Welcome home!  Congratulations on becoming a homemaker!  The rewards of this role are of inestimable worth!  Below a few things are shared that can help make your transition smooth and have you on your way to sailing into homemaking bliss:

1. Don’t Believe Homemaker Stereotypes - Don’t believe that all homemakers are like June Cleaver or Peg Bundy.  Not all homemakers are excellent, not all homemakers are nurturing mothers, and not all homemakers are lazy, spendthrifts, and ill-kept in appearance.  You are you, and the homemaker you become is completely up to you.  No stereotypes, no molds – break the mold and become the homemaking woman you are created to be!

2. Give Homemaking a Real Chance - Perhaps you’re giving homemaking a try, but really think that you will get bored or not like it much.  Most women who are bored with homemaking fail to really give it the effort it deserves, and if they do, they may fail to explore creativity in homemaking and enrich their lives by volunteer work a few hours a week or month.  Go the extra mile in homemaking and gain the skills required to homemake well, and find joy in creating for your family home.  This is an amazing world full of possibility and happiness, now that you’re here, embrace it and give it all you’ve got!

3. Realize Your Worth in this Role – There is no way to underestimate the value and worth of a devoted homemaker, click here to read a past post that delves into this a bit more, if you’d like, and click here to read “The New Women’s Movement: We’re Coming Home” that explains some of the multitude of things that such a homemaker does and their worth.

4. Don’t Believe that You’ll be Poor - A family can be very well-off financially and rich in many ways, regardless of its size, on the husband’s income alone.  There may be an adjustment phase at the beginning of your being a homemaker in which times are tight financially, but this can be worked-out as you go through it. There is no need to worry that you’ll always have to buy nothing but thrift store items and that your children will have to wear hand-me-downs from others, that you’ll never be able to afford to get your hair done, never have a family vacation, and have to eat cheap, inferior quality foods, all because you don’t provide any income.  You are in a position to be an extraordinarily wise investor, and in so doing, can contribute more to your family’s economy than many women who work outside or inside of the home for money.  Click here and here for two past posts containing information on this subject, if you’d like.

5. You don’t need to Bring in an Income – You’re a homemaker; this is a more than full-time job.  You have a lot of things to do as a homemaker in addition to fulfilling your role as devoted wife and mother.  Your family’s health, safety, welfare, and happiness depends in very large part upon how you do your job as a devoted wife, mother, and homemaker.  Your business, your profession, is making your house a home, which takes a lot of time, thought, and work.  In addition, if you are raising children, especially homeschooling them, you have a full plate.  You can learn to make it on your husband’s income alone, and make it very well.  Learn to live on your husband’s income, to invest it as only you can, and make your house a home and you’ll be extraordinarily rich in far more than money.

6. Enjoy Yourself – Being a devoted wife, mother, and homemaker does require work, but it can be, and is for many women, the most enjoyable, rewarding work on earth.  Enjoy what you’re doing and be creative, let yourself go into creating your family’s one-of-a-kind home and life.  You are free to create a masterpiece home and family, free to take materials or ideas and make them into unique things for your family.  The possibilities of the outstanding life you can create for your family are endless.  Explore this, enjoy this!

7. Educate Yourself – Now that you are a homemaker, you have time to become an extraordinarily well-read woman.  There is a lot to know about decorating, family health, homemaking, and such that can keep you busy learning, and there’s also a wealth of knowledge to be found on probably anything a woman is curious about or would like to know more about.  You have the time to schedule time to learn, to broaden your mind, to really become an outstanding wife, mother, and homemaker as well as a very liberally educated woman.  You needn’t take college courses to do this, just read and self-study.  A well-read homemaker can be extraordinarily interesting to speak with and such a delightful woman to know. 

8. Become Yourself – You have the time to really get to know yourself because you’re your own boss, on your own time, and “running your own show” (as the old saying goes).  You have time to polish-up areas of yourself that need it, time to see things that need changing about yourself and change them, and time to really think about – and create – the life – your life – that you want.  There is no more “what others require of you” like there was at the workplace, it’s what you require of you now.  Your mind and body aren’t working to do a job for someone else for pay, you’re doing a job for you and your family, and you’re free to think about whatever you’d like, not what the boss requires or paying job outside or from the home requires.

9. Build Your Marriage – A happy, healthy marriage is the foundation of the home, so work to make yours the best it can be: one of Celestial Love, mutual dignity and respect, and deep adoration.  To do this, get a copy of the 2007 (the latest) edition of Fascinating Womanhood by Mrs. Helen Andelin, read it, and apply its teachings.  There are online courses and live study groups to go with this book, and participating in one of these is highly recommended.  No matter how clean and materially comfy a home is, if one’s marriage isn’t happy, the home isn’t. 

10. Learn the Skills Necessary to Do Your Job – To be a successful homemaker one needs skill in how to do the job.  There’s sometimes more to many homemaking jobs than meets the eye.  Become an expert and do your job as such.  The book Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson is an outstanding, modern, how-to book for all facets of homemaking, from washing dishes to piano care to caring for books properly to setting the table and everything else!  Get a copy of this book and refer to it for any homemaking job you need to learn how to do, would like to know more about, or would like to learn to do correctly.

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        Again, welcome home to the world of homemaking!  This world – your world - is completely unique and one-of-a-kind; no one else in the world can make your family’s home what you can.  So much of your family’s life (and remember, you are a part of your family) revolves around the home you create, give them what they (and you) deserve, which is your very best!  Excelsior!