HOUSEWIVES OR HOME-MAKERS?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27296, 24 January 1950, Page 2

HOUSEWIVES OR HOME-MAKERS?

NOTES FOR WOMEN

The Importance Of Personal Relationships

The old-fashioned manuals on household management used to offer a staggering range of advice on cooking, laundry work, turning out rooms, and repairing and mending, always apparently assuming that the woman in the home was constantly bent on the job of creating a perfectly run household. Even the work schedules were inhumanly business like: So much time for making breakfast, half an hour for bed making and on through a long day of ceaseless activity. It was enough to daunt any newly married woman starting to run a home single-handed. In practice, it just did not work out that way. Some miminal schedule there must be. The daily tidying up is always there, and so is the daily preparation of meals, but there is scope for immense differences according to individual temperament. The happiness of the people in it should be the criterion of a good home. Good food and pleasant surroundings are a firm basis upon which to build, but the provision of security and serenity are equally important. Young chfldren especially neecf plenty of time and interest from their parents. It is surely far better for their up-bringing and growth to spend an hour or two in the garden or on the beach with them, and to start the ironing late in the evening than to get all the work done early in the day. But even the latest books on

Many women dislike the description “ housewife.” Running a home is not merely a matter of keeping the house clean or polishing the handle of the big front door—to a much larger extent it means caring first for a husband and then for a family. Well-planned fneals lay the foundation of their health, and clean surroundings add to their well-being; but a home is something more than a well-ordered household. The word “ homemaker ” seems more satisfactory and is being increasingly used in women’s magazines; indeed, it will perhaps eventually be adopted instead of the older and narrower term.

housekeeping neglect the companionships which is the main emotional job of a wife and mother and concentrate on the scientific side of home-making. The mere male considers that women make a great deal of their own wotk ii\ the home. They are accused of keeping unnecessarily elaborate standards, and not concentrating on the essentials —good nourishing food, clean beds and linen, and a readiness to be interested in the personal problems of husband and children. ' New ages bring new values; long elaborate meals are out of fashion both practically and nutritionally. One good main course, followed by milk and fruit, cheese and biscuits would cut down the time used for the preparation, serving and clearing and clearing up of meals. Simpler, easier to make and launder clothes should be worn, and rooms should be less elaborately furnished.

Perhaps we are clinging to outworn standards though houses designed in another period do not help us and families do not always appreciate stream-lined innovations. But now that most people's holidays are over, and families are once more settling down it would be a good idea to pause and take stock and see what can be done to devise economies in the pattern of house-keeping so that more time, is available for the personal relationships which are the mark of the good home-maker.