Evening star., 1935-10-22


year. Before I was married
- I did stenographic work and
liked 1t very much, but gave up my
position when married. have a
fine husband whom I love and who
is good to me.
have nice home, but at times
get very restless. Domesticity gets
monotonous and I become very de-
pressed. I feel pinned down and that
there is not enough excitement in
keeping house or cooking to keep me
interested. Since I have been mar
ried have taken several temporary
positions and as soon as I did I lost
the depressed and restless feeling,
but when I did couldn't keep up
my housework and we had to eat out.
My husband thinks it makes a hap
pier marriage if the wife stays at
home. Perhaps it does, but I don't
know anything about cooking or do
mestic work and pine for my old job
What can I do to get over this rest
less feeling and find life interesting
again? PUZZLED.
Answer-Your reaction to your
present situation is perfectly natural.
Every business woman who gives up
her job and gets married feels this
same way at first. She has been used
to an ordered life in which every
minute had its scheduled task. In
her own little new home her time is
her own. Nothing presses. She can
do as she pleases with her time. She
has been accustomed to working in
group. to the excitement of people
coming and going. TO the thrill of
new projects being launched, new
campaigns put through. Perhaps she
has been the right hand of her boss,
who controlled great enterprises. Now
she helps decide no more important
question than whether there shall be
roast beef or chops for dinner. Per-
haps she has been buyer who spent
thousands of dollars in single trans
action. Now she buys 10 cents worth
Of stew meat and half an apple pie.
nNE successful business woman who
had been the brains of a depart
ment in large store and who gave
up her position to go domestic when
she married explained the situation
by saying to me: ITO put me to take
care of a six-room apartment. fur
nished with every modern gadget for
labor saving, is like putting a 1000
horsepower engine to lift a 1-horse-
power weight. 1t is a waste of en-
ergy. have been taught system and
efficiency. I do all my work in an
hour and then I do not know what
TO do with my time"
In your particular case. I urge you
to try to regard homemaking as
profession and not as a chore. If you
do you will find that housework is
just as interesting and exciting as
Office work and that you can get Just
as big kick out of it.
1t Is because most women only put
their backs and not their brains nor
their hearts into housework that they
find 1t drudgery. They never learn
how to cook, so they never find out
that 1t takes skill and artistry and
poetry and imagination to make a
dish that delights the palate and the
eye and the stomach. They never
learn how to buy so as to get the most
out of a dollar, or to run a house on
budget, so they never find out that
housewife needs to be as good a
Judge of commodities as any purchas-
ing agent and as much of a financier
as any banker.
THEY never think of making a
home that is place of rest for a
tired man to come to of an evening
and for children to grow up in in an
atmosphere of peace and comfort and
order and love, as the greatest work
that any woman can ever set her
hand to. And so they miss the real
reward Of their labor.
Believe me, my dear. if you will go
at our housekeeping in the right spirit
you will find it one of the most in
tereSting and absorbing of occupa-
tions. and If you make success of it
you will have acquired one of the most
profitable professions that any woman
can follow If she needs to make her
living.
And your husband is right when he
says that it makes for the happiness
OF marriage for the wife to stay in
the home. For the very good reason
that no woman can be competent
housewife and competent business
woman at the same time. Either Job
takes all she has.