The Real WWII Housewife

When I created my living history WWII housewife persona I modeled her after a real person -- my aunt, who lived with my mother and grandparents during the war years while her husband, my uncle, was in the service.  I created that program to honor the sacrifices and contributions of ordinary women during a dark time in our nation's history.

My aunt recently passed away, and it serves to make the point that these ordinary folks, particularly homemakers, deserve to be remembered.  It's great that we live in a time when women can be doctors, attorneys, CEOs or hold public office.  Unfortunately, with this so-called "liberation" of women, we've overlooked, worse yet downgraded, the homemaker.

My aunt's obituary described her as "a homemaker all her adult life, and she excelled at it."  She may not have been a corporate exec, but no one ever said running a home was easy.  My aunt, and women like her, are responsible for creating a stable home life, and from a stable home comes a stable family, and with stable families come a stable society.  I hear so many experts say that the underlying problem with our society today is the breakdown of the family.  And I would argue that the breakdown of the family began in the early 1970s, with the "Women's Liberation Movement."  All of a sudden home and family and children were a bad thing.  In the 1980s, those women who opted to leave their jobs to stay home and take care of their families, were considered to be traitors to the sisterhood.  After all, the reasoning went, if you quit your job to stay home the boss will think I'll do the same thing someday so they won't promote me.

It would be nice if our society would stop and rethink all the important contributions homemakers and stay-at-home moms make.  It may not be as visible as the contributions made by lady executives, but it is certainly valuable.  From what I hear the younger generation of women, the ones who grew up as latchkey children, are rethinking things and are more likely put careers on hold to stay at home with their kids.  If more of them do, then maybe twenty or thirty years down the line our society will be better off. 

Yes, women should have choices, and that includes the choice to be a homemaker.

My thought for the day.

GM