THE SOLACE OF HOUSEKEEPING

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 125, 17 August 1927, Page 13

THE SOLACE OF HOUSEKEEPING

A HOME, EVEN IN ONE ROOM, MAKES FOR CONTENT

Youth can live just as it likes, or even as it doesn’t much like, without running risks of nerves or grooves. All the hardships of youth are made bearable by its own buoyancy and by the belief that something much better will be reached in the future. Sometimes, as we get older, a way of life is indicated to us; sometimes we have to find it for ourselves. Women who do not marry, or v ho marry disastrously, have to face this problem. There are, of course, as many ways of coping with it as there are individual temperaments and abilities. There is one point, however, which the normal woman should not overlook, and that is the value to herself of a home. Homelessness for the average unmated middle-aged woman is not only a disadvantage; it is the source, sometimes unrecognised, of that vague but enveloping loneliness which leads, if not healthily checked, to nervous depression and breakdown. A Centre To Life The perfect home, we know, cannot be achieved apart from the perfect marriage. A first-rate home is a centre of life to more than one human being; it is the background to a family, not to an individual. But a home cf any sort is better than none. The place to which you can invite tue people you love to be with you in ail easiness and freedom from intrusion does form a centre to your life. Your friends leave their thoughts with you when they go; the very walls of your room absorb something of their personalities. There is also the: jov of your inanimate possessions; their beauty; the memories with which they are associated; the fact that even if they are cheap and new and merely useful, at least they are yours. Any woman who owns a little furniture which is not an eyesore knows how precious it grows with familiarity. Possessions, it is true, are sometimes a bother, but such bothers belong to' the good, normal, worth-while side of life. Housekeeping is also a responsibility which, if it is irritating some days, has yet a blessed irksomeness. To go out with a basket and buy bread and butter and eggs satisfies a real need in woman. The meal you prepare yourself feeds mind and body. When you have a home of your own, even if it is only one room, your essential womanly faculties are functioning. Your home gives you the opportunity of preparing meals for other people, and all women are the better for some such natural service to others as this. If you do no housekeeping you may have more time, but what do you want the time for? Time, mere time, can be so bleak. But time well filled — a little housework (as a change from your professional work), a little talk if a friend looks in, the delight of a book, and there you are. It’s a way of life, isn’t it?