going to die :0)
(So funny! As I was scrolling down to comment, I find that I already did! One year ago exactly…this perfectionism thing puts up all kinds of warning flags for me…from experience of trying to “keep up” & truly nearly running myself in the ground physically and emotionally.)
So all that to say…that bit about “doing your best.” Let’s consider this…do we really have to do our best, all the time? You know we’d spend the whole entire day in the kitchen. I think I’d rather take all kinds of short cuts and spend some time laying in the grass with my kids and actually sitting WITH them to paint and play-doh. Or for real? I’d just really like to sit down during rest time. And do. Absolutely. Nothing. My 5 kids love having a happy, rested momma. I will cook food that nourishes them most of the time, sure thing. Let’s just be aware and evaluate which things in life really deserve our best! (:
I love you Laura & think this comes along with what you are saying!! Happy springy day from the green hills of Tennessee!!