Betty Crocker Homemaker’s Creed
Betty Crocker Homemaker’s Creed
I Believe
homemaking is a noble and challenging career.
I Believe
homemaking is an art requiring many different skills.
I Believe
homemaking requires the best of my efforts, my abilities, and my thinking.
I Believe
home reflects the spirit of the homemaker.
I Believe
home should be a place of peace, joy and contentment.
I Believe
no task is too humble that contributes to the cleanliness, the order, the health, the well being of the household.
I Believe
a homemaker must be true to the highest ideals of love, loyalty, service and religion.
I Believe
home must be an influence for good in the neighborhood, the community, the country.
Someone sitting down today trying to update the guide might come up with the following:
HOW TO BE A GOOD WIFE: 1995 REVISION
by Cheryl Dyson
Have dinner ready once a week: Plan ahead, even five minutes before, to have a delicious meal — stop at Taco Bell on the way home. The rest of the week, scrounge food from fridge and cupboards. Spagettios are quick and easy. Tell your husband that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs and would he please make himself a sandwich because you are too tired. Most men are hungry when they come home, so ignore their whining and point them toward the fridge.
Prepare yourself: Leave him with the kids one night and go shopping. You have just been with a lot of work-weary people. Your boring day may need a lift.
Clear away the clutter: Kick magazines, papers, and mail off the coffee table so you can eat off it while you watch TV. Have the remote handy. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too.
Prepare the children: If you both need a break, send them to Grandma’s house in another state. If Grandma won’t take them, take a few minutes tie children’s hands and feet, and don’t forget the gag. Tell them you are playing Cops and Robbers and you will free them as soon as their lawyer arrives. Usually, they will fall asleep before you come to untie them hours later. Your husband will think you are a genius, but don’t expect flowers.
Minimize all noise: At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer, dishwasher, or vacuum. Ha ha! Just kidding. We know you don’t possibly have time to do laundry or vacuum. That stuff will have to wait until your next 3-day weekend. If you want things quiet, turn the TV down. Try to encourage the children to be quiet (See Cops and Robbers, above). Be happy to see him if he stopped to rent videos. Greet him with a warm smile and be glad to see him. If he doesn’t seem equally glad to see you, start an argument. Since things are nice and quiet, he will be sure to hear you.
Some don’ts: Don’t greet him with problems or complaints. He doesn’t understand what you mean. This will lead to an argument. Don’t complain if he’s late for dinner, unless he was supposed to pick it up on his way home. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him (same thing you’re drinking unless his preference is different). Speak in a low, soft, soothing and pleasant voice. This will alarm him and he will wonder if he has forgotten your anniversary or birthday. You could get a present out of it. Allow him to relax and unwind before mentioning that it’s his turn to take the kids to the dentist.
Listen to him:You may have a dozen things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first. This will placate his ego. His six words won’t take long, then you can yammer his ear off with the knowledge that he will ignore you, anyway, since Hard Copy is doing a series on Hooters in Hawaii.
Make the evening yours: Complain if he does not take you out to dinner or to other places of entertainment. If that doesn’t work, leave. Go out to dinner yourself. After a few evenings alone with the kids, he’ll see the wisdom of your words.
The goal: Try to make your bathroom a place of peace and order where you can renew yourself in body and spirit. Calgon, take me away!
The traditional housewife in today’s world has evolved into a “partnership” bringing new issues for couples to have to deal with and work through.” In 2011, only 16 percent of American households contained a breadwinner husband and a stay-at-home wife, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
In nearly 40 percent of American marriages today, the wife earns more than the husband and who stays home to raise the kids is changing quickly. “Until recently, stay-at-home fathers made up a tiny sliver of the American family spectrum. Few in number, and lacking voice, they tended to keep to themselves, trying to avoid the inevitable raised eyebrows.
In the last decade, though, the number of men who have left the work force entirely to raise children has more than doubled, to 176,000, according to recent United States census data. Expanding that to include men who maintain freelance or part-time jobs but serve as the primary caretaker of children under 15 while their wife works, the number is around 626,000, according to calculations the census bureau compiled for this article.
Meanwhile, the identity of the at-home dad is evolving, on the playground and in the culture at large. To this new cohort, the decision to stay home with the children is seen not a failure of their responsibilities as men, but a lifestyle choice — one that makes sense in an era in which women’s surging salaries have thrown the old family hierarchy into flux; and men have embraced a more fluid interpretation of a career that places a premium on fulfillment, not money and status.”
Couples today will have to navigate new norms, which means couples need to have deeper conversations about expectations on the front end. While this will be a great first step couples that survive 60 years of marriage will go through multiple life cycles about every 10 years that their relationship will have to adjust to. Think about it, Have kids in your 20’s, start a career, move into the 30’ and 40’s, kids growing up, career changes, family changes. Your 50’s and 60’s kids leaving home, one’s own parents dying. The financial stress of paying for college. Life comes at us very fast.
Everyone likes to quote a divorce rate of 50%, just as I did earlier, but the fact is that like most statistics there is a bigger story here. For women that get a college education and marry after 23 the divorce rate is only 20%.