One Woman’s Anti-Feminist Awakening « The Thinking Housewife

One Woman’s Anti-Feminist Awakening

December 5, 2011

MRS. M. writes:

Thank you so much for your site. It is proving to be a great source of courage for me as I plan my transition to homemaker in the future.

Robin commented on your last post: “It would take a radical leap of faith on the part of this mother to reverse this situation.”

This struck a chord with me, as I wish it was not such a radical leap of faith. Even on your own site, I find that the situation of women like me is not often addressed. I am yearning to be a homemaker, but we cannot afford it. I am 30 years old and have one daughter, aged 20 months and another on the way. She attends daycare 3-4 days per week and stays with relatives the other 1-2 days. I know daycare is inferior to what I could provide and I loathe the hectic lifestyle. As I am in Canada, I am fortunate to have one full year maternity leave (although I believe such policies are ultimately harmful). You have written often about the need to be frugal and live a modest lifestyle to make a one-income family possible. This is very true, but it is only part of the story. We have a 900 sq ft. house, never eat out and grow as much food as possible, clip coupons, buy bulk, etc. But, it is still not enough.

The main problem keeping mothers away from their children today is the disgraceful student loan system. Along with all of the other lies of feminism, it has been drummed into young people’s minds that they NEED a college degree, even if they cannot afford the mammoth cost. So, there are millions of North American women in their mid-twenties with massive student loan debt. I am paying double my monthly payment and it will still be at least four more years until it is paid off.

I had my conservative “awakening” at age 24. I firmly believe in personal responsibility, and that I must pay off the debts I incurred. However, I still feel bitter and angry due to all of the lies my generation was told about sex, marriage, babies, motherhood, money, debt…the list goes on and on. Feminism is a lie, a massive lie. Not once was being a housewife every presented to me as anything but a disgrace to the women’s movement and something to be mocked – let alone an option. Women like me need not be chastised by feminists, but taught that another way is possible and how to get there financially and emotionally. The responses I usually hear include “You will be bored at home,” ” You are too smart to stay home all day,” “Everything is geared towards two incomes now,” “You will be poor,” “You need to work so you can provide the best for your child,” “Your child needs socialization”, etc., etc., etc. All lies! But, when the same overwhelming “truths” are coming from parents, school, media, university, friends – it is no wonder that so many women are in the same boat. My goal now is to make sure my children know the truth and do not believe any of these lies if they are subjected to them.

Technically, I am also one of the “lucky” ones, as I have a husband and a child and no abortions in my past. Some of my 30 year old acquaintances have finally woken up to their biological clocks and are faced with a sea of man-boys – interested in nothing but sex sans commitment, let alone the willingness to provide for a family.

This has turned into a lengthy comment, but I wanted to end it with a question: Do you know of any good books/guides to planning a move from the work-force to full-time motherhood?

Laura writes:

Thank you for writing. I’m very happy to read of your awakening and your wise observations of feminism’s lies.

Many women, I am certain, are like you and would gladly turn in their expensive degrees if they could. College is not worth years of indentured servitude. The idea that a woman should have a college degree no matter what is part of what the writer James Tooley called “the miseducation of women.” College today is an expensive way of rendering a woman unprepared for the most important role in life. The expense of it also keeps many people from having more children and that’s just plain stupid. Your anger is a sign of health and sanity.

To be told that your deepest instincts now as a mother are wrong is also profoundly demoralizing.

As far as the nightmarish financial bind that keeps your daughter in day care, it’s important to bear in mind that children are very conscious of the moral tone of our actions. What this means in your case is, though you have your daughter in day care now, it is not the same experience for her as it would be if you wanted her to be there. In her reviewof day care studies, Jenet Jakob Erikson writes that one of the most serious problems with day care is its negative effects on maternal sensitivity. Mothers often become less responsive when they are not caring for their children. For children of mothers who don’t want to work and don’t want their children to be in day care, however, there doesn’t tend to be this loss of sensitivity. Even babies can pick up on the intentions and deeper attentiveness of their mothers. It is worth serious poverty to be with our children. It is our duty to raise our children ourselves, but you should not make things harder for your family by guilt. You are doing your best. You will almost certainly achieve your goal someday and you will be able to raise your own children to see through the lies. Your struggle is not wasted.

