 Tea Time by Harry Booker | Let us not forget that the homes we look after are only shelters for the people that are in them, and not the most important part of our lives. It can sometimes be easy to get caught up in keeping them orderly and forget to take care of the immediate needs of the family. You will need to conduct your work in such a way that you are flexible enough to stop and give love to anyone who needs it. Women used to stop everything to greet their husbands at the door and offer them a refreshment and a comfortable place to unwind. The husband will need the understanding ear of his wife to discuss his problems and help him make decisions for the family. Children need to be able to crawl up on mother's lap and enjoy her embrace at any time. These things are a priority in the home, and they are what bring in the atmosphere of love. Being a good homemaker makes it easier for you to be a good wife and mother, for you will not be so bogged down and behind in work that you cannot stop and listen or give counsel to your loved ones. A woman whose house is in such turmoil from clutter and confusion, with laundry and dishes everywhere, will find it impossible to think straight or concentrate on the immediate needs of her family. Developing an efficient routine to complete housework early in the day will enable you to give your husband your full attention when he is home. A man needs a place to sit down, without having to remove piles of things. The table needs to set so that the family can sit down to dinner together. If the house is in chaos, mealtimes are thrown together without the planning and thought that is needed to make them special. You will notice that when there is less order in the home, there is more family stress, accidents, and sour moods. |
| To solve problem of being perpetually behind, get the main work finished as quickly as possible during the first part of the day. Then the rest of the day is free for you to do interesting projects, read recipes and prepare for dinner, catch up on reading, and other things. Get enough sleep (at least 8 hours) so that you have the proper mental outlook and do not feel tired all day. Being well rested means that you will be more responsive and able to give the love that your family needs. The main work of the home consists of washing dishes, essential laundry, eliminating clutter, and meals. If you have children, it is important that they learn to do these things, and gradually take over the chores, leaving you free to do other things.
When you have a moment, consider the atmosphere of your home. Listen to the clock ticking. Watch the shaft of sun shining across the floor. Smell the scents of the season. Analyze the look and feel of your house and make notes of the things you need to do to improve it. Do you often get a wonderful feeling of warmth and happiness? You are closer to your goal of making a home filled with love. If you are having trouble keeping up with the housework,eliminate the small things that tend to create clutter. Go for a streamlined look or nearly bare look in decorating, so that table tops and surfaces are not overly cluttered. Keep projects in their special places, and always put a room in order when you leave it. Toys strewn all through the house does not show good stewardship on the part of the children and create hazardous situations as people stumble over them. |
April Susan Mink Colclough You May Order This Art Print At AllPosters.com |
Motherhood--Victorian Couple C. Schweninger You May Order This Art Print At AllPosters.com | Developing more time for love in the home means that meals will be begun early but kept simple. They can be served in an interesting way by paying attention to the presentation of the food and the way the table is spread. The use of tablecloths reduces the noise of the clatter of utensils. If you have fussy children,or anxious adults at mealtimes, try eliminating all noise of machinery and media. Lighting candles at the evening meal and having peaceful background music helps soothe the nerves and improve the mood of even the crankiest member of the family.
Having an orderly home will make a woman feel more at peace. She will then be more able to freely give her love to her husband and children. Children need to be brought up seeing their parents giving each other sweet smiles, loving looks and the smallest affections, pats and kisses. It not only helps them to have peace of mind in their growing years, but creates a good opinion of marriage. In a dirty, disorderly, overly noisy and chaotic home, where the mother has no feeling for her work, no goals for the day or week, and no sense of accomplishment, the wife can find it more difficult to respond to her husband or attend the immediate needs of her children. In order to provide love in your home, you simply must have beauty, order and cleanliness. That is not to say that families that do not achieve this do not love each other, just that people feel more loved when the house is cared for. |
Because of the duties presented to home makers today, it is sometimes necessary to find good help, to catch us up when we get in over our heads with housework. Sisters living in the same vicinity can take turns helping each other, mothers and daughters can team up to help one another. This is a very lucrative job for the unmarried woman who wants to provide a loving ministry to others while earning some money for her future home. Helping in the homes of relatives and trusted families is good training for young girls who want to be homemakers.
The home is unique in its purpose. Unlike man-made institutions, it provides comfort and protection for all ages, from infants to the elderly. The home and church needs both the vitality of youth and the wisdom of age, in order to function at its best. Children learn skills at home from their parents and grandparents that they can use to build their own businesses as adults.
Guiding Hand
You May Order This Art Print At AllPosters.com
There is a grassroots trend in America to restore the full function of the home. Many people are now providing a place of care within their own homes for their elderly parents, rather than allowing them to go to nursing homes. The elderly are less apt to be depressed or ill when exposed to the several ages of the family unit. The home is used for education of the young and can be a place of business for the family to earn a living. For some people, home is also a place of worship. We are also returning to the custom of our forefathers of home birth and home school, as well as conducting weddings in our homes.
Many Americans are tired of the "culture wars" and have decided not to participate with suburban and city society in the battle for their children and their marriages. Instead, they are moving away from this noise into quiet communities, farms, homesteads and country estates. These homes are places where the most important things of life will take place: meals, training, Christian teaching, developing talents, courtship, family work and industry, and rest. This is why learning to look after the house is so very important. There will, more often than not, be times when the housework will be neglected--after the birth of a child, arriving home from a trip, when company goes home, and major family events and upheavals, but the homemaker knows what her goal is: to get it back in order. Take courage from the spider and the ant. No matter how badly the rains destroy the spider's web, it begins again with its perfect weaving. It never gives up. Its whole purpose is to create a web. It doesn't let chaos stop it. Now take the ant. The Bible says that the ant gets food ready in the summer to store in the winter. It does this without a ruler or a boss or an overseer. Think about that when you get bogged down or discouraged. You may have quit work and feel at a loss without a company or boss over you. Think about that ant, how it knows its purpose and doesn't have to have anyone telling it what to do. We never hear of an ant or a spider being called lazy or non-industrious, and are we not created with a larger capacity for success than they? Learn to keep your home in such a way that you will one day hear the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
To feel a kind of "mission" in your homemaking, try looking at everything you do as ministry or service to others, with the idea that it might one day develop into a talent that can be used to better your life or the lives of others. There have been many women who enjoyed a certain aspect of homemaking so much, they turned it into a profit. The beauty of working at home is that children are still under the protection and authority of their own parents and they also learn to work, as they follow in their mother's path.
Lady Lydia with her daughter and grandchildren, enjoying a lovely day on the porch.
