Has the "Art of being a housewife" been lost?

Question

Note the manual....

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200309/flanagan

Answer 1

We all should strive to be the best at what we choose as a career and all be it imo housewife is not something I would choose as a career there is an art to doing it the way it should be done.  I have a job but I also have books that tell me the best way to clean, make my own cleaning solutions, get out stains, or numerous other things around the house.  I find that the more knowledge I have in my head the better I am at assisting others.  Of course when I mention what I learned about cleaning people look in disbelief that I would do such being a feminist but I am a women and I like to know how to clean whether I have the energy to do so or not.

Anyways I think if a women chooses to stay at home and make that her purpose (career) then she should apply the art to it. If she does not I always think that she sucks at her job.  She should fulfill her job requirements, the kids, the husband and the house.

Answer 2

Well, I've always found cleaning pretty tedious, and never really took to it, my husband is a much more efficient cleaner than I am, though I give it a go for the sake of domestic harmony.  Where the real art came in was in the pre-industrial era when housework wasn't about cleaning and beautifying a house, but about actually producing the foodstuffs, clothing and other household items needed to keep the family going.  For instance, in 'Tudor Women', Alison Plowden describes what was expected of a Tudor housewife:

'In an age when self-sufficiency was no fad but a stern, practical necessity, the proper care and management of a household offered a highly-skilled, challenging and responsible occupation.  The average housewife was expected to brew the family's beer and bake its bread as a matter of course, to spin, weave and make up the wool and linen cloth for clothes and household use. She must know all the techniques for preserving food - how to cure bacon and hams, to salt the meat from the autumn slaughtering which must last through the winter, store apples and vegetables for the long months when no fresh produce would be available, make jellies, conserves and pickles to vary a monotonous diet and help to conceal the taste of anything that was going "off".  The housewife who failed to plan her winter stores adequately would know the ultimate shame of seeing her family go hungry.  In most households the rush or wax lights which provided the only illumination were made at home, and so was soap - a laborious process involving mutton fat and lye, obtained from wood ash.  Washday itself was hard labour, steeping and then beating the heavy linen sheets with wooden bats, before bleaching, smoothing and folding.  Not surprisingly, this immense effort was undertaken only every three months or so.  The dairy was always a good housewife's special responsibility, and she had to know enough about animal husbandry to be a judge of a milch cow.  She did her own milking, reared the calves, made her own butter and cheese.  She looked after the poultry, carefully hoarding feathers for pillows and mattresses, grew her own vegetables, herbs and flowers, and all this on top of the daily chores of cooking, scrubing, sweeping, and caring for her children.

Any housewife worthy of the name would have a general knowledge of sick-nursing and rudimentary doctoring, and this in turn often meant a wide knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants and herbs.  In many families recipes for salves, cordials, poultices, possets and other sovereign remedies were handed down from mother to daughter, and some women with a special gift or interest would experiment on their own account.  The really dedicated housewife also found time to embroider her linen and bed-hangings, distil perfume, make wines and syrups, potpourii and pastilles to be burned in a sick-room or to sweeten the air.'

Now that's what I call art.

Answer 3

I think the effort and skill involved in being a housewife or homemaker is still around... it's just covered up by misconceptions about oppression because many people in society don't appreciate or value it any more.

Answer 4

I don't think its been lost with my wife...

(I don't think she ever had it in the first place)

Answer 5

go do some ans work it out for yourself. twit

Answer 6

indeed, much like the Art of smoking a cigarrette! Bring back the 1920s!

Answer 7

With these gas prices, the art of being a housewife is definitely lost. Don't blame the women, blame the stupid government for not developing alternative fuels when we got screwed over by OPEC in 1973.  We've had 35 years to get off of gasoline. Who wants to be a housewife if you can't put food on the table?

Answer 8

because we moved on to other kinds of arts.

The art of being a fighter

The art of being of use in society

The art of helping men pay the Oh sooo large bills , even when they complain about it , but secretly love it!

Seriously everything is in constant evolution...people should learn to adapt..

Answer 9

An art? You can't lose an art if it was never an art to begin with.

Answer 10

Only in the mind of those who find it oppressing; all forms of are are lost in the minds of those who find it oppressing and or they are simply depressed themselves.

Answer 11

Yes home crafts have been lost for men and women. Everything is done for us these days.

Answer 12

It was never an "art" in the first place but it seems to be still around (though in decline thank God). The same way that men have no chivalry and are not providers like they once were, more like lazy bast*rds who sit on their arses smoking and drinking cider whilst on benefits, aspiring to go on the Jeremy Kyle Show.

EDIT I disagree with you on that, art IS subjective but it's also creative, there is no art to being an Accountant or working in Technical Support (to give but two examples).

EDIT Don't correct someone's typing error in a patronising manner and then leave the "u" out of endeavour, what would a yank know about speaking English anyway lol?.

EDIT " where I come from my girls learned to write and speak english"...where I come from (England) the way you bastardise MY language looks naive and shambolic.

EDIT I'm going for the "strike", that's the full 10 thumbs-down, come on people one more!!!.

Answer 13

For the most part, yes. :(

Answer 14

In some aspects, yes.  As the article states, the focus is more on raising the children, and less on taking care of the house, as evidenced by the etymological shift from "housewife" to "stay-at-home-mother."  In other aspects, I think recent years have seen a revival of the "art."  For instance, the DIY craze, crafting, scrapbooking, a renewed interest in gardening, and since the advent of the Food Network, many people have become self taught gourmet cooks.

I am a feminist, and a stay at home mother who makes perfect baguettes and grows prize winning roses, and taught my son to read when he was three.

Answer 15

as with the change in social behaviors and the needs to be able to provide for the house hold, that is what I believe has molded our new house hold changes.  The days of Leave it to Beaver our gone.  I believe in sharing equal duties of what life brings us.  That goes for cooking, cleaning and what ever else may come into union of that couple.  If one fails to contribute just because they think it is not there job.  Then that is what it is A JOB.  Not good for the relationship.

Answer 16

I think I know what you mean, and I think it is safe to say that we are, in fact, losing it. Even women who stay home with the kids are not the same as they were back in the day when women were primarily staying at home. Today it is SO much more stressful, expensive, and fast-paced to do ANYTHING, even being a housewife with kids.

Though I must agree, the art of chivalry amongst men seems to have already been lost, unfortuantely. So, without chivalry on a man's part, it's ok to say bye-bye to being a housewife. Why should women live up to previously conceived standards if men don't have to?

Answer 17

One can only hope.