I’m a thinker – not necessarily a deep thinker, you understand – but I am a thinker. As I go about my life my mind is always working away at this or that idea or conundrum or situation. All of us want to improve ours and our loved ones’ lives, but at the risk of making a gross generalization, it seems to me that it is usually the woman in a family who feels the strongest urge to make things better, to see change as a good and progressive thing, and to spend the most time thinking about how the family can accomplish that.
Of course, that is not to say that husbands don’t care about family improvement – I see my husband thinking and implementing ideas to provide for us and increase our security and keep us safe from physical dangers all the time, but I don’t believe he often thinks things like this:
- I wonder if there is something we could do to make the whole laundry process more efficient?
- That #3 kid seems to be developing a bit of an entitlement mentality. What do we need to do to nip that in the bud?
- Should we change the dog’s flea medication?
- Is couponing worth the bother? Should I try it? Would we really save money?
- Should we be eating organic food?
- How could we make the house a more peaceful place to be?
- It seems like all we do is react to household crises – out of underwear, out of toilet paper, disgusting bathroom, nasty kitchen floor. How could I get into a better routine with all the mundane chore stuff so things stay on a more even keel?
- I think we need to be sitting down to meals together more often. Studies show ___________ and that makes sense to me. Maybe I need to plan meals better so we aren’t just getting takeout and eating frozen pizza so much.
- Maybe if I were better at my job, the whole family would operate better and be happier. Is there a secret to all this homemaker stuff? What do I not understand?
Am I the only one who has thoughts like that whirling around in her mind as she runs errands, sorts laundry, and washes dishes? You, too? Do you also think that way when you are wiped out and vegging in front of the computer or TV and feeling guilty because you are so tired and it doesn’t seem like you accomplished much all day? Do you visit a friend and see her tidy house and cheerful family and wonder why she’s got it all together and you know your husband is wearing yesterday’s socks and at home your sink isn’t the only place dirty dishes are stashed and the Bible class you are supposed to teach starts in two days and you haven’t even begun to prepare and you have to bake five hundred cookies for the Boy Scout banquet tonight?
So, I have been thinking about all the thinking that is part of being a homemaker. I have been thinking about ways we women lie to ourselves, tell the truth to ourselves, and urge ourselves toward defeat or victory with our self-talk. In short, I’ve been thinking about how our homemaking actions follow our homemaking thinking and how when we change our minds we naturally change our behavior.
I plan to write a series of articles I hope will help us identify ways to nudge our thinking in better directions. Probably there will be some ideas for activities to “prove” to our cerebral selves that better thinking is the way to get to better action. We’ll see. This is a work in progress, just as I am a work in progress, and I assume you, Dear Reader, are, too.
For now, it would help me if you’d share areas in homemaking that you find challenging – both the thinking and the doing parts. What do you wish you didn’t have to do? What do you find yourself not doing that you think you ought to be doing? What do you wish could change?
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