League of Extraordinary Homemakers

The other week, I attended our local chapter’s La Leche League meeting, and while I love offering support and encouragement to other nursing mothers (and receiving it in turn!), I wish there was some equivalent confederation of people trying to figure out this housekeeping-and-childcare thing.

A 2011 blog post I came across recently argues articulately,

Adult jobs require training. Some jobs require years of schooling. Why is it we think we should be able to just step right into the kick-ass housewife role? Why do we think we should be able to cast off 20 years of academic schooling and suddenly, without training, become a super-hero urban homesteader? It’s yet another sign of how we devalue the work.

I wish we could meet around snacks — maybe a new recipe we’re trying out, or a tub of hummus we bought in panic on the way to the meeting. Like at LLL, our kids would play in between us, a hum of energy in the background. We’d talk about work/life balance, and the best way to clean grout, and how to use a slow cooker to get the bulk of dinner done while your kids are still sane in the morning.

You’d bring the extra squash from your garden; I’d bring that book I kept meaning to lend you. Maybe someone would confess to yelling and another to defaulting to frozen pizza, and I’d tell you about the time in the depths of January when I decided to throw in the SAHM towel and apply for a full-time job an hour away in teen librarianship, just so I could feel good at something again. We’d leave refreshed, inspired, and maybe a little wiser.

Who’s with me?