Draft Week - Domesticity & Me

It's Draft Week here at Fluent Brittish, wherein I'm trying to get some posts out of my draft folder. My goal is to publish four drafts this week.

The first one is a post I started before Christmas and didn't post for reason #3: I didn't know where I was going with it. Yesterday I sat down and finished it. I'm not sure I arrived anywhere, but here it is:

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This morning I was listening to a podcast, and one of the co-hosts briefly made mention of the fact that she is not "domestic." That statement made me think about my own relationship with domesticity.

I decided that on the spectrum of domesticity, I might fall somewhere in the middle, but it depends on your interpretation of "domestic." If being domestic means I get dolled up in lipstick and a ruffled apron to bake bread, then I'm not domestic. But if being domestic means I do tasks to manage a home and a family, then I am domestic.

Most of my domestic weaknesses lie in keeping my house clean. I'm not a cleaner. Don't get me wrong - I love a clean house, and I thrive when my home environment is tidy, but I stink at making it so. I loathe cleaning more than anything, and I will find 5,000 other things to do before I will tackle a cleaning job.

 

{Laundry}

I am also very messy by nature. A neat freak would need hospitalization after watching me cook or do my hair. I've decided to just own it and bide by the idea that I'm a creative genius. In fact, I validate myself by looking at my sink full of dishes and saying, "Britt, look how creative you are! You found thirteen unusual and non-traditional utensils to feed your family with this week! You genius, you!"

My other significantly weak area of domesticity lies in nurturing. I have to remind myself to show my family affection and to spend time with my children. People might read that and think I'm awful. I'm not saying I don't do those things - I'm saying they are not easy or natural for me.

One trait I think a lot of people classify as "domestic" is being "crafty." While this may be a domestic ability, I don't think being crafty is important. It's nice to have some crafting skills - they can save you a lot of money and help make life pretty, but ultimately, I don't think being "crafty" is a determining factor in whether you're a good wife, mother, or homemaker.

(Ten years ago I thought crafting was the ultimate measure of my value as a person. I am reformed).

Now I reserve most of my crafting for special events and circumstances, like when I made Daisy's baptism dress.

 

Most of my domestic strengths have to do with planning and scheduling (I hesitate to call them "strengths" because it's not like I'm amazing at them - I just don't suck at them. Maybe "non-weaknesses" is a better term) .

I'm decent at meal planning, grocery shopping, and budgeting (except for the part where I have to live by the budget. I struggle there sometimes, but I do well with managing finances for the future). I'm sufficient at providing food for my family. I cook at least one meal per day. I'm good at mass food prep and always have prepared meals at the ready in the freezer.

I think I'm a decent cook. My in-laws probably disagree, as pretty much anything I take to family potlucks ends up coming back home with me, but other people eat my food and sometimes even compliment it. I've never roasted a turkey, though. I'm sure that's some kind of domestic failure.

I'm not much of a baker. Several years ago, a friend (whom I would consider "very domestic") asked me if I preferred baking or cooking. I'd never even thought of them as two different tasks. Now that I'm a little older, I can say that I prefer cooking to baking. I went through a phase where I felt like baking mattered, and I tried to master bread making in all its forms (I made everything from loaves to buns to pretzels). I dropped all that when I went back to school, and I haven't picked it back up. Just like crafting, I think baking is a nice skill but it's not essential.

(A thousand domestic goddesses just gasped).

I can garden, and I can bottle food using both water bath and pressure cooking techniques (though it's been two years since I did either of those things due to school. This year I'm planning to start up again)

{Apricot nectar}

I'm good at getting my kids up in the morning and getting them ready for school or church. My kids are never the elaborately groomed ones, as I gave up a long time ago on insisting their clothes match, but they are usually bathed!

I keep a detailed calendar and I get everyone to where they need to be. We have a family meeting every Sunday night where we go over the schedule for the week.

In all honesty, I don't really care whether I'm considered "domestic." It's a bit of an old-fashioned word, anyway. What I hope to be is a good manager of my family's resources. So if baking bread or sewing curtains helps me use what we have wisely, I hope I can do those things. But if I can accomplish the same goal by shopping at the Dunford store on discount days and getting my curtains from the thrift store for $2, that's just as good!