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One of my favorite scenes in Mary Poppins is when she has just met the Banks children, and she measures them with a tape measure which is printed with attributes about them right at their heights. When Mary Poppins is then measured, the tape measure reads, “Practically Perfect in Every Way.”
I’m here to say – I’m no Mary Poppins.
While I think that I have been pretty up front with my lack of perfection here on my blog, I still remember a time when a friend told me that she thought she would have to stop reading my blog. When I asked her why, she said it was because it made her feel bad. It was then that I decided I needed to be a lot more real. I needed to share my imperfections. And I did.
However, it hit me the other night. After almost four years of blogging, I recognize one major thing that my blog is documenting. And, while I knew I was documenting it, I didn’t really share it. I think I wanted to look like something that I wasn’t.
So, here’s where I admit that I am pretty much a domestic flunkie.
While I love my Mom (on top of being an amazing Mom, she’s also one of my best friends), growing up, she was a super Mom that did things for us. While I loved it for the easy life it gave me, I have also realized as an adult that there was a lot of learning that I missed out on. From proper cleaning to cooking to money management to laundry, and a whole lot in between. I loved that I didn’t have to worry about these things growing up, but it also meant that when I was married at 19 and never having lived on my own, there were a whole lot of things that I didn’t know how to do.
Leading up to my wedding, Mom wrote out some favorite recipes for me, though we ended up eating an awful lot of Macaroni and Cheese and Dinty Moore Beef Stew. She also gave me a crash course in laundry a week before the wedding, although I got confused and spent years washing our towels in cold water (and then wondered why they never seemed clean enough).
And you know what? I spent many years of married life as that domestic flunkie. Our house was dirty, we ate junk, and I generally steered clear of most domestic arts. I was busy with college, and just didn’t much care about those kinds of things.
In recent years, I think of myself more of a domestic wannabe. I audibly celebrate when I learn a new skill (like embroidery or making an ice ring for the punch bowl), master a recipe (or even just successfully make it on the first try), or manage to actually grow things in my garden. I may walk around the house excitedly showing everyone, “Look what I did!” like a proud kindergartner. And, sadly, though I am 33 years old, I have never made scrambled eggs because it still kind of scares me a little.
This is what I realized the other night — while I didn’t start this blog with the intention of showing my growth as a homemaker, that is one of the major things my blog is about. It’s just that I realized I never shared that with all of you. I tried to make myself look like I was a domestic pro, but I’m not. I’m a reforming domestic flunkie who is trying to grow into the woman that I think God called me to be, but I was embarrassed to admit it.
This is why all of the recipes I post are easily accessible for even a beginning cook. And this is why the hats I’ve made are all done on the Knifty Knitter. I’ve spent the last five years or so trying to make baby steps towards domesticity.
So, will you still love me if I’m not practically perfect in every way?
Will you still read if you know that when I make muffins from scratch, I may dance around the kitchen and say, “I rock!”?
Will you think of me in the same way if you know that this blog is me documenting our lives, just as they are now, even though that means that it’s not me being super domestic, but just trying to grow in that way?
I hope you still will.
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You and I can be domestic flunkies together. 🙂 I think the important thing here is recognizing it as a thing to work on and then trying to improve. At least that’s what I tell myself. LOL
Love it! Doesn’t being practically perfect mean just finding that balance? If you have to use a mix or eat out sometimes if it means spending a little more precious time together I sure think it’s worth it. And by the way, YOU ROCK! 🙂
Of course! Love you and your reforming domestic ways! 🙂
muffins from scratch – ya got my vote!!
I’m right there with you – I never learned all of those “wifely arts” before I got married either. In fact, one of the reasons I married my husband was because HE could cook and clean!!! LOL!!! Now I’m S L O W L Y learning the more domestic arts – and when I succeed, I feel like I need to tell the world “Look what I did!!!” 🙂 Remember that the only perfect human was Christ, and he was all human and all God – so He had one up on all of us!!! Keep on learning and being proud of your successes. Those of us learning along with you will do the happy dance with you!!!! 🙂
If there is a domestic flunkies group…then I need to join! 🙂 I can cook and bake, handle the day to day tasks, but just don’t look under my kitchen rug. 🙂
I’m embarrassed to say this, but If you saw all the boxed macaroni and frozen dinners in my cupboard/freezer right now, you’d be shocked! lol! I like to cook from scratch, but sometimes it’s impossible.
The way I see it, If you and your family are happy and healthy, who cares if you aren’t a domestic Goddess. What matters is that we do our best and love our families. 🙂
BTW, your blog is awesome and of course, I’m going to continue reading!
Sister,
I love that you open yourself up like this. You are just like all the rest of us… not a one is perfect, and we are all learning and growing each and every day.
I am taken aback however that you have never made scrambled eggs yourself. I do believe you have put that task to the boys last time we were together, and nothing bad happened then! HA!
We love you girlie!
@Kristin Cherwinski,
I know — it’s shameful, isn’t it? LOL But, it was for a 4-H project and it was Mom that had them make the scrambled eggs. I’ll have to put it on my to do list for 2010, huh? 😉
Hi Angie! This is a great post. I think every mom and/or homeschool blogger needs to write a “reality check” post every now and then because we do tend to see other bloggers as perfect because of course we end up only show our good sides on our blogs. =)
It sounds like you and I had similar childhoods and now, at 34 and with 3 kids to care for, I have had to teach myself basically everything domestic. I have a ways to go. Maybe we all do. Hey we can all be in the boat together.
