The Woman's "Job"

Y'all might have noticed on the right, in the midst of so many links which I must must must organize, is a link to girl talk. Now, as someone who purports himself to be a Christian, most things Christian tend to interest me - from the scoffable to the laudable to the detestable. This "girl talk" (do I put blog titles in quotes once I've already linked to them? how odd) is one of those curious aspects of Christianity...an outlet of the modern megachurch.

I bring attention specifically to the above blog for two reasons: I'll eventually talk about it in the future and I'm going to talk about it right now. I'm an effecient little bugger, eh?

In this post one of the many females who writes speaks about finding and focusing on three things that will always please her husband; recommending other wives do the same. A good thing and I shan't knock it - as long as the men do the same, and neither use such "top three's" to manipulative ends. However, I found two things of note.

The first is that the woman referenced "intimacy." I thought that was cute.

The second item of note I found in the blog is this quotation:

"...I’ve been doing a lousy job with meal preparation lately. My dinner meals have looked something like this: A rotisserie chicken from the grocery store with a couple of side dishes thrown together; hot dogs and coleslaw from KFC (my husband’s favorite coleslaw); peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and popcorn; frozen pizzas…. You get the picture. Pathetic, I know"

Eh?

Now this might just be because I am a lowly, lowly college student but the list of foods this "pathetic" wife just rambled off sounds darned delicious -- although I simply do not get the PBJ/popcorn combo, but to each their own.

I'm all for upholding traditional gender roles.

I'm all for subverting traditional gender roles.

...all in the right time and place.

Honestly, why are any of those dinners pathetic? Does everyone require a 5 course fine dining experience at the end of every day? I imagine even those who do require such extravagances get quite tired over the amount of jaw stress needed to finish such meals. I remember my mother, who cooks like a fiend hell or highwater, at one period in time used to cook scrambled eggs and toast for dinner. It was simple, a change of pace, and my family thoroughly enjoyed it.

Why is there this implied and obtrusive stricture upon the women in today's modern-reformed Christian households that equals the strictures placed upon the women of the Victorian period...without the distinction between upstairs and downstairs? If one defends such structures (and I did mean stricture earlier, without a care in the world as to its existence in the real world) as an attempt to reunify the family under traditional and formulaic gender roles where the wife cooks, cleans, and educates. Well, ok. I can buy and fully support unifying the family under healthy gender roles. However, where in the Bible does it say that the wife cooks and cleans and educates and bonks and boils all the while making herself pretty and pleasing? If one wants to go that far, I do believe the Bible itself does lay out a pretty good list of what a good wife does which goes a great deal beyond the limitations of the house and the family.

My contention with what this woman called pathetic is that her creations (and purchases) for her family to partake of were done in love, nomatter the speed and the hurry of the thought or the buying. Why can they not be viewed as such - defined by love instead of appearance? This woman makes mention of her husband not noticing her "pathetic" meal preparation. Did she expect his notice and subsequent correction for her failing?

I believe she did expect it, and therein lies what disturbs me. This life is of chaos, hurry, and ill-planning. If a family decides that cooked, sit-down meals are important, everyone in that family should help to make it happen - thankfully most white, middle class families have both a mother and a father, such advantages shouldn't be ignored. If a family decides that sit-down meals regardless of their origin are important, then so be it and origin/cellophane be damned.

As much as I look forward to delicious labor-intensive meals with the woman I love, I look forward to those harried moments where we try and find something and in that something find the peace which defines sharing a meal.

Eating is a fundamental part of commune. Apart from the fun of the cooking and the preparation, what the hell does it matter what one eats?

The important thing is the family, not the eats or digs or pretty things. The true pretty thing is the family. Why do we always miss that?