I had to go to the clinical job after a day at uni and left late. Which annoys me. One of the reasons I work for the university — and accept the lower salary — is so I can leave on time. When the boys were younger, this translated into time at home after school with them. Now they are older, it is gym time. I don’t have a wife. Someone has to cover.
Oh, and being a wife is not as much about being a lover (though that is part of it) as about running your half of the show. Looking after small kids is a full-time job. Someone has to do it. Cooking food that is cheap nutritiously takes skill and time. As does the laundry. Wives play defence: they make the money their Husband brings in go further. A lot further. In many families, the wife also keeps the books and organizes the appointments, because the husband is out lambing or on the building site, where the cellphone cannot be used. It is a partnership: it is a life built together. And the corporate model does not work.
See, here’s the thing. I don’t want to be defined as a wholly independent person. I am a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, an aunt, a niece, a neighbour, a writer, a blogger, a citizen. The very fabric of my life, the weight of my being, the purpose of my existence is intertwined with my existence in relation to other people. Remove those other people, and I am nothing. The secret is that without those relationships to define them, everyone is nothing. Only feminists are foolish enough to believe that being free from all obligations and responsibilities towards others constitutes “freedom”. It constitutes annihilation.
Yes, I got a “Wife Bonus”. And it’s not because I am an employee, trading my skills in an informal but nevertheless financially compensated labour market. It’s because I’m part of team. Part of a family. Part of a neighbourhood, a town, a province, a country, a society. Like it or not, our fortunes and our futures are always, to a degree, shared.
That shared future is what makes our whole world work.
Feminists will never get an anything bonus, because the only thing they share is hatred, bigotry and an abiding love for the person in the mirror, no matter how selfish and bitter she is.
Janet says something quite interesting here. She defines herself as a network, not a job — something that my grandmother would have done. In the text she says she’s quite happy to leave things such as finances to her husband because she trusts him… and he’s prepared to leave some things to her.
And she knows, as do all men, that our jobs to not a life make.
But I want to extend it. Being a husband is a role: it is about provision and security and vision. It is about being a rock, taking at times hard decisions, thinking about the best for all others. Good husbands lead well, and govern well. You can judge a husband by his children.
Being a wife is more relational. It is probably more domestic: it concentrates on the home and making it a shelter: it provides asylum and succour. It is being the only sounding board most husbands have. You can judge a wife by her husband, and the trust she has in him.
And these roles are spiritual, covenantal. They allow children to grow safe. They allow the establishment of homes — and never forget that Rivendell, that last homely place before the wilderness — was run by Elrond and his daughter, Arwen Undomiel. Both roles are needed [1].
And for those reasons the elite, in their suicide cult, hate and fear the role of husband and despise the role of wife. Because they protect the child, the young. They want to destroy the family. For they worship the state and see the destruction of the souls of the next generation as a worthy and fitting sacrifice.
Do not even eat a meal with such.
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1. Elrond’s wife, Celebrian, had been captured by orcs and tortured, and could not withstand middle earth: Arwen took over the role of mistress of Rivendell and the function of ruling that domain, as her duty since her mother could not. After the fall of the one ring Elrond joined his wife in the far west, as Arwen married and sundered herself from her parents and elvenkind.
Being a mom and a wife are roles that overlap, but I understand why sometimes you’ll hear women refer to these roles as jobs.
#1 our culture is obsessed with paid work
#2 our performance is evaluated – by our husbands at best or society at worst
#3 separating out the jobs that go with the role (especially for SAHM) and the role itself isn’t something most people do.
I tend to call my to-do list the chores. Today my chores are laundry and cooking and kitchen cleanup; errands; overseeing schoolwork and nagging the kids to complete it; taking the dog to the vet; etc.
Which chores I do daily varies – and generally speaking I’m the one who decides what gets done. The goal is that my husband works his tail off at work and comes home and never has to wonder if there will be a clean towel or tasty meal, that the bills get paid, that his children are safe and well-educated and well-loved.
Individual chores aren’t especially complex. Difficult sometimes, depending on the elbow grease required, but rarely complex. Balancing the chores and the kids and correctly prioritizing – now that’s more complicated. But that’s what SAHM *do*. If and when the kids aren’t home anymore and I have outside employment, my chore list will change, and so will the priority list.
So – being a mom isn’t a job, but the laundry kind of is. :p A sisyphean job. And my life is made up of myriad little jobs like that – so, I understand why people call being a mom a “job” instead of a “role”. Sloppy word choice. 🙂
Not sure what my “job” as a wife is, because I can’t imagine requiring pay to do any of them. (And other stuff, life stuff that you just have to do and we divvy up – hello, everyone has to do the life stuff. That’s only a job if you’re wealthy enough to hire a personal assistant).
So – sloppiness and #1 – we are obsessed with jobs and everyone wants one.
The contractual model of employment would not explain why I went to work after hours last night. Second day in a row. My professional duty does.
The contractual role does not explain why a wife does the stuff — FYI I do have a cleaner for some life stuff here — but there is a huge value in a woman’s perspective, for they note things men don’t. You can raise kids solo, but they do better when raised by a Mom and Dad. That only works if the Mom was and is a wife first, and Dad was and is a husband first. Both roles have commands written about them: the male version is that we need to love our wives, and the female version is that she is not the one to be in control.