I love your blog and will keep reading *because* you are real. =)
Yep, I’ll still love you…because I’m right there with you. 😉 I really thank you for this post; it made me realize that I’m doing the same thing to my kids that your mom did, unintentionally, to you. I do everything myself, with the exception of a few simple chores. It’s always my intention to teach the kids to sort and wash the laundry or to cook or whatever, but it’s just so much quicker and easier to do it myself that those good intentions often fall by the wayside.
Time to get busy teaching my kids Home Ec 101.
@Kris @ WUHS and Eclipsed,
This is exactly why I don’t hold anything against my Mom for not showing me (or us) more. I find myself doing the same thing.
For her, with so many kids, it was much easier to just do the things herself, just like it’s easier for me to do things myself. I have been trying more and more to take some time to show the kids how to do things, instead of just doing them for them. But, it does take a lot more time, something that is a precious commodity for any Mom.
As an adult, my Mom has been helping me learn a lot of domestic things. She’s always there for me to ask how to make something or when I run into a problem. She was also the one to teach me to embroider, though it was just two years ago. 😉
Of course! I do the same thing… learn a new skill or get an idea, try it, it goes right, and I post it! My spectacular mix ups and accidents usually get lost in the mix. 😉
I was brought up much the same. When I got out on my own it became shamefully obvious to myself and also my best friend/new roommate that I didn’t know much of anything regarding housekeeping. I really didn’t get better until I had kids. Even getting married wasn’t enough of a push for me. It took having infant twins for me to say, “Enough!!” And so I started learning and trying and failing and growing.
Thank you for sharing! 🙂
Love this post! So timely! God’s timing! Thank you so much! As a Catholic Filipino mom who is also trying hard to be “Mary Poppins” , but I’ve a LOOONG way to go, compared to you. It’s so good to know though that I am not alone in this journey. Thanks a lot! I’ll be following your blog from now on! 🙂 God bless you and the whole family! 🙂 http://trulyrichmom.com
Of course we’ll still love you Ang!…but then I still think of you as the girl who would sneak into the kitchen with me to try to make koolaid with waking my parents up! 🙂
Oh Angie…you are a girl after my own heart! I am 45 and I still haven’t mastered domesticity! I’m not sure I ever will. Sometimes, like you, I surprise myself with my accomplishments. But mostly, I suck! Still, my husband comes home to me every night and my kids cry for me when I leave them. I guess that’s successs. You go girl!
I’ll read simply because you will dance around the kitchen saying “I rock!” after making muffins from scratch. I’m a total neat freak but I hate cooking. It’s not that I can’t do it, it’s simply that I don’t have the passion required for it, and well, I just don’t like having to mess up my clean kitchen.
Hey – everyone is entitled to feel like a rock star when they learn something new or do something amazing. If I didn’t tell myself how awesome I am, I’d never hear it!
Hey, I never saw Mary Poppins make muffins from scratch!
Actually this is such a refreshing post. Oh and just so you know I’ve cooked all kinds of things, but muffins from scratch? Nuh-uh! I believe in the power of Betty Crocker and Pillsbury!
Oh and I know I’m new here but…like you could ever be any less appreciated–noooo–look at your responses here, they prove otherwise!
As I said, this is spot on because lately I have not been posting much because I feel I have nothing interesting to say or zingy ideas, because I don’t have that certain “je ne sais quoi” I mean I have a pretty clean house. And?????
Perfect is boring anyway, yeah?
I will love you even more. I got married at 18 and had never even set my own hair! My mom did it for me and she did my laundry and cooked my meals and , and, and…..
I am 56 now and still amazed when everything I cook for dinner is ready at the same time! and my house is still dirty.
Wow, I feel so much the same. Mom spared me most of the chores (except laundry–there was lots and lots of laundry in my high school years!) and I ended up not knowing much of anything about running a house. I started blogging recently after being so inspired by other bloggers to get out there and connect and LEARN. Thanks for being honest–loving reading anyway!
I learned a lot of those things when I was young but I still don’t do them often enough or well. As for baking from scratch, you can bet I am singing my own praises when I do it! 🙂 I like honesty, not perfection.
Can I take the post title and put it on a tshirt? Or, better yet, an apron? Maybe just over the door to the house….
I can cook and do enjoy it thoroughly, and my parents tried diligently to teach me how to clean up after myself. Perhaps they should have made me live in a mess of a room until I got up the initiative to do something about it. (of course, that would have been when it was deemed a public health hazard…)
So, I cook and can sew a straight line, but my house is a perpetual mess and we’re just now cleaning several-years-worth of boxes from our bedroom. Hehe.
I think the revival of the domesticity movement has placed unintended pressure on moms. Domesticity has come to mean that you are a fifties housewife on steroids! I love every little domestic thing we can do to make our lives more beautiful (and I am not talking about cleaning here), but each woman has to find what out of the many good things out there is best for her.
Thanks for the honesty,
Ana
Of course I’ll still love you!
But this post reminds me to MAKE my daughter get in the kitchen with me more. I must teach her HOW to manage a house and how to cook. She won’t get it otherwise. Thanks for the prod.
Absolutely. Somebody who’s growing and learning is somebody I want to know.
I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I’m a reformed (reforming?) slob. It’s not so bad anymore: my house is presentable, now, most of the time. I suspect that there are a large number of women out there, staying at home, trying to keep house & raise children, with no idea what they’re doing! There are so many voices saying that stuff isn’t important…
So congratulations on seeing the value in being a good housekeeper, the importance of being a Mother! And yay you for doing something to be better at it!