Happy Homemaker

So earlier in the week we were at the dentist with the kids and Hot Mama was filling out all the paperwork for insurance while I wrangled the kids in the lobby.  This was really a treat because it has been years since we were both at any appointment with the kids at the same time. 

This meant that I didn't  have to hold one kid down with my foot while a sat on another to fill out the paperwork.  I was thinking to myself this is so nice and sat down next to Hot Mama as she finished the forms and notice that she had listed my occupation as.....homemaker.....

Agh! Why are you filling that out in pen?  I can't erase that now!  "What are you talking about?"  she asked me.  "I know all the birth dates."

Immediately images of this came into my mind:

Someone please save me if this is how my wife sees me!  When you say homemaker in relation to a man there is no good image that comes to mind!!

"Homemaker, really?'' I asked.

I got the one raised eyebrow that said,  I was a  homemaker for years and if you are going to tell me that there is something wrong with being a homemaker I'm gonna let you have it,  because its a hard, important job and if your gonna try to minimize that by saying because your a guy you can't be a homemaker then bring it on....you wanna have that fight right here?

Yes, she really can say that much in just a look.

"OK" I say, "then can you at least change the spelling to homemakgrrrrr?  I can be nurturing and dangerous right?"

It was then we were called back for tartar scraping so I had to leave it at that.

Later when we got home I told the older kids that Hot Mama had list me as a homemaker on the paperwork.

Megs says "ewww, gross flower print dresses, and baking bread!"

Exactly, nobody wants to look at their dad and think that,  the dress anyway, they love it when I bake bread.

Megs, "maybe kid wrangler, but not homemaker"

Kid wrangler?  Nurturing... possibly dangerous...I'll consider it.

Anyway, for years I have been leaving that portion of insurance forms blank, and I fill out a lot of those forms, for just this reason.  I can't reconcile what I do as a .......homemaker with the girlie image that goes along with that title.

Might be time to just get over it.

The truth is I do all the things that go along with being a person who makes a home, much of that mundane and laborious and some miraculous,  and I'm proud of that.  And if I really look at the day to day of it all it doesn't have a gender.  The last time I was scrubbing hard water rings out of the toilets I wasn't thinking "wow this is kind of girlie".   And I'm not sure, but I think Hot Mama finds it attractive when I slip into a apron and bake up some bread in my perfectly clean kitchen.

Being a homemaker means love and service, to your family and friends.  Making your home a place that they want to be, that they feel safe and loved.  A home that you and your family always want to come back to.

True, I sometimes mess this up by freaking out that they are all slobs that never pick up after themselves after I have spent the whole day "homemaking"....

But I'm a homemakgrrrr, nurturing....and dangerous.