why i want to be a homemaker

September 1, 2023

I wanted to do a blog post about what actually inspired this whole thing in the first place. There are a few homemaker women in my life that I admire, as well as a few Instagram influencers. But I really think this all just stemmed from me knowing that I desire to change who I am as a mother. In a previous post, I listed some of the things that I want to make up my identity in the role of motherhood, and I think they are the perfect reasons behind wanting to dive more deeply into the idea of homemaking.

Patience

One of the first things I noticed about myself as a mother is that I get impatient, frustrated, and feel defeated way too quickly and easily. This has a lot to do with my mindset. On the hard days, when Florence had a fever or was teething or was just being a bit grumpy, (which I

have actually figured out was due to her not getting enough breastmilk and needing to supplement formula) I would just automatically set myself up for a bad day. I grumbled getting out of bed and knew I wouldn’t get anything done because I wouldn’t be able to set her down for more than five minutes to play. I was exhausted thinking about the day ahead, leaving zero room for patience with Florence, or myself.

One of the ways that I’ve found helps me to be patient with my daughter is to say “yes” more, and to “get curious” more. What I mean by this is that I stopped trying to force her to do what I wish she was doing. My thoughts before were, “Ugh, why can’t you just sit here and play for a minute? I’ll sit with you, but I already know you’re going to hate that, too. Let’s just get you something to eat. Of course you don’t want this food. I guess I will just let you eat puffs while I lock myself in my room for a minute.” Seriously. That’s where I was at. And I would call my husband in the middle of his day, crying to him about how much I wished he could just leave work and come home.

Now, rather than get so frustrated before Florence is even playing with her toys, I try to listen to her more. “Getting curious” is about asking why something is happening before jumping to conclusions. Why doesn’t she want to play on the floor? Do her teeth hurt and she just wants to be held? Is she hungry? Is she tired? I often just avoided asking these questions because I was trying to keep her on a schedule. Both her daytime and nighttime sleep were struggling, I was tired, she was teething… I needed to find a solution and sticking exactly to a schedule was how I was going to do it. That, and I truly felt like I needed to get a million things done because people were coming over to our new house and… you know how stressful that is.

Anyway, I was being selfish. I was ignoring her and just telling myself that I was sent an eternally crabby baby and I hated staying home with her. How AWFUL is that? Florence is perfect! I wouldn’t trade being her mom for anything in the world. But in those moments where my mindset was off and I just spiraled… I truly felt some of those things. And I didn’t like that. So that’s, again, when I started to get curious and say “yes” more.

What that looked like for me and Florence was: “Okay, you don’t want to sit here and play with toys, but my back hurts and I need to do the laundry, so I can’t pick you up and carry you around. How about you help me with the laundry? I’ll put you in the basket and push you down the hall, and then you can ‘help’ me by playing with this brush and sponge. You’re such a great helper! Let’s have some lunch now. Oh, you don’t want this food, or this food? Maybe you’re more tired than you are hungry. Let’s nurse you for a bit and put you down for a nap, even though it’s not quite time yet.” I’ve found that this mentality of letting her do things with me may make things more tedious, but stepping out of the schedule to follow her cues better worked wonders for my patience and how I viewed my day.

Which is where homemaking comes into play with all of this. I feel like making things from scratch with your hands is a true test of patience. Add a baby to that and… voila! I’ll be practicing patience all day. I already like to be creative, so I’ve tried to step out of my comfort zone in the kitchen a bit by cooking more meals from scratch and trying my hand out at breads and desserts. I’ve always felt like I am a bad cook, but I really just think I lack the patience to practice, and that’s what I am trying to work on!

compassion

When I consider my identity, “compassionate” is not a word that comes to mind. I’ve never felt like I am able to empathize well or go out of my way to let people know that they are loved. I’ve been told I’m not compassionate. And that’s not something I enjoy hearing, or thinking about myself.

Of course I love Florence. And my husband, Jarom. And the rest of my family and friends. I’m just not great at showing that. But I feel like if I put love into my home - through cooking healthy meals, baking treats and making the house smell delicious, growing and nurturing plants, creating works of art - I will in turn be putting love into my family. The saying is that family is what makes a house a home, but I would say that the home is also what makes and keeps the family together.

If my home is constantly in disarray, dinner isn’t ready on time - or it is, but it’s just chicken nuggets or Kraft Mac n’ Cheese - chaos abides more than love. If the dishes are still in the sink and the kitchen is a mess in the morning, I’m setting myself up for a day of catch-up, and my patience begins to stretch itself thin. Having a home that is orderly, full of sustaining meals, and free of contention is what I consider to be a loving home.

I also think that there is compassion in greeting your husband each day when he gets home from work, instead of inviting him into the whirlwind that may have been your day. I know I am extremely guilty of just *unintentionally* shrugging my husband off and filling him in on our day when he walks through the door, before I ever even ask about his. Compassion is being able to sympathize with someone, which I could being doing more of.

FAITH

This goes hand-in-hand with my wanting to have a loving home. The spirit cannot abide in a home that is full of chaos (and I don’t mean the kids running around and having fun, I mean that everything is not in its rightful place or you’re ordering takeout for the third night in a row rather than cooking a healthy meal). And I think life tends to slow down and be a bit more beautiful when the spirit dwells in our home.