To be a good mother is to be counter-cultural. I don’t just mean on this issue of staying home, but on almost everything related to your family’s future. You live in a shallow, materialistic, God-loathing culture. You have to live in a condition of cultural exile – as if you were a foreigner in your own country – in order to resist it and protect your children. You have to take refuge in a self-created island.

The greatest challenge for you is spiritual, not financial. The devil wants to defeat you. He knows that every mother’s love is an entrance to divine good. The stakes for him are very high. He will do everything he can to demoralize you, to make you tired and discouraged, to create tension between you and your husband, to make you feel your poverty, to make you bored, to deflect you from the inner life, to encourage criticism from others, to beckon you with expensive junk, to spur you to focus on your children’s material welfare instead of their spiritual and intellectual development and to make you lose awareness of the love that is with you always, every minute of the day. Your highest goal is to defeat him and reciprocate this love. If you reciprocate the love of God, if you respond to this ocean of warmth and affirmation that surrounds you, you will not go wrong. You will achieve everything.

As far as reading, I don’t know of any guides per se (see the many suggestions below). As I have said before, I highly recommend Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe to any housewife or aspiring homemaker. Crusoe’s challenge is your challenge: how to survive on an island. Crusoe was an extremely practical guy and we can take inspiration from his constant motivation to build, plant, grow and make things for himself. He thought with his hands and that’s what a housewife must do. But most importantly, he was a humble man. He did not pity himself (I am not suggesting that you are pitying yourself but that it is a natural inclination in all of us) or lose sight of how much his own stubbornness had misled him. He came to realize that his trials were his salvation. He fell on his knees and thanked God for the storm that shipwrecked him.

And so, dear sister, you too will come to know even more clearly than you do now that no matter how poor or shipwrecked you are, you have this power to love.

Crusoe by N.C. Wyeth

Marianne writes:

For Mrs. M, who longs to be at home but must stay employed to repay her student loans, I would recommend: (1) take a look at the website www.stretcher.com (Dollar Stretcher) which contains an archive of numerous articles on making-do with one income, and (2) investigate student loan deferral options. In particular I have heard that student loan payments may be deferred as long as you are “still in school”, and that “still in school” isn’t defined as fulltime enrollment. I suspect it could be cheaper to maintain a minimal school enrollment for the next five years (at a local county college) than to pay for day care over that same time period! Then at some future time, when the children are school age, or when Mrs. M’s husband has advanced in his career and is earning more, repayment of student loans could begin again. By that time inflation will probably reduce the impact of each repayment dollar, too. Mrs. M feels a moral obligation to pay her debts and that’s commendable, but she doesn’t have a moral obligation to do immediately — she can do so when it makes sense for her to do so.

Robin writes:

Regarding Mrs. M, my heart goes out to her as she looks across the chasm between what ought to be and what is at the present. I can truly identify with this, as I have been called out of the masses of heartless, Godless society and into a Pilgrim existence where there is little support for the radically different lifestyle. You are correct; it is right to be angry about all of the lies we were fed as women, yet we must slowly allow God to move us beyond this and into a new way of life.

It is here that I offer the encouragement of several resources that have helped me. Again, God has led me to these things slowly in my re-education of sorts. While I agree with you that there is not a manual with ten neat steps for deliverance from the fetid mire of modern feminism, these resources have helped shape my new vision for our children and our family.

Many blessings to Mrs. M. I pray she has the courage to call things that are not as though they were, until such time as they manifest naturally: hope is necessary in this situation. Hope that the awakening brings beauty from ashes.

I recommend this article “Hot to Get Back Home” at Ladies Against Feminism. Also, I recommend the Suburban CEO and websites, books and posts here, here, here, here, here and here. Blessings!

Laura writes:

Thank you. The Internet is filled with resources for the New Women’s Movement. We are fortunate.

Laura adds:

Though not everyone has had to pay off student loans, almost everyone who lives a traditional family life has had their financial situation worsened and made more difficult by a culture that has failed to prepare them for living this way. There are many reasons for this lack of preparation. For one, there are many institutions – universities, banks, retailers – who benefit from the promotion of the dual income model.

Jill Farris writes:

All of the wisdom shared here with this young mother is good. I would remind her that there are two ways to free up more money in your life; create more income or stop the outgo.

