Homemaker

Two women cooking.

A homemaker is a person who manages a household. They care for the home and the family as their primary occupation. They are often the primary caregiver for any children in the family.

This term is often used to describe a "stay-at-home mom" or wife who does not have a job outside the home. However, a homemaker can be a man or a woman, and they might have a part-time job outside the home. Older terms for "homemaker" include "housewife" and "househusband."

History

For many thousands of years, most societies have viewed men as the main "breadwinners" in families. This means men have been expected to hunt, grow crops, or earn money to support the household financially. Meanwhile, women have been expected to care for children, prepare food, clean the home, make clothes, and care for the household.

Hunter-gatherer societies

In hunter-gatherer societies, like the traditional Australian aboriginal people, men hunted animals for meat and women gathered other types of food, like grain, fruit, and vegetables. This was partly because married women usually had children and babies for a large part of their lives. Women could not hunt while caring for young children, but they could gather plants, and children could help.

In traditional societies in the Arctic North, men had to hunt in extreme conditions, among ice and snow. Women maintained the home life in huts made of ice ("igloos"). They also made warm clothing made out of animal skin and insulated with moss and other plants. Babies live very close to their mothers so that they can be kept warm.

Rural societies

In traditional rural societies, where the main work was farming, women raised vegetable gardens, cared for animals, and brewed weak alcoholic drinks (such as ale and mead). They also did heavy work alongside men whenever a job needed to be done in a hurry, usually because of the season.

Heavy work for a traditional, rural "housewife" (homemaker) might include:

• Picking fruit to sell when it was ripe
• Planting rice in a paddy field
• Harvesting and stacking grain when it was ready
• Cutting hay

Urban societies

In an urban society, most people live in towns and cities. Starting in ancient times, most men in urban areas have done work that earned money. They have worked in workshops, trade, banking, and other businesses as well as in churches, schools and town councils. A woman's job was to be a 'housewife'.

Women who never married sometimes stayed at home and did housework for other family members. Other women worked paid jobs outside the home like men. Many urban societies have had few jobs that a woman was allowed to do. In modern society, there are still strong traditions about the jobs that women should do.

Modern society

19th century

In the 19th century (1801-1900), more and more women took jobs that men usually did instead of being homemakers. At this time there were many large factories, first in England, then in some other European countries and the United States. Many of these factories accepted women workers, and thousands of young women went to work in them.

Other women, like Florence Nightingale, stopped being housewives and did dirty dangerous jobs, even though they were not poor and did not need to work. In most families where there was a husband and wife, the husband was expected to earn money and the wife was expected to be a homemaker. Women were often very proud to be good homemakers and have their house and children spotlessly clean, their husbands' shirts neatly pressed, and tasty meals to eat every night.

20th century

World War I and World War II both happened in the first half of the 20th century (1901-1950). Men from many countries went to war, leaving their jobs behind. Women went to work to keep their countries running. Women who were also homemakers worked in factories, businesses and farms.

By the 1960s in western countries, thinking about women at work had changed a little. Now some people believed that it was all right for a woman to work and be a "career girl" until she got married. At that point, she was expected to stop work and be a housewife. Around this time, more and more women were getting good educations and were able to earn a lot of money. In some families (usually if there were young children to care for) the husband was the homemaker.

Nowadays, families choose a variety of arrangements at home. In some households where both the husband and wife do paid work, both partners share in the "housework" and caring for the children. In other families, the wife works to support the family financially, and the husband stays home to care for the home and children. Meanwhile, some traditional families still view housework as the wife's job. In these families, the husband works to provide for the family and the wife stays home to care for her house and children.

What does a homemaker do?

Dishes to be washed

Messy bedroom

Baby to be bathed

Christmas to be prepared for all the family

Homemakers take care of their families and the places where they live. They do many things, which might include:

• Planning meals
• Buying, preparing, cooking, and serving food
• Washing up after meals
• Cleaning, organizing, and decorating the house
• Doing seasonal cleaning like washing all the curtains
• Decorating (arranging the furniture and ornaments, and choosing the colors of things)
• Washing, ironing, mending, shopping for, and (sometimes) making clothes
• Getting children ready for school
• Bathing, feeding, dressing, and playing with children
• Comforting babies, children and partners
• Doing first aid and caring for sick people
• Caring for pets
• Entertaining guests
• Planning for guests and holidays/celebrations
• Remembering everybody's birthday
• Driving the kids to school and activities
• Helping with homework
• Supervising music practice
• Reading storybooks
• Putting children to bed
• Cleaning out the garage
• Maintaining and watering household plants
• Preparing budgets and paying bills
• Researching ways to use the household's income most efficiently

Related pages

• House
• Family
• Marriage