In Favor of Incompetent Housewives

Last updated on: December 26, 2014 at 5:15 pm by Jennifer Fitz

In Favor of Incompetent Housewives 2014-12-26T17:15:11-05:00 Jennifer Fitz

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Your must-read column for today is Calah Alexander’s essay on what it’s like being part of the current generation of incompetents, “Those Pathetic Millenial Moms.”

. . . I was raised by a loving, attentive mother who stayed home until I was in high school. But culture is pervasive. Kids learn it through osmosis, and unless you lock them in a fortress, they’re gonna pick up on it. “Stay-at-home-mom” had a negative connotation for me from the time I began hearing “mom” qualified as such. Women who wanted to be “just moms” were baffling to me — I literally couldn’t understand why anyone would voluntarily chose a life of snot-and-vomit-filled drudgery.

Yet like so many young millennial moms, I’ve spent the majority of my adult life as a stay-at-home mom. . . .

I’ve come to understand that the domestic arts really are an art, that it takes skill and virtue and mental acuity to be a good wife and mother. I’ve also come to understand that I’m woefully unprepared for this life that I once thought fit only for those women who couldn’t (or didn’t want to) make something of themselves.

This isn’t just a “millennial” issue. I’m no turn-of-the-century child, but I remember the steady despair, which still clings, of living out a vocation that consists of scrambling through failure after failure. Of never, ever, being able to do the job, and honestly not even being sure what the job should entail.

When you get hired someplace, they check your qualifications. You get hired for jobs that you’ve been trained to do, or that someone will soon train you to do. If you misunderstand the scope of the work, someone quickly (if unpleasantly) clarifies what is needed and what is not. If you are ill-educated or ill-suited to the work, they hire someone else.

We incompetent mothers are wedged in the crack between a society that tells us to outsource the work to the professionals, and a heart that knows we can hire out any other task but this one: No one else can be my child’s mother for me.

Which means that, lousy though I am at it, I have to figure it out or die trying.

Read Calah’s excellent essay on how we got here and what we can do about it.

Dr. Greg & Mrs. Popcak’s latest, And then Comes Baby, contains a sturdy dose of tonic for those wondering whether parents matter.
GKC’s What’s Wrong with the World? is where you find the famous (or notorious) elegy to amateurism. Different time and place, but dig into the history of home economics classes and you’ll realize the problems were quite similar at the start of last millennium as well.

Image: G. K. Chesterton at the age of 13 (no later than 1908) Source: G. K. Chesterton, A Criticism: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3334524;view=1up;seq=87 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Previous Post

November 19, 2014

The Grace of No #GraceofYes

Next Post

November 24, 2014 Hating the Holidays as the Precursor to Happiness

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Books Catechesis Catholic Q&A Chastity Church Craziness Come See Me Talk Disability & Chronic Illness Economics Evangelization Facepalm Forgiveness Good Things History Homeschooling Human Rights It's All Catholic Listen to Me Survey Series Liturgical Living Marriage Modesty Not Satire. But almost. Rant-o-Rama Sacred Art & Music Satire South Carolina Spark Clutter Stick that Corner Suffering Thinking Topics Writing Stuff

Select a Month September 2026 July 2026 June 2026 January 2026 December 2025 September 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 November 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 May 2019 April 2019 February 2019 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

According to Paul, nothing in all creation can separate you from me—not death, not life, not angels or demons. What am I?

Select your answer to see how you score.

God's grace The love of God Salvation God's mercy