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For All You Homemakers
Former Haverhill Mayor Jim Rurak
08/02/06

Kathy and I married in 1982. We were both in our thirties and wanted children. We’ve been blessed with three.

Our son arrived nine months after our wedding. Believe me it wasn’t one day earlier. We had to pray more, wait longer and work harder for the next two, but I never regretted the effort. Our son and older daughter have by now moved out. Rose, the youngest who has Down’s Syndrome, is at home and I am the homemaker. It’s a love/hate thing.

Why both love and hate?

From the start, Kathy and I swore to each other that one of us would always be at home, especially to see the kids off to school and be there at day’s end, to keep the house clean, cook an evening meal, to maintain the house and yard. In other words, to make possible a home.

For six years, we both worked part time, splitting the week into three workdays each. I was at home on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays—Kathy on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Being part-timers we paid more for health insurance and each worked extra hours to make ends meet. But guess who was more tired at the end of every day?

The one who was at home all day! I loved being around the house. I had built it myself so its shelter was truly satisfying. In school, I had a cook’s job, so I liked the cooking. Changing diapers wasn’t bad. Giving baths was fun.

Cleaning was O.K., but it was constant. The hardest part is when the kids are little you give and give each day and they’re not really old enough to thank you. Then, when they’re old enough to thank you they seem to hate you for everything you do.

When they get over that, they’ve moved out. So unless you’re careful, the things you love doing as a homemaker turn too quickly into resentment for giving much more than you get back. And that can wear you down.

But Kathy and I have learned what it means to be careful. First, since we were each homemakers we had to get used to each other’s ways of making a home. For example, I hang the laundry outside; she uses the dryer.

This really upset me until I realized that she used the time she thereby saved on other things that were really important, like decorating the walls.

But this inner peace didn’t arrive on the day we took our vows. It required a few arguments. And on this and other matters we did have some differences about how to run the house. Ater all, it’s not like one of us always worked and the other was always at home. In that case, respective roles are usually more clear.

Sometimes I think our different homemaking practices and our debates about them were not good for our kids. Nowadays they look back at them and laugh at us. Imagine two adults, deeply in love, arguing about how best to dry the laundry!

But now I hope these debates meant something more to us and them. They were about making a home and they were also part of the home we made. Our kids laughing at us is not all bad.

When I was mayor, Kathy gave up a job she loved so as to be at home. Since 2002, apart from some part-time work, I’ve been at home so that Kathy can do a job she loves. We haven’t divided our week into halves as we once did, but we still have the same passion for the one thing needful in a marriage beyond love, namely, the commitment to make a home. The truth is that Kathy honors the work I do at home now, just as I did hers before.

Notice, I did not say “having total success at homemaking.” Commitment to make a home means that you do not take a home, rented or owned, for granted. I don’t mean just having a regular place to live. People who move frequently can be as successful as anyone else at making a home if they have the commitment to it.

What does the commitment imply?

It means making a space where the most often repeated actions are those which have the most meaning, purpose and fruitfulness for the health of the marriage and the family. It means honoring the work all family members do on behalf of each other.

So, of course, the absolute essentials count high on the list. Clothing, food and shelter you can’t do without. And most of our repeated actions go toward providing them. Gainful employment, cleaning, washing, shopping or farming take most of our time.

They make a home possible, but not yet real. Beyond that, kindness and an absence of abuses rank very high.

But nobody’s perfect, so just as important are sincerity and true apologies and the vow never to do the inexcusable. Then comes the willingness of all family members to share their passions with each other. For example, we heat with wood, and I love it. My son loves to split wood and ready it for winter. I collected coins since age ten; this year my daughter and I spent many wonderful hours putting our collection together. Then we sold it and split the cash! Kathy loves music; all our kids are musically gifted. Of course, they’ve acquired some of our bad habits too (mostly mine).

But I’ll leave those for the confessional, not the newspaper. The point is that a commitment to make a home means trying, and hopefully succeeding in making the daily routine one more adorned with good rather than bad habits. And, as I said, being contrite when appropriate.

So, how am I doing with my second round of homemaking? As you can tell, it’s still an art I have not perfected, but like the extra effort to have more children after our first one, it’s a task I never regret and most often enjoy.

I hope this little article helps all those who make homes find their work a little more enjoyable and important than they might have otherwise thought.
Letting each other know that home is enjoyable is perhaps the key to making it work. Enjoy August, school starts in three weeks!  

Jim Rurak is a professor at Boston College and is the former mayor of Haverhill. Email your comments or questions to Jim Rurak at JARandKAS @comcast.net

 

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The August, 2006 Edition of the Valley Patriot
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