I encourage this mom to immerse herself in the “University of Frugal Living” and aquire an education which benefits her her entire life. She needs to educate herself in different ways to save money. I mean really learn how to buckle down to brass tacks!

I know of many very large families who have been able to feed, clothe and educate their children against all odds on ridiculously small incomes (even in Canada…we go to church in Canada!). This does take a completely different kind of mindset which goes far beyond the usual idea of couponing here and there.

I recommend the Tightwad Gazette books. They can be found in most libraries. The books are a compilation of newsletters on the subject of frugal living so it is filled with suggestions by readers that aren’t always great ideas but if you read the author’s own research and ideas and apply them you will save money. You will look at the world differently.

By the way, the author finally stopped the newsletters because, as she became well known, she was ridiculed for her “extreme” views on saving money. Yet, she and her husband were the parents of six children, lived in a huge debt free house and drove new debt free vehicles just by applying frugality in many little ways over the years.

My other advice is to pray. The Lord who created the bond between a mother and her baby, between a father and his child knows your heart. You are praying according to His will and He is always pleased to work out the details in a way that astounds us.

Laura writes:

The Tightwad books are excellent. However, before one ventures deep into tightwad territory, one must make inner changes. Living a life of extreme frugality means living differently from many other people, very possibly most of one’s friends and family. Christmastime is one example of the many pressures to conform and to spend wildly. It takes strength of character, courage, and the willingness to go it alone to resist these pressures.

Marianne writes:

I second Jill Farris’ recommendation of the Tightwad Gazette books, but I would like to raise a very respectful question about her statement that “the author [Amy Dacyczyn] finally stopped the newsletters because, as she became well known, she was ridiculed for her ‘extreme’ views on saving money.” My recollection is that Mrs. Dazyczyn wrote, somewhere in her introduction to the set of books, that she stopped writing newsletters because she really felt she had said everything that needed to be said on the subject, at least for the time being. I mention this only because I would not want to believe that someone as spunky and independent as Amy Dacyczyn stopped writing due to ridicule. Again, I raise the question with no disrespect to Jill Farris at all, and I read her comment with interest and appreciation. Thank you for your wonderful website.

John E. writes:

Laura wrote:

“But most importantly, he was a humble man. He did not pity himself (I am not suggesting that you are pitying yourself but that it is a natural inclination in all of us) or lose sight of how much his own stubbornness had misled him. He came to realize that his trials were his salvation. He fell on his knees and thanked God for his island.”

I think your inclusion of the portrayal of humility by Crusoe is key, and I am grateful that you recognize and aren’t afraid to identify the spiritual aspect of the battle against feminism. Two signs of this humility are gratitude as you noted, and also a desire and effort to make restitution for past wrongs. It is one thing to recognize that you made mistakes in the past, but true humility will not allow that you should blame another for mistakes that were caused by you, and it will compel you to do what you honestly can do to restore things to their rightful place.

I realize this may sound disingenuous coming from a man regarding a problem, feminism, that afflicts women in a particular way, but I say this knowing that there are few things I have seen in the world more beautiful than true feminine humility, and few things that have been able to show me my own shortcomings as a man, and few things that would then give me the desire to remedy my shortcomings.

Kimberly writes:

John E.’s comment is brilliant and encouraging. I find that blaming others for my mistakes is a common fault of mine, and I am encouraged to do it by the feminists, too! Well, it’s my fault if I listen. Thank you, John E., for your inspiring words. At every turn, I find God telling me to find true humility.

Sarah Nelson writes:

Your family will never regret having a full-time housewife and mother. After the initial adjustment you will see that staying home costs less money than working and paying for daycare. There are not commuting expenses, a professional wardrobe is not required, there are fewer visits to the doctor for the children as you can be with them and nurse them at the first sign of illness – instead of finding out halfway through a hectic busy day that one of them has a fever and the illness has already progressed.

Here are a few of the “drastic” (according to society) things my family did when I was desperately weeping in the car on the way to work every morning and just wanted to come home! My husband also realized day care wasn’t what we wanted for our child. Unfortunately we were lied to as you were regarding the realities of life and what will really bring you joy. We also simply could not afford for me to stay home and we were already “frugal” by society’s standards. No matter how we juggled the numbers, we had to have me work to be “middle class”. So we just decided to not be “middle class” (whatever that is). It sounds like you already have basics of growing your food and clipping coupons mastered. Although if you stay home, your garden will yield a lot more food because you will have more time to tend it. Shrug off what “normal” people think and be different!

