I just want to gush for a minute about how happy I am at home. I am so glad I don’t have to go to work. Thank God my husband is a good provider, and I can stay in my home where I feel most comfortable and enjoy being. I get to be with my dogs and my stuff all day. No one tells me what to do or annoys me. I don’t have to push paperwork. I don’t have to help customers. It’s awesome.
Career women baffle me because I can not for the life of me understand why anyone would rather sit in an office all day than be in their own home. Sometimes feminists get really angry with me, and they go off about how we should encourage our daughters and young girls in general, to have careers. Yikes on bikes people. One day, my daughter will be grown, and she will make her own choices. If she wants a career she can do that. I hope that’s not the decision she makes, but I’m not going to stop her. But to encourage her to do something that I frankly think sucks makes no sense to me. I have worked. I did not enjoy it.
I enjoy working around the house. But that’s different. The things I do are acts of love that directly benefit my family and make our home a cozier place. And plus I enjoy the environment so much that even if I disliked housework, I would prefer to be at home.
I used to want to be a professor, and I was very upset that funded grad schools were out of reach once I got married. But as I stayed home, I realized that I would rather be there. Poetry is still important to me, but I can read it voraciously and write it prodigiously from the comfort of my studio or living room. I sometimes miss the community feedback on my writing. Criticism is always helpful, and while my husband is always willing to read my work and provide commentary, by his own admission, he’s not a very poetic person, and poetry is not his thing. He doesn’t get deep in the nitty gritty, and I need that. For that reason I am looking for beta readers for the book I’m working on. But I still have no regrets about losing the chance to work in academia. It isn’t publish or perish for me. I can write what I want when I want to, and whether or not I publish it is up to me. I haven’t even been interested in publishing the past several years. After my chapbook got published, I quit. Now I’m getting back into it, but I’ve decided to go the self-publishing route because it’s cheaper and easier than entering dozens of poetry contests.
Being at home makes me feel safe and happy. The most interaction I really feel the need to have with the world is to maybe go shopping once in a while or, of course, running errands that need to be run. Or I enjoy hanging out with friends for a couple of hours. I have zero interest in spending 8 to 12 hours a day with people who aren’t family.
I feel so lucky and grateful to be able to stay home. I don’t give a darn about having a career. I would encourage any woman to explore the trad lifestyle.
Life at Home 