The Sisterhood of Housework

I was deep in thought as I washed dishes and threw in a load of laundry tonight. Thinking about all the mothers in America doing the same exact things I was doing, thinking about my mother friends in Honduras doing the same thing, only they have to hand wash their clothes. And it came to me that, number one, I have it very good in the way of housework, not only historically but also compared to most the women of the world, and two, I am a part of a sisterhood of wives and mothers, going back thousands of years.

Just a few years ago dishes were my enemy. Rarely were my counters ever truly clean from loads of dirty dishes piled high. I would do laundry, clean the house, anything but do wash those dishes. Until one day I realized how exciting it was to wake up to a clean counter and a clean sink. Then the stars aligned - and somehow the dishes were done several nights a week. Then almost every night, and then as if by magic (but really it just became a good habit) I started washing dishes every night after supper and it became my time to think instead of a time to curse at my lot in life. And the thinking has led me here.

Did you know that doing dishes is an honerable and worthy job? That by doing dishes (and various other household chores) we enter the sisterhood of billions of women both past, present and future? That by doing these seemingly meanial jobs we are working for a much higher calling of being caretakers of the ones God has entrusted to us? By doing dishes, we are enabling future generations to walk the planet. Just think if we stopped that one chore, or did such a poor job at it that our families were sickened by eating off dirty utensils. It may seem meanial, by we are ensuring that our grandchildren will walk the earth. We are doing a job we were created to do! We ought to do it well.

I have not come to the point of doing my work joyfully yet. That one will take me a few years to go. But I have come a very long ways from the lazy, complaining wife and mother I used to be. For now, there is purpose in all I do because God gave me my family and it is my solemn duty to care for them as best as I can. I work with purpose now and that is one good step in the right direction.

photography © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge