A friend of mine recently quit her corporate job to stay home with her two young children. Although the decision was one she’d long wanted to make, it wasn’t necessarily easy, for it meant saying goodbye to co-workers and a company she enjoyed, as well as a reduction in the family budget.

It also meant that she could face the raised eyebrows of those who thought she was wasting her talents by staying at home rather than manning a job which enabled her to travel and act as a rising leader in the company.

I can’t help but wonder if those raised eyebrows are one of the things stay-at-home wives and mothers fear most, perhaps because they themselves fear that they are wasting their talents in the home.

It’s not that wives and mothers think they’re just sitting around eating bonbons. Quite the contrary. They know they are busy, a fact testified to by the following humorous post on X, referencing the difference between homemakers and many federal employees:

Yet this same response may be a reason homemakers beat themselves up. Yes, they do laundry, make meals, clean extensively, and constantly meet the needs of their families. But so often that can feel like busy work. They just want to do something important – something they’re recognized for, something for which they’re special and unique.

If you’re a homemaker who has ever felt that way, then I have news for you. Those very feelings of worthless averageness – the idea that you’re a jack of all trades but a master of none – is a very good sign that you’re excelling at the job of wife, mother and homemaker.

Before you grow insulted by that statement, consider that G. K. Chesterton, a wise philosopher, author and literary critic, said the same thing, praising the women who took on such jobs.

In “What’s Wrong With the World,” Chesterton wrote that such a woman is not one of narrow talents, oppressed by staying in the home, but one who is blessed to dabble and have a broad range of abilities – something exactly opposite from that of the man who must specialize to excel in the workforce.

The wife is like the fire, or to put things in their proper proportion, the fire is like the wife. Like the fire, the woman is expected to cook: not to excel in cooking, but to cook; to cook better than her husband who is earning the coke by lecturing on botany or breaking stones. Like the fire, the woman is expected to tell tales to the children, not original and artistic tales, but tales—better tales than would probably be told by a first-class cook. Like the fire, the woman is expected to illuminate and ventilate, not by the most startling revelations or the wildest winds of thought, but better than a man can do it after breaking stones or lecturing.

Elaborating further, Chesterton notes:

Woman must be a cook, but not a competitive cook; a school mistress, but not a competitive school mistress; a house-decorator but not a competitive house-decorator; a dressmaker, but not a competitive dressmaker. She should have not one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her second bests.

This broad range of talents, Chesterton says, is not drudgery, nor is it a waste of feminine talents. Instead, it makes full use of them, for the woman is the one biologically destined to be with children in their formative years, and in such sense, the inch-deep, mile-wide skills of women in the home are absolutely necessary to set those same children on the right foot from the get-go.

“How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe?” Chesterton asks. “How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”

Those words should be encouragement to the hearts of mamas everywhere – as well as the husbands, parents, friends, and others who support these women in their work at home. Unlike the federal workers currently being called to give an account for their labors, mothers can actually give an answer – confidently knowing that their work is vast, broad, and nothing for which others can legitimately belittle them.

Annie Holmquist is the culture and opinion editor for 1819 News. Her writing may be found at The Epoch Times, American Essence Magazine, and her Substack, Annie's Attic.

This culture article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News. To comment on this article, please email culture@1819news.com.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News.

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