Sweet Home

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“I love to go home” said a recent speaker. We in the audience agreed that home should be a place that when you go there you are glad to be there, a place for renewing the spirit, reconstructing the soul, a place for laughter and for food of both kinds. In the back of my mind, though, I heard that old admonition: “Men should come home; women should be home,” as if there were something in the genes of woman that just naturally cause her to love being inside, surrounded protectingly by four walls, and waving goodbye to those brave spirits who depart each day for the cruel world. 

Whenever I return from a trip, I like to sit in my living room and refurbish myself by looking at some of the things I love: the curtains chosen for their light-giving qualities, poetry made by craftsmen I have met, colors chosen for their cheerful, dirt-repelling properties. Yes, I like to sit there and feel strength flowing back into me from the spirit of our home.

But certainly I would hate to sit there like that all day. Not even if I had some creative, soul-satisfying things to do like reading, writing, cooking and training children. I happen to think that men and women, boys and girls should like to come home and should like to be home at certain times. But, dare I be heretical enough to suggest that most of us are meant to leave home, too, to make some contribution to the crumbling world without? 

Perhaps I am trying to suggest that home is a quality we carry around inside us, making us feel loving and secure with others, giving us the courage to reach out to those who may never have known real homes. It would seem that closing our doors and glorifying what’s inside may not be enough of a contribution. It may be the foundation, but the emphasis may be exaggerated— not in the world, perhaps, but in the Church.

Now what of women and all the dire things that are supposed to happen when they venture outdoors? 

Most of the warnings seem directed at women who work, those actually leaving home for pay. Those who do this, either while the children are small, or who wait until they are in school, are seen as shirking their duties, and it is usually assumed that the children are being left to themselves. Other women who spend their time shopping, attending luncheons, doing clubwork or churchwork, and possibly leaving their children at a different spot every day, are seldom mentioned. In fact, it would almost seem women are encouraged in these pursuits with no questions as to how they manage.

I am acquainted with large numbers of women, in and out of the Church. I think I can say that except for brand-new mothers and poverty-stricken women with large families, none of these women are home. Does this come as a shock? My friends take classes, attend school functions, shop frenzily, attend Church; they may trade sitting with friends, leave their children in nursery schools, or drag them along. The only ones who ever seem at home are those with recent illnesses, or those who are recluses in the tradition of Emily Dickinson or the Hawthorne sisters. 

And yet when I went to work part-time, taking a job which included travel, great was the shock in some circles. All my children were in school, and trustworthy Mormon couples were hired to replace me; yet it seemed somehow freaky for me to be accepting money for leaving home.

Were my children neglected? I don’t know, but I do notice that they are able to get their own meals, and since I make enough to hire help with the housework, I have more time to spend just talking to them. They seem to enjoy conversing with a mother who can discuss something besides them, and my adolescent son has even owned up to loving me! I do not say that they won’t suddenly go wrong next year, only that the cliche about quality over quantity still holds.

Of course, there isn’t a one of us who wouldn’t give up our own interests and activities to save any member of our family or to keep our houses from burning down. But I hope that applies to all members of the family, including father.

After observing the almost superhuman activities that some women, especially Mormon women, indulge in, I am reaching the conclusion that we women want to go where the need is. Sometimes the need is at home with little ones; sometimes it’s at school or in the community; sometimes it involves us in paying work where we can use some of our expensive training. If we can be wise enough to time these pursuits, and lucky enough to be able to give ourselves to them freely without coercion from leaders or lovers, we need not destroy the foundations of home and hearth while yet contributing some of that much-vaunted “womenpower” to the world.