Working from Home
The modern womenEDMONTON — Call her a homemaker, a working parent or even a yummy mummy — just don’t insult a woman by referring to her as a “housewife.” SALLY JOHNSTON |
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Sun Media |
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However, as Neering pointed out:
“Whether they had a choice was another matter.”
Her book traces the cultural history of this feminine icon from the 1600s with the first Acadian women — who lit their houses with whale oil lamps — to the jellied marshmallow salad days of the 1950s.
It gives snapshots of various eras with quotes, recipes, historical illustrations and advertisements, household hints and excerpts from books, journals and magazines.
“I ended the book in the ’50s because it seems to me that’s where we no longer had the full-time, lifetime housewife as an absolute standard for society,” said Neering.
She has no hankering for the so-called “good old days.”
“The best era for women has to be now. Technical advances such as washing machines and vacuums have made the tasks of housewifery so much easier. And feminism has given us choices.”
That said, many modern women create unnecessary stress by holding themselves to impossible standards: “A friend of mine has gone through a great deal of adversities, including cancer, but I think one of the toughest things of her life was deciding to let her house be untidy.”
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