Work is Work. Paid or otherwise.

A brief expression of frustration.

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2024

This is a small rant, inspired by this image.

Honestly, it's interesting that back then, the "work" of managing a home was recognized. I'm not saying women were treated well, all the time, but the fact that they spent all day "working" in the home was clearly acknowledged, taught, and seen.

Today, thanks to the unintended diminishing of respect for women's work in the home by the women's liberation movement, women like me (who did all this, and homeschooled two children, and ran multiple small farm-based/home-based businesses, and developed bare grass into a huge, productive garden filled with perennials and a food forest keeping us in fruit for 6 months or more each year) are seen as women who "didn't work."

I'm so tired of countless women who worked out of the home directing latent anger, frustration, and resentment my way, or acting as if "my work" is not really work but we'll call it work if that makes you feel better...wink wink.

I'm so tired of feeling and believing in the back of my mind that I've worked less than my husband who was paid well by a corporation to help them sell cell phone service to customers around the country. HE, to his credit, never implied I didn't work because he SAW my endless labors, but the Western World still seems to think that only work with a paycheck is "real work."

If I'd put the kids in government school, hired a landscaping company to mow the grass, bought lots of take-out food or frozen meals, and worked for strangers in exchange for money...would my family have been better off? What would we have more of? More clothes? More vacations? More money in the bank? More stuff?

It's tiring enough working all the time. I don't need to also work hard to convince myself that the work I do is legitimate or earns the approval of others.