Quotes & Sayings About Homemaking

We've learned that women can and should do 'men's jobs,' for instance, and we've won the principle (if not the fact) of getting equal pay. But we haven't yet established the principle (much less the fact) that men can and should do 'women's jobs': that homemaking and child-rearing are as much a man's responsibility, too, and that those jobs in which women are concentrated outside the home would probably be better paid if more men became secretaries, file clerks, and nurses, too. — Gloria Steinem

When a homemaking aunt scolds a niece for following her evangelistic passion instead of domestic pursuits, her reply is interesting. First, she clarifies that God's individual call on her doesn't condemn those in more conventional roles. Then, she says she can no more ignore the cry of the lost than her aunt can the cry of her child. — George Eliot

No occupation in this world is more trying to soul and body than the care of young children. What patience and wisdom, skill and unlimited love it calls for. God gave the work to mothers and furnished them for it, and they cannot shirk it and be guiltless. — Isabella MacDonald Alden

I get the sense that many in the contemporary biblical womanhood movement feel that the tasks associated with homemaking have been so marginalized in our culture that it's up to them to restore the sacredness of keeping the home. This is a noble goal indeed, and one around which all people of faith can rally. But in our efforts to celebrate and affirm God's presence in the home, we should be wary of elevating the vocation of homemaking above all others by insinuating that for women, God's presence is somehow restricted to that sphere. If God is the God of all pots and pans, then He is also the God of all shovels and computers and paints and assembly lines and executive offices and classrooms. Peace and joy belong not to the woman who finds the right vocation, but to the woman who finds God in any vocation, who looks for the divine around every corner. — Rachel Held Evans

On weekdays, as soon as she picked Bela from the bus stop and brought her home, she went straight into the kitchen, washing up the morning dishes she'd ignored, then getting dinner started. She measured out the nightly cup of rice, letting it soak in a pan on the counter. She peeled onions and potatoes and picked through lentils and prepared another night's dinner, then fed Bela. She was never able to understand why this relatively unchallenging set of chores felt so relentless. When she was finished, she did not understand why they had depleted her — Jhumpa Lahiri

I am sure that there is no place in the world where your message would not be enhanced by your making the place (whether tiny or large, a hut or a palace) orderly, artistic and beautiful with some form of creativity, some form of 'art' (p. 213). — Edith Schaeffer

The official line is that, after the war, women couldn't wait to leave the offices and assembly lines and government agencies. But the real story was that the economy couldn't have men coming home without women going home, not unless it wanted a lot of unemployed vets. So the problem became unemployed women. "How you gonna keep us down on the farm after we've seen the world,"' she ad-libs to the old World War I tune. 'Enter the women's magazines, and cookbook publishers, and all these advertising agencies carrying on about the scourge of germs in the toilet bowl, and scuffs on the kitchen floor, and, my favorite, house B.O. Enter chicken hash that takes two and a half hours to prepare. I can just hear them sitting around the conference tables. 'That'll keep the gals out of trouble. — Ellen Feldman

How those girls enjoyed putting their nest in order! As Phil said, it was almost as good as getting married. You had the fun of homemaking without the bother of a husband. — L.M. Montgomery

It is true that all men are created in the image of God, but Christians are supposed to be conscious of that fact, and being conscious of it should recognize the importance of living artistically, aesthetically, and creatively, as creative creatures of the Creator. If we have been created in the image of an Artist, then we should look for expressions of artistry, and be sensitive to beauty, responsive to what has been created for us (p. 32). — Edith Schaeffer

The lingerie department is the only one that she can reach in her wheelchair. Nevertheless, she is fired the next day because of complaints that a woman who is so obviously not sexually attractive selling alluring nightgowns makes customers uncomfortable. Daunted by her dismissal, she seeks consolation in the arms of the young manager and soon finds herself pregnant. Upon learning
of this news, he leaves her for a
nondisabled woman with a fuller
bustline and better homemaking skills in his inaccessible kitchen. — Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

When it all comes down to it, though we may be accused of being coddled and cosseted, our consciences need to be right before God. If that is the case, we have nothing to fear or to apologize for. — Jasmine Baucham

Homemaking is not something that stands in the way of our deeper fulfillment; it becomes the ground that feeds it. — Shannon Hayes

Marriage, most women quickly discovered, liberated them from their parents but made them dependent on a man who might or might not treat them well and then saddled them with the responsibilities of homemaking and child rearing. — Aziz Ansari

We got Martha Stewart legitimizing homemaking for her generation, and then there's this return to being interested in all things home, lifestyle, and food again. I think this generation is less about the frills and more about the flavor of things. — Nadia Giosia

Together my wife and I are building the kingdom of God, exercising dominion, beating back the weeds of stinky dippers, tending the garden God has put us in. This is why my dear wife vacuums the floor, for it is part of the garden she has been called to dress and to keep. But she is doing this not as raw duty, but because she understands that she is exercising dominion over the dust, for the glory of Christ. — R.C. Sproul Jr.

Homemaking is whatever you make of it. Every day brings satisfaction along with some work which may be frustrating, routine, and unchallenging. But it is the same in the law office, the dispensary, the laboratory, or the store. There is, however, no more important job than homemaking. — James E. Faust

Homemaking is about making a home, not about making perfection. — Ann Voskamp

I can use the house to create a home. I can offer my family, my friends, myself, and even strangers the gift of love by making them feel special when they are in my home. — Sarah Mae

There is no spectacle on earth more appealing than that of a beautiful woman in the act of cooking dinner for someone she loves. — Thomas Wolfe

I am an inveterate homemaker, it is at once my pleasure, my recreation, and my handicap. Were I a man, my books would have been written in leisure, protected by a wife and a secretary and various household officials. As it is, being a woman, my work has had to be done between bouts of homemaking. — Pearl S. Buck

I'm only a housewife, I'm afraid." How often do we hear this shocking admission. I'm afraid when I hear it I feel very angry indeed. Only a housewife: only a practitioner of one of the two most noble professions (the other one is that of a farmer); only the mistress of a huge battery of high and varied skills and custodian of civilization itself. Only a typist, perhaps! Only a company director, or a nuclear physicist; only a barrister; only the President! When a woman says she is a housewife she should say it with the utmost pride, for there is nothing higher on this planet to which she could aspire. — John Seymour

If you have been afraid that your love of beautiful flowers and the flickering flame of the candle is somehow less spiritual than living in starkness and ugliness, remember that He who created you to be creative gave you the things with which to make beauty and the sensitivity to appreciate and respond to His creation. — Edith Schaeffer

Sisters, while they are growing up, tend to be very rivalrous and as young mothers they are given to continual rivalrous comparisons of their several children. But once the children grow older, sisters draw closer together and often, in old age, they become each other's chosen and most happy companions. In addition to their shared memories of childhood and of their relationship to each other's children, they share memories of the same home, the same homemaking style, and the same small prejudices about housekeeping that carry the echoes of their mother's voice ... — Margaret Mead

It's sad if people think that's (homemaking) a dull existance, [but] you can't just buy an apartment and furnish it and walk away. It's the flowers you choose, the music you play, the smile you have waiting. I want it to be gay and cheerful, a haven in this troubled world. I don't want my husband and children to come home and find a rattled woman. Our era is already rattled enough, isn't it? — Audrey Hepburn

There is no occasion when meals should become totally unimportant. Meals can be very small indeed, very inexpensive, short times taken in the midst of a big push of work, but they should be always more than just food. — Edith Schaeffer

Homemaking is surely in reality the most important work in the world. — C.S. Lewis

Careers, children and homemaking all come above preserving your appearance. Self-preservation is at the bottom of the scale. — Trinny Woodall

If you *stop* putting off homemaking until your hope of marriage develops into a reality, and *start* to develop an interesting home right now, it seems to me two things will happen: first, you will develop into the person you could be as you surround yourself with things that express your own tastes and ideas; and second, as you relax and become interested in areas of creativity, you will develop into a more interesting person to be with. — Edith Schaeffer

I often advise young brides who are traveling during their first weeks or months of marriage to start "homemaking" in a hotel, even if they are there for only a night, rather than groaning about having to "wait so long to have a home". How? ... Your own cloth, your own candlestick, just one rose or daffodil is enough to make a difference ... You will be surprised how much difference it makes to have done something to make a room your home, even for one night. — Edith Schaeffer

But she realized that modern homemaking could be creatively fulfilling in a way she'd never imagined. Unlike previous generations of housewives, who Erika imagines were bored and dissatisfied, Erika says women her age treat the duties of the home as outlets for their creativity. — Emily Matchar

Homemaking is a passion you can pass on from generation to generation. — Elizabeth George

I believe that a godly home is a foretaste of heaven. Our homes, imperfect as they are, must be a haven from the chaos outside. They should be a reflection of our eternal home, where troubled souls find peace, weary hearts find rest, hungry bodies find refreshment, lonely pilgrims find communion, and wounded spirits find compassion. — Jani Ortlund

...you need to assess what you love right now and what is authntic to your way of living in this season of life. — Melissa Michaels

Theology is for homemakers who need to know who God is, who they are, and what this mundane life is all about. — Gloria Furman

It's not the nineteenth century; I'm not meant to be judged on how good a housekeeper I am. Getting down on the floor with a lemon and a bucket of vinegar does not make me a better person. — Emily Matchar