While knitting, I thought about Marianne's question. She wrote: I'm a bit surprised by you referring to yourself as a "kept" woman. Why do you use that expression?
Because it's true and it's not derogatory. Staying home can be my choice only because we are in a situation that allows me to make it. My husband is able to work, he is willing to work, and the income he earns pays all our bills including the roof over my head, the food I eat, and the clothes I wear. It also pays for the yarn I knit, the fabric I sew, and the books I read along with coffee or lunch with friends and any trips or workshops I take. His financial and emotional support keeps me warm and dry, fed and clothed, safe AND creative.
Yes, I do work around the home and it certainly makes life easier to have me here but none of the tasks that I do would cease to exist if he walked out the door tomorrow. Choice would be walking out with him. I would still need to cook, clean, do laundry, and parent as well as get a job to support myself and my children and find time to do the household chores that my husband currently does. In fact, the thing that would cease to exist would be time for knitting, sewing, reading, and activities like that.
The choice to stay home only works in a co-operative environment. I'm grateful that we have that and I want to contribute in a positive way by doing what I can to make my husband's life easier as he does what he can to make my life easier.
Jean Ray Laury wrote The Creative Woman's Getting It All Together At Home Handbook in 1977. I read it a few years ago when it had been in print for thirty years. Many points are still relevant today except that I couldn't relate to the tone of anger and bitterness expressed by many of the female artists toward their husbands. They resented their "demands" for a clean home or a warm dinner or time spent parenting because these activities were keeping them from what was really important - their art.
Not that I've been perfect. You all know that. But, thirty years later, away from the culture of that time, I don't see art as a higher priority than making a home or raising children or building a relationship. I also don't understand the lack of give and take in their situations. To me, if your husband works every day and makes it possible for you to stay home and explore your creativity, then in a co-operative relationship juggling that creativity around making a meal, running a vacuum, or carpooling a child makes sense. It creates a smooth and even flow to your home that is desirable while leaving plenty of room for balancing work and play to include creativity and self expression - something men also need. If balance isn't there, the schedule is too jam packed but that's another subject.
In her book The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands, Dr. Laura Schlessinger makes some excellent points about the attitudes women express toward men while having expectations that don't match. It is a VERY interesting read. Of all the books on marriage that I've read, this one tops my list. I've re-read it several times and often refer it to friends.
Lois K wrote - 10 years ago this week I quit the corporate rate race to be a kept woman and have more time to be creative. It has been the greatest blessing for me. Even though I still don't always have the time I would like for creative ventures, our (hubby and me) life together has been calmer and richer than anything we had before this experiment. Blessings on you as you settle into a life that best suits you and your family for this time.
Thank you. I appreciate the encouragement and I think your example is one that a lot more women would benefit from paying attention to. Less truly can be more. I experienced that fact when I quit corporate world and opened a home based business and I'm experiencing it even more now that I've closed that business. At some point, I imagine I'll want a job again (or not) and as I've mentioned before, I have some fairly strong criteria around what I'll do including the hours and pay. I've long been a proponent of part time work. I think it's the best of both worlds - for both women and men - and that too is a different subject.
While knitting yesterday, I thought about what I was NOT buying as a salary of sorts. Using what I have is a challenge and I love a challenge. Using what I have also saves money and if a penny saved is a penny earned, then I've earned some pennies this week - LOL.
So far, I have used six meters of fabric ($60.00), began a knitting project ($24.00), cooked dinner three nights in a row ($120.00), and started re-reading a book ($19.00) I bought years ago. I've saved/earned about $223.00 so far. That's fun and intriguing and I find myself wanting to see how good I can get at this saving and earning thing.
I also LOVE the idea that I'm using what I have from an anti-consumerism point of view. I find the endless buying and stashing of some people quite abhorrent. Like a smoker who has quit, I'm a huge advocate of buying less because I've learned the hard way that it's not a good deal if you don't need it and won't use it any time soon. Then, it's just a waste of money.
That is a hard stand to take when faced with a great sale price on some product that you're sure you're going to want and yet, a few weeks or months or years down the road, you're wondering why you bought it - particularly for things that go out of style. You end up giving them away or throwing them out which is the same as giving money away or throwing it out which is why I opt for giving away. At least I can feel good about that.
As I write that paragraph, I am thinking about the thirty balls of fuzzy yarn I bought a few years ago and sold a few months ago and the canvasses that were just delivered to my door that I bought in case I needed a few extra pieces for my exhibit. In the emotions of the moment, it's easy to exceed our best intentions. Because of that, I've always set purchasing limits on my studio by designating X amount of space for specific supplies.
Right now, my studio is not stuffed to the gills but it is quite full and I'm not at all interested in acquiring any more. Tuesday night at the knitting shop, I had absolutely no interest in that new shipment of yarns. My yarn cupboard is full. Instead, I'm enjoying the sense of excitement and pride and responsibility in using what I have especially because I'm quite aware of the irony of owning 350 meters of fashion fabric when I haven't been sewing fashions for most of the past twenty years - LOL. As I said, it expressed a yearning but THANK GOD I had those space limits and had developed this way of being. Can you imagine!!!!!
Talk soon - Myrna
Grateful - a supportive husband and a co-operative home
You obviously put another meaning to "kept" than I do. Sorry that I misunderstood you. From your post today I can see how much it means to you to contribute in a financial way. You are of course quite right in saying if you husband left you, you would still have to do the same things as well as earning to keep alive. Whether or not you would have to look after the children, well that's a matter of opinion; maybe he would take the children with him. Let me explain why I was so surprised at the word "kept"; to me this indicates a person, who is supported financially by another person and pay for this "keep" with other favours (I'll leave out the old meaning of this). In my opinion a marriage is all about sharing; who earns the money or who looks after the children, if there are any, and clean the toilet or move the lawn is completely irrelevant. Whether you share 50/50 or 20/80 no one in the marriage in my opinion is the other's "keeper". I am very, very aware that I am a very luck woman never to have been thinking about whether I earned all or some or none of the money (and I've tried all 3 versions) that went into the shared bank accounts, I've had with my husbands, because it has never mattered; we've always found ways together of spending what we have had to spend whether it has been for one or the other or both or the children. Sadly this is not the case for many people.
ReplyDeleteMyrna, I so agree with your description of the kept woman! My mother before me was a kept woman as have I been for about 10 years now. My mother told me (way back in the 1960's) that a woman who works for a wage actually spends more than twice the hours contributing to the home... So true, and I learned the hardway. Now my motto is "I'd rather be poor, than work outside the home" I can count almost every day, the ways that I contribute by saving. Saving the cost of someone to do the bookkeeping, saving the cost of restaurant meals, saving the purchase price of pillow cases, table cloths, and other household fabric type goods, saving the cost of a housekeeper, saving the cost of going to and from work, saving the cost of a 2nd car, a kept woman, yes we are kept and we do in return pay back our keeper -- a marriage without the opportunity to repay our keeper is a dull marriage indeed!
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