Appreciating the homemakers

The following is an article written by Sew Chassler, in Parade magazine in (believe it or not) 1985.

I read this in a book by Zig Ziglar, Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World (also published in 1985).

About 20 years ago, my wife and I were having one of those arguments that grows into fury - the kind that leaves a dreadful pain that lasts for years. Suddenly, unable to stand my complaints any longer, my wife threw something at me and said: 'From now on, you do the shopping, plan the meals, take care of the house, everything. I'm through!'

I was standing in the kicthen looking at the shelves, the sink, the refrigerator, the cleaning utensils. At my wife

I was terrified. Tears trickled down my face. No matter what, I knew I could not handle the burden she had flung at me. I could not do my job and be responsible for the entire household as well. I had important things to do. Besides, how could I get through a day dealing with personnel, budgets, manuscripts, mangement, profit-and-loss figures, and, at the same time, plan dinner for that night and the next night and breakfasts and lunches and a dinner party on the weekend and shop for it all and make sure the house was in good shape and that the woman who cleaned for us was there and on time and the laundry done and the children taken care of?

How could any one do all that and stay sane? Natalie watched me for awhile. Finally she said, 'Ok. Don't worry. I'll keep on doing it.' She put on her coat and went to her hospital office - to maange dozens of people and more than 100 patients.

Despite her simple statement that she would go on taking care of our home and family, I stood a while telling myself that no one could do all of that. Slowly I saw that she was doing it.

In the days and weeks that followed, I began to realize that most women carry a double burden: an inside job taking care of their homes and families, and an outside job, working for their wages. Most men, on the other hand, can come home and do little more about their families than help with household chores and with the children. Helping is useful, but it is not the same as doing; it leaves the basic responsibility to someone else. In most homes, it leaves the basic responsibility to women: all the worries, all the headache, all the planning, all the management, all the DOING is theirs. How many men understand this without being shocked into it as I was - or by the loss of a wife? How many of us appreciate how invisible to us women are? How many of us really see women or hear them? How often do we go to bed at night feeling the comfort and love of our wives but knowing them so little that we do not recognize the burden they bear?