Here are the some ways I immediately cut our household budget by a least $50 dollars a month per item. If you can cut $50 six times, you have $300 additional dollars a month. You probably make more than that working, but you likely do not net much more than $300 a month after taxes, commuting, clothes/makeup, daycare, etc.

• We moved from a “normal” sized apartment (2 bedrooms, just over 900 square feet) to a 625 square foot apartment and chopped a few hundred off our rent. The utilities are a lot less (half the space to heat, light up, etc.) Due to our layout, the living room is now our “bedroom.” Our daughter has the actual bedroom off of the kitchen. Look around and find a layout that could work for you and your family. Sell your couch and put the bed where the couch usually goes. With a “daytime” bed spread you will get used to it in no time. Rearrange a bit to make it pretty and remember that extra rooms used only for a few hours a day are a recent luxury. I know it sounds common sense but we moved ourselves, no hiring movers. We sold a lot of our furniture on craigslist (it was mostly purchased from craigslist) for a little extra cash. Our 625 square feet includes the bathroom and only two (insert gasps of horror here) closets in the place.

•- I had a car from when I was unmarried and my husband also had a car. My car had monthly payments due, his was paid off. We sold my car for as much as we could get and wrote the dealer a (painful) check just to be done with a monthly expense. We quickly got used to one car. I drop off/pick up my husband so he avoids paying for parking at work. When I have the car at home with me, I walk as much as possible to do errands to save on gas and wear/tear on the car. The walking may not work for you if you don’t live in a major city. Halving the registration fees and reducing our annual insurance really helped our budget.

• We canceled home internet service for awhile until we got our bearings. We never had cable TV, if you have that you can turn it off and sell the TV. When you are ready to resume having home internet service, you can watch “TV” (netflix is much cheaper than cable) online. As a mother myself – I know you don’t have time to watch TV anyway!

• I sold all my “work clothes” through a consignment shop. When you are home you don’t need “professional” clothing. This is a one time infusion of cash to save for a rainy day. <big smile> At first our finances were so tight that I would wash our clothes in a neighbor’s washer in exchange for walking her dog daily since both she and her husband worked late. This saved them $12 a day as payment to a dog walker and I got to use the washer in their basement for free – everyday if I wanted to. Even if you have to pay to wash in a coin op washer – skip the dryer to save money. The neighbors had no dryer so I would bring our wet laundry home and hang it all on a clothesline to dry. My “clothesline” here in the city was strung back and forth on my front porch (about the size of a twin bed). For modesty, I hung our undergarments over the shower bar. When it got too cold for the clothes line – I hung our clothes on hangers on the shower bar in the bathroom and kept the door closed as much as possible. We were already paying for heat, right?

• Our neighbors of course sent their laundry out and I am sure I was a hot topic for gossip in some circles. Motherhood is not about pride and every time I felt the social sting of the choices I made to leave work – I would go and cuddle my child. Fixed me up every time remembering that my alternative was leaving her in the morning. As Mothers who have had to work, we have the benefit of knowledge. We know what it means to leave your children in the morning to “go to work”. This wisdom will get you through those few inevitable bad days.

• If you are not already doing so, your clothes and your children’s clothes can mostly be purchased at thrift stores, leaving only shoes and undergarments to be purchased retail. There is less pressure to buy brand names and have a zillion outfits if you stay home and your children stay home too. You can dress the children in “play clothes” for most of the day to get messy and then change them into “dress” clothes in the evening before your husband comes home or when going out. “Dress” clothes can usually be worn more than once as they don’t get dirty and messes will not make you worry about ruining the play clothes. This helps stretch your clothing dollar. We do buy some of my husbands clothing retail as he is required to look professional for work. Of course men don’t require manicures, ever changing fashionable clothing, pantyhose, make up, perfume, etc. So the cost of a professional wardrobe is much less to maintain for a man. Bonus frugality if he works somewhere that has a uniform!!! That costs even less.