This blog is all about honesty, so here comes some of that: since Jarom and I got married, (which was a little over three years ago) up until now, we have probably read our scriptures and/or prayed together for maybe… a month total. We tried at the beginning, like I’m sure a lot of other couples do. But I had this weird pride complex or something (that I am finally OVER) that made me not want to suggest doing spiritual things with my husband? I will have to self-reflect a bit more deeply on that later. And I was also dealing with depression as a side-effect of the birth control I was on, which didn’t help. So we fell off the wagon for a long

while and maybe tried to pick it up here and there for a few years… but I was struggling a bit with my testimony. (Maybe I’ll do a post on that later, though I’m not sure I could really type out my thoughts clearly.)

Then this January, 2023, we started doing Come Follow Me together as part of my New Year’s resolution. And you know what happens with those (for most people). We had had a lot of great discussions, but there were still parts of my testimony that I was struggling with.

Now, we’ve been doing Come Follow Me (we use this cool app called Come Follow Me Daily that my sister recommended, which I’m sure everyone else already knows about and is using) for about a month now, and I think it has made such a huge difference! Especially when we decide to dive deeper into our study by actually reading a whole chapter and studying one of the suggestions at the end of the mini lesson. We have also started saying a prayer together before bed - kneeling down, which is a bit out of my comfort zone as it wasn’t something I grew up doing, but I know it’s a good thing to do. I also say my own personal prayer at night (and I really try to in the morning but that doesn’t always happen). I would like to start including Florence, but right now our schedule with when Jarom gets home from work and when she goes to bed vs. when we do just doesn’t work out for us currently.

So how does faith tie into homemaking, other than having a Christ-centered home? The Proverbs 31 Woman.

In searching up simply “homemaking” on Pinterest, I found links to blogs and articles about “Vintage Homemaking'', “How to Live the Grandmacore Lifestyle,” and “Old-Fashioned Skills Disappearing from Society'', - which completely baffles me that this practice has simply gone out of style - among links to other blogs and articles titled “A Biblical View of Homemaking” and “Enemies of Homemaking”. The latter were the articles that I was drawn to because I knew they would lead me to the scriptures.

“A Biblical View of Homemaking” referenced a few scriptures: Titus 2:4-5, Proverbs 31:27, and Proverbs 24:3-4.

The scripture in Titus mentions teaching young women to love their children and husbands, as well as teaching them to be “keepers at home” (which can also be translated to “housekeepers” or “guards” from Greek.) I know everyone doesn’t read the Bible, but if they did, they wouldn’t have let homemaking become an old-fashioned way of life.

Proverbs 31, from verse 10 to the end refers to the so-called Proverbs 31 Woman. The blog I read referenced verse 27 specifically, which reads, “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.” To some, being a stay-at-home mom or a homemaker seems like a dream job where you just get to sit at home all day and do nothing. It is anything BUT that. Taking care of your home and family is a 24/7 job, and while there may be moments to catch up on social media or a show during nap time, you are going, going, going most of the day! Like this scripture said, homemakers really aren’t eating the bread of idleness.

The Proverbs 31 Woman is also safely trusted by the heart of her husband (verse 11), works wool and flax with her hands (verse 13), gets up early to care for her household and maidens (verse 15), she grows her own food (verse 17), she sews her own clothing and sells some of it as well (verses 19, 22, 24), she is wise and kind (verse 26), and she is praised by her husband and children (verse 28). Just all around an excellent chapter to read when we need a reminder of what we are called to do as mothers.

In Proverbs 24:3-4, it talks about how it takes wisdom to build a home, understanding to establish it on a good foundation, and knowledge to fill its rooms with riches. This is such a great reminder to me that my faith is so important in setting up a firm foundation for my whole family. My knowledge of the gospel and my relationship with Heavenly Father and the Savior are what will hold our family together through not only trials, but our everyday life. I can fill the rooms of my home with the richness of the gospel with the knowledge that I have of it.

There’s a quote by President Gordon B. Hinkley that expands on this scripture: “You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation. You must have a solid foundation if you’re going to have a strong superstructure.”

CREATIVITY

I think that wanting to be a creative homemaker and mother is the most easy to understand of all these reasons. Making things requires creativity, whether that be crafts, food, or games to play with your children. I would already consider myself to be a creative person, but I currently don’t use my creativity as often as I should.

Creativity in motherhood and homemaking doesn’t have to be something extravagant, and that’s what I have to remind myself. I can be creative in trying out a new home cooked meal even just once a week. I can be creative in making a house out of a cardboard box that Florence can play in. I can be creative in learning how to crochet a new stitch, or working on a project when I have a spare minute. I can be creative in making up songs to sing to Florence as I can clean the house.

I think it's important to have a creative outlet or hobby as a mother, since sometimes homemaking routines can seem monotonous and overwhelming. I’m still trying to figure out if there is one, sole creative thing that I love doing, or if I truly just like to dabble in a lot of things. I would like to learn sewing, embroidery, breadmaking, and watercolor. I currently try to spend part of nap time working on a household task like tidying the kitchen or cleaning the bathroom, and the other part of nap time either working on this blog or a creative project.

The Bottom Line

I want to transition into becoming a patient, loving, faithful, and creative homemaker and mother because I don’t like where I am at currently, and I want to change. I want to make the transition and fall into routines and habits now, so that they will be established by the time my children are older and life gets more hectic. I hope this post inspired you in some way. Until next time!