There are many important jobs in our world. To work in health care, education, religion, emergency responding and peacekeeping are among the first to pop into my mind. The most important job in the world is none and yet all of these. It is one that all of us, and yet few of us has the pressure and the privilege of fulfilling. It is the job of homemaker.
A more unappreciated job there could not be. In our society today, to be a homemaker is to not have a job, to not have motivation, to not have purpose. And yet it is a job which makes the fulfilling of all other tasks easier, more efficient, more purposeful.
To be a homemaker is to run, and manage, a house and household, often with few resources, little training and no down time. It is to awaken each morning ready to run, for the plans you took to bed to be upset, to probably not rest again until the end of the day when your feet slide back between the sheets. To be a homemaker is to have work clothes that range from grubby denims with holes (ones not made by the denim label, but ones that were ripped inadvertently), to our Sunday best.
A homemaker is one who may spend his or her days patching injured knees to patching holes in someone’s favorite t-shirt to patching holes in walls. A homemaker is one who may spend his or her days scraping hardened egg of breakfast plates, to scraping vomit off carpet to scraping old paint before adding a fresh coat. A homemaker is one who may spend his or her days making meals, making the lives of others in the home smoother, and making ends meet.
The most difficult task of a homemaker is living in a community, a society in which this important job is minimized, disrespected and disregarded.
Although it has been a few years (about ten) since I last proudly claimed to hold the position of homemaker, I still consider it the most important job I never got paid for, and yet the benefits package was the best I have ever encountered.
To all those who call themselves homemakers (and especially to the ones fulfilling that task with preschoolers in tow), I applaud you, and the valuable contribution to those around you, and especially to your children to whom benefit the greatest.
