Or What Good Is an Unmarried Homemaker?

Confession: I no longer want to be a homemaker-in-training.

Second confession: it’s not what you think. Let me calm and clarify.

If you had the mixed pleasure of talking to me in the past several years or so, you knew homemaking was not My Thing. I swept. I sewed. I strained spaghetti. Duty called—and then I escaped to my books. I’m renouncing that too. There are strange thoughts stirring up inside me—strange because I’m only seventeen, strange because I had sworn to myself so many years ago that “this” wasn’t My Thing.

I want to be a homemaker—a homemaker without the “in training” tacked on. It isn’t merely a passing fancy; actually, it’s getting quite annoying. I now like hanging laundry on the line. I walk into a house and then mentally and involuntarily rearrange the entire living room. I listen in to the veteran homemakers despite the catcalls of how boring and un-fun I’ve become. I’ve created a long, long list of do’s and don’t’s re: childrearing.

Since I have one more year of high school and, at present, years of spinsterhood looming ahead, it’s not really something to trumpet from the rooftops. I want my own home: but I cannot have one. And so the term “homemaker-in-training” grates on my nerves. How long do I remain unaccomplished? Who gets to decide when I finish the course, earn the degree, take off the “in training” officially?

I don’t mind the thought of being an old maid for eternity, believe it or not. I have plenty of talent and dreams up my sleeve. But there’s no fun in being “in training” for something eternally and inconsummatingly. Am I doomed to be a second-class homemaker until I take a new surname? Until I turn thirty-one with no prospects on the line? When do I—can I—stop training and actually start homemaking?

Girls talk about this. We wonder if it’s worth training in this ministry only to end up single and living in a New York flat doing penny-a-word editing with the old gray feline (my idea of lonely spinsterhood). We wonder if this kind of expertise is any good to girls with dreams that don’t include husband, children and cottage house. What if we don’t get married until (please don’t make me say it) late thirties? Or worse—what if we don’t marry at all?

“Isn’t it a waste of time then?” curious critics ask. There’s an underlying assumption to this all: homemaking cannot be accomplished except by married mothers of three. To put it another way: These skills lie dormant until Prince Charming activates them.

But I’ve been learning a better way. Instead of training program, per se, I view these unmarried, “in training” years as a different context for homemaking. But it is actualy homemaking. It is actually a service to others. It is actually an act of worship to God.

When I’m dusting, I think of dusting my own home—but I remind myself that these shelves and their dust are my vehicles to glorifying God. When I cuddle with the children and read board books aloud, I think of my own babes and all the fun things we’ll do together—but I am content ministering to these little ones with all the love and joy God gives me. When I have special friends over for special occasions, I straighten up the house, whip up the edibles and make sure everything’s party-perfect—all with the excitement of creating a pleasant home atmosphere, even if I don’t own the deed.

I don’t view homemaking as something future; I view it as something present. I am not merely a latent seed in my parents’ home, merely waiting, waiting, waiting. I am a vital member, living, growing, ministering, adding to home’s effectiveness.

I don’t know what you’re thinking, but to me, that’s a brighter future than waiting around.

Do all the the glory of God.

– 1 Corinthians 10:31 –