Robyn Coupe: HOMEMAKER

“Oh!  And dear, Lord – thank you so much that I do not have to run any errands this morning.  I can hang up the car keys and just sit down to work on a few things.  Thank you!”

The second I uttered those words I should have just walked downstairs, picked up the cars keys and sat in the car.

I jinxed myself. 

In about a ten-minute span of getting the laundry started, lunches packed, and kids breakfasted I realized we were out of, not just one thing, many things.  My morning now had a trip to the store lodged in there.

“Homemaker,” I harrumphed as I headed down the highway.  “Such a stupid title,” I thought as I drove.

Earlier in the week I was asked if I recognized and old phone number.  Eventually I surmised it was an old landline of mine.  When I got the link where the number was found with my information, I let out an “Oooof.”  What felt like was written in all caps, bold ink glared at me from my computer screen.

ROBYN COUPE:  CURRENT OCCUPATION:  HOMEMAKER

Was that really all I was?  Just a homemaker?

When I was a kid, I had dreams of what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I went to college.  Not for my M-r-s. but for my Masters.  I attainted successful gainful employment.

And I gave it up.  Apparently to be a HOMEMAKER.

More like errand runner.  Homework helper.  Bed maker.  Lunch packer.  Sports practice driver.  Schedule keeper.  Cranky ironer.  Dog walker.  Meal maker.  Lawn mowerer.  Weeder.  Vacuumer.  Mopper.  Bill payer.  Doer of all thing’s laundry.  Nurse to all home illnesses. 

More like homeMANAGER.

I mean, really.  Couldn’t the site put in the last title I held?  It was a pretty cool one.  I can’t remember the exact title now, something like Air/Sea Import Controller, but I know it was way better than HOMEMAKER.

If I said I was a dentist, one would get the gist of my work.

Receptionist, bus driver, cashier – one has my occupation mentally figured out.

Homemaker?  There’s an idea out there.  All that free time…..

Twice in the past eight years someone spoke to me about “those” Stay at Home Mom’s without knowing my occupation.  I got their tone and just smiled.  Didn’t feel right to out myself in the face of contempt.

I’ve said it before.  I was guilty of those thoughts too before I landed myself in my new position.  Which is probably why I got all bent out of shape seeing my current occupation standing out so boldly.

As I searched for my tribe – googling for other homemakers who felt undervalued by society, I came across an interview Betty Ford did with Good Housekeeping in 1976.

Dated?  Maybe.  But for my sake, it is what I needed to read:

“We have to take the ‘just’ out of ‘just a housewife’ and show our pride in having made the home and family our life’s work,” she says.

“What’s this about the liberated woman being a career woman?” the First Lady also asks. Then answers, “A liberated woman is one who feels confident in herself and is happy in what she is doing. A woman who is satisfied with her life at home is just as liberated as a woman with a career outside the home.

As First Lady, Betty Ford is very concerned about the lack of appreciation for the role of women as homemakers — a word she likes better than housewife “because that’s what you are doing, making a home.” It’s a concern she shares with her husband. Earlier this year, President Ford told a group of Future Homemakers of America, “I regret that some people in this country have disparaged and demeaned the role of the homemaker…homemaking is not out of date and I reject such accusations.”

Betty puts it another way, “Homemakers are the backbone of our society. They’re the ones who influence young people. Family culture is the very beginning of everything.”

My name is Robyn Coupe and my current occupation is homemaker.  I manage a household and raise a family.  And thanks to Betty Ford, I feel a lot better about myself and my title.