In which I say the quiet parts about feminism out loud
An interview with Rob Marco
Rob Marco asked me a bunch of questions and the resulting interview is posted in three parts on the Catholic Exchange website.
The first part, focused on feminism, is here. A sample:
Rob: There has also been a lot of debate lately about working mothers versus stay-at-home mothers (and variations of the two) after the Harrison Butker commencement speech earlier this summer. What are you seeing in these exchanges between women who
may be pushing back against the idealized traditional delineation of duties in a household, and what might they be missing in the process?
Leila: Let me say that right now, the ‘idealized traditional delineation’ is definitely not that the mother stays home. Instead, being a housewife (as I like to call my position—for its shock value) is the true outlier! So the pushback to the speech on this account is actually a staunch, intractable defense of an entrenched position: that the woman be a wage earner.
Women are and have been expected to work since I was a teenager in the 70s. A big factor in my admission to an elite school like Swarthmore was my intention to pursue an engineering degree. On social media, a relentless trope is staying home while earning by monetizing your free time.
The second part, mainly about finances, is here. A sample:
Rob: You have a garden, bake bread, and highlight other creative ways to stretch a dollar on your blog. Anything you want to highlight for the readers here that has benefited your family in terms of being a “Proverbs 31” wife?
Leila: I would only aspire in my dreams and prayers to be the wife of Proverbs. Note that the whole context of her noble efforts is the magnification of her husband’s domain. She is above all, prudent. I do think a lot about frugality—along with living in an open-handed and generous way. It’s good to be content with what we have. The mother who doesn’t work has time and energy to make the most of things and to be creative as well.
You mention baking bread—it’s romantic, but it’s also way, way cheaper. I cannot believe the price of bread! I could spend most of our food budget on bread and snacks and still not have anything near as tasty or good for us as what I bake.
We have gone without, and I encourage people to think about how to do it. You’d be surprised at the things you don’t need. “Use up, wear out, make do, do without” is a good motto to have.
I’m lucky to have friends who are smart about this too, and we’ve had decades of conversations about the radical fruitfulness of living this way! I’ve tried to pass along what I’ve learned on the blog and in my book The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life. As Chesterton says, “Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more romantic than extravagance…But the thing is true; economy, properly understood, is the more poetic.”
The third part, about divorce and other topics, is here. A sample:
Rob: Many women feel they ought to contribute to the household income by picking up work they can do from home. Are there unforeseen issues with this?
Leila: Yes, as I alluded to previously, it’s better for the husband to have another job. Women have ruined their families and lives by succumbing to the lie of multi-level marketing schemes in a good faith, yet misguided effort to be home while contributing.
I’m always surprised by how families don’t count the hidden costs of the wife working: the extra taxes, increased food bills, childcare, perceived need for vacations, expensive “me” time to counteract the stress, and so on.
Even if the couple split up the childcare, it’s a burden on their lives—they end up hardly seeing each other, and the children are simply shuffled around. Family life becomes endless scheduling and juggling. Even where there is a nanny, there will be times that obligations can’t be met because nannies don’t work when the children are sick.
It’s unsustainable to think that a working wife is compatible with family life, yet it’s also universal. I’ve also noticed that in a real pinch, it’s the mom at home—the neighbor, friend, or cousin—who takes up the slack. It’s the dirty little secret of the feminist agenda. That’s because a family just needs someone who is there and available.
The traditional model of a family business or farm is more forgiving. The wife can shoulder some tasks and fill in gaps (and so can the children!). Very often people arguing with me say that the ‘50s ideal of the idle housewife doesn’t fit with historical reality where women very much contributed to household income. Of course that’s a straw man.
Read it all! All three posts are linked in the last one. (In fact, I would love to hear from you about it, but please read it all before you take me to task on something! You might find I already addressed your concern.)
I love your point about the traditional household economy, where the wife and children are also participants in the husband’s work. (Or really the family’s work!) The model of wage-earner and housewife — while definitely better than two wage-earners! — is relatively new historically and difficult in many ways. (It is hard to live all day in two separate worlds, for husband and wife.) But of course before the rise of wage labor it was both spouses in a primarily home/family context (even if that involved income beyond subsistence!). The industrialization that made male domestic production economically infeasible (and sent them to work for wages) also changed women’s roles. If you have a floor loom you can weave cloth at home while minding your small children and managing your household, but a factory full of mechanical looms makes that impossible even as it makes cloth infinitely cheaper. But the solution can’t be to abandon the home entirely!
I am curious about your thoughts for young women who aren’t inclined toward a career and hope to get married and raise a family at home—how necessary is a college education for them? Is homeschooling college even a thing? It would be nice if there really was a good “housewife school” for the young woman in this position!