• Use old towels to fashion your own cloth diapers and feminine hygiene products. I was not a skilled seamstress at first (I am a whiz now) and I didn’t own a sewing machine but it doesn’t require a high level of craftsmanship to make diapers to be pooped in and terrycloth is a forgiving medium! <smile> Now you don’t have to buy diapers or feminine products. If you are leery of making your own items, there is a used market for cloth diapers on craigslist and a one time investment in hygienic products on etsy is less than two months of disposables from the store. If I remember the cost of feminine products were $7-$10 a month and diapers were easily $40 plus a month. If you make your own you don’t have that reoccurring expense.

• If you have cell phones and a landline, get rid of one of them. Use a prepaid plan that doesn’t lock you into a contract. Don’t pay for a landline phone you never use. If money gets tight one month, you can chose not to roll over one of the cell phones that month and resume service the following month. Two non “smart” phones a month cost us a flat $30 each for a total of $60 a month. Having both is a luxury now that we can afford it. At first we used one cell phone as a “home phone” and left it in the same place on the dresser. It was much less expensive than a landline phone with basic service and there were no security deposits.

• This category of slashed spending was likely viewed as my strangest frugal choice – Food “treats” and toiletries. Let me explain. My husband is more of a picky eater than I am. There are things I enjoy that he doesn’t. For example, he prefers colby and cheddar. I like both but would buy provolone too. I stopped buying three kinds of cheese. I only buy what we can both enjoy. This saves us money because I tend to eat more of “my treats”. Also I drastically reduced the amount of toiletries we purchased. Shampoo and conditioner seem to work the same no matter the brand – get what is on sale. Toothpaste is almost $4 a tube – use baking soda with one or two drops of rosemary oil in a cup of baking soda (shake it in a jar you saved from something else). Tastes better with fewer chemicals and saves you money. Talk to your husband and find out what makeup he likes to see you wear. My husband likes mascara, no eye liner, and lipstick on me. He could care less about finger nail polish. So I stopped buying finger nail polish and remover. I make our deodorant (google homemade deodorant) it costs pennies and works well. Store bought deodorant costs approx $5 a container. Replace (expensive) trendy perfume with a blend of oils your husband likes (vanilla, bergmont, whatever scent in almond oil is instant “perfume”). Your own scents are less than $5.00 for an almost lifetime supply.

• Start to participate in what we call the “mommy economy.” I walked dogs for access to a washer. My family gets our haircut by a Mommy who used to be a full time hairdresser, in exchange I regularly do sewing for her (I can’t cut hair, she can’t hem or repair a seam). One really brilliant Mommy in our area has a really substantial side business baking bread (she calls it breadflix) for the wealthy people in our neighborhood. Fresh delivered bread on the day of the week of their choice. Another Mommy has a side gig baking cakes, cupcakes, and pies. Several stay at home Moms pick up working moms children from school and watch them for a few hours until the parent(s) are off work for pay. I love animals and use our car as a part time “pet taxi”. Cabs usually do not allow animals in the cabs (most cab drivers here are muslim and dogs are considered unclean, I have no idea why they don’t like cats) and animals are prohibited on public transportation unless they are service animals. For vet appointments, I take email “reservations” (through word of mouth only for safety) and charge a flat fee to drive people and their pet to and from the vet. My child can come with me and we look at the fish at petco while the pets get a shot or checked out. I also teach basic sewing lessons or help troubleshoot a project for pay – most people take a lesson or two and then decide to just pay me to do their sewing. (What does that say about me as a teacher?! They usually just don’t have the time to sew.) A good friend of mine has three young boys and she cleans houses for side income. She has so many requests for her cleaning services that she turns down business. I am sure you could bring in a little money here or there on the side, it is just a matter of finding your niche.

Don’t buy it if you can barter it. Don’t buy it new, put it on a wishlist and find it used in a thrift store, craigslist, or freecycle (freecycle.org). Share with friends – our church Moms n Tots pass around toys as our children outgrow them and then the toys come back around for a younger child.

You will find out that you have a lot more money in your budget because you have fewer expenses with a full-time Mother. When you are home, the leftovers get eaten (instead of pushed to the back of the fridge), the multiple errands get done more efficiently and you will be able to begin to add things (like the internet) back into your budget.

Talk to your husband, make a plan to quit working, then come back home where all mothers belong! It is so wonderful to hear about other women leaving work!!!

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Posted by Laura Wood in Uncategorized

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