Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Day 3: Ten Reasons I'd Make a Horrible Housewife


There are holidays to celebrate everything these days:

National Button Day!

National Vodka Day! (wait, I celebrate national vodka day).

Today we celebrate two wonderful things: the delicious sandwich, and the doting housewife.

PSA: To be clear, there's a difference between Stay At Home Moms and Housewives.

SAHMs work harder than people who go to the office. They're on call 24/7 to take care of their families and keep the house running – no small task.

Housewives, however, are a different breed, from a different era. Think: June Cleaver and Carol Brady. Pearls and aprons. Hoovers and housework.

THESE are the housewives I want to celebrate today.

A year ago, I was on maternity leave. And it was wonderful. I was able to be a SAHM for 4 months, spending tons of time with Max, nurturing him, and establishing a routine that not only created balance in his world, but would then help other people (aka: his grandmothers) take care of him. Sure, I cooked dinner every night…because I love to cook.

But in no way was I a 1950s housewife.

I'd make a horrible housewife. Here's why:


1. No sweatpants. 1950s housewives didn't even own a pair of yoga pants. In fact, they barely wore any sort of pants ever (except for Carol Brady who would don fancy polyester pantsuits and scarves, but even then, she was wearing a suit). They wore dresses! With stockings! And (platform) heels! And pearls!



"Is there anything better than baking in stockings?"


2. Vacuuming. Sucking up dirt sucks the life out of me. Oh, and vacuums back in the day weighed about as much as a small car.



"Oh, I could do this all day! Vacuuming is really cathartic." – said no woman, ever.


3. Dinner at 5pm, SHARP! Five o'clock is practically the middle of the afternoon! But I get it, my husband has just gotten home from his fairy tale job that somehow allows him to work a full day, commute home, and still walk in the door barely minutes past 5pm.

"May I cut your meat for you, too?"


4. Cooking a feast, every day. In the 1950s, a housewife and her husband would sit down to dinner at a table covered with casseroles and bowls of food that could feed an army.


"It only took me 7 hours to whip up this mid-week turkey. Who needs to wait until 
Thanksgiving? My man loves a browned bird any day of the week!"


5. Not drinking. Now, the famous TV housewives of today certainly drink, but I'm talking about the ladies from back in the day. They may have had a martini waiting for their husband, but they never took a sip of alcohol. Ever. Maybe they stashed a bottle in the laundry room?

Sing it, sister.

6. It's all about HIM. There were those times that our lovely housewives did stop tending to the home for her man in order to leave the house and run errands...for her man. Stops could include: the Market (to pick up detergent to do all of her man's laundry), the butcher (to pick up her man's favorite cut of meat for dinner), the dry cleaner (to pick up and drop off her man's suits and ties), and the bank (to deposit her man's hard-earned money).

The 'honey do list'...the early years.

7. Ironing. I believe I'm allergic. Embarrassingly, I've been known to not wear articles of clothing for an entire season because they were too wrinkled.


"Dear me, I wish I had MORE laundry to iron!"


8. The phone tree. I hate talking on the phone. If it were up to me, I would communicate with everyone via emails, texts and Instagram posts. For housewives, however, the landline was their lifeline to the outside world! Forget long, boozy lunches with the girls (which is my preferred activity for catching up with friends), instead it was hour-long conversations about the floozy down the street and soap operas.

"Oh hi, Betsy! No, it's perfect timing. I just finished baking cookies 
for no reason whatsoever! Tell me ALL about the Ladies' League meeting!"


9. The "Housewife Haircut". Curly hair + coiffed 'mom 'do' = disaster.

Hurricane-proof.

10. The Perma-Smile. Do you think a husband ever walked in the door at night, kissed his bride on the cheek and asked, "How was your day, sweetie?" Only for her to answer, "Actually, it was rather quite shitty, dear."

No it doesn't.

No comments:

Post a Comment