Call Me Suzy HomeMaker

I L-O-V-E being a homemaker. I revel in all there is to being a homemaker. I fall short of the ideal (You know that perfect person in Proverbs 31), but I really do try.

And while I love what I do, I do not like being called a housewife. There is a connotation that drips out of this word, and you can hear it every time someone says "Oh, your a housewife," followed by the all important "so you don't work." This is never a question people, it is a statement. This idea of a woman in her perfectly pressed frock daintily dusting with a feather duster and easily keeping the house spic and span, or the other repugnant idea of the woman dressed in her skin tight leopard print spandex pants lounging on the sofa watching soaps and eating bonbons.

There is so much more to being a homemaker or better yet a keeper of the home than is encompassed in the word housewife (cringe). I have so many wonderful examples of what a homemaker looks like, but the one to which I refer the most is my maternal Grandmother. I was named after her. Our name, Sarah Elizabeth, means Princess Dedicated to God and the title fit my Grandmother to a tee. She oozed hospitality. She was so happy being at home that she never learned how to drive. She was her happiest when she had her family and a huge number of strangers to feed. She made people feel at home in her house. My Grandmother was such a good Homemaker that, even though Parkinson's Disease had kept her from going to church for 10 years, when she died it was standing room only at her funeral. Her children and grandchildren, and if I can help it her great-grandchildren, did arise and call her blessed.

My grandmother was a Homemaker. Housewife just doesn't fit the bill. It is flaccid and cheap compared to what a Homemaker does. My house may not always be spic and span, and you most assuredly will step on a Lego or two, but I pray that I will always have a home where my husband feels comfort, where my children play, grow, and learn, and where friends, family and strangers feel that they are welcomed and wanted anytime.