WHO IS THE BOSS?

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21242, 12 October 1940, Page 16 (Supplement)

WHO IS THE BOSS?

Yourself or Your House ?

J was ages learning to swim. What I really mean when I say swim is to progress through the water. Learning to take my feet off the bottom and to go through the motions of swimming was easy, but could I get anywhere ? No ! While other people were swimming out to the lighthouse with maddening ease, I was manoeuvring my arms and legs in a frenzy of activity only to finish up a yard from where I had begun. It was humiliating and very, very exhausting, and you can’t wonder that, while it lasted, I loathed swimming. I have often thought since how typical this is of the energy we all squander at times in arriving at some point which could be attained with half the effort if we did it well. And nothing, surely, is more typical of the way some women run their homes. All struggle and no progress. You may think it a special kind of gift that enables some women to achieve so effortlessly what others struggle for without ever accomplishing. but there is no more general truth in this than in the suggestion that some people are born to progress through the waves and others just to stay put. What is it then that makes one woman absolute boss of her household tasks, while another is a slave to them ? 1 -*• Direct Your Energy in Proper Channels Let us return to swimming for an analogy. My struggles in the water were abortive because they served no useful purpose. I was wasting energy instead of conserving it, and a complete lack of coordination put the onus of the struggle entirely upon me, whereas the water should have been assisting as well. So with running a house. You can struggle with your tasks, and all your energy is unavailing unless it is directed into the proper channels. You can work your fingers to the bone, and do it needlessly, because a house should partly run itself. Effort is only useful inasmuch as it is really constructive. Swimming is easy and effortless when you do it well. So is home management. Most of the difficulties attendant upon both are selfmade. I wouldn’t say you could win a swimming championship with a game leg, neither would I say you can run a house effortlessly if you are handicapped through no fault of your own. But, abnormal difficulties apart, every woman is master of her fate when it comes to running a house. Fatigue, muddle, unpunctuality, ugliness—boredom if you like are not the work of some malevolent spirit; they are the outcome of inefficiency. The trouble is that women expect to begin running a home without any special training or, for that matter, without any special effort. They count on “ picking it up as they go along.” That’s all very well, but picking it up is a slow business, so slow and so hazardous that you are worn out with fatigue and discouragement before the picking up has achieved any practical result at all. No, you can’t learn a serious job like home-making in that haphazard fashion. You’ve got to study systematically, conscientiously, and with the knowledge that the better you get the sooner you can relax and let the job run itself. You can learn about home-making without going in for some expert instruction, by studying as you go. Study seriously and with interest. Never let a failure pass unless you discover why you failed. A consuming interest in the cause'of failures is the best instruction you can have. Plan For the Future After this, plan. From the moment you begin furnishing your home look ahead to the needs and the requirements of tomorrow. Don’t buy a single thing that doesn’t recommend itself as a useful and practical or beautiful thing to have around. Don’t listen to choruses of advice, except with the intention to weed and sift and extract such of it as is applicable to your own needs. Don t adopt anything that is recommended to you until you have investigated and satisfied yourself that it is the right thing or the right method for you. Read up your subject. The world is teeming with the writings of experts on the subject of home-making. They’ve broken the ground for you by hard work and dogged experimentation. It is your own fault if you don’t benefit from their efforts. When you furnish or re-furnish, consult a book on the subject, absorb the theory of good, economic, labour-saving house equipment’ and decoration. Do not skip it, absorb it. If .y? u have a small house, furnish it neatly, simply. Rely upon the originality of detail and the cleverness of blended colourings to give character to your home. . , Don ’ t bu y gadgets indiscriminately just because the word gadget implies the saving of labour. A lot of money can be squandered on comparatively worthless gadgets, which would be better employed in defraying the cost of some substantial, lasting and worth-while item of equipment, say, a better type of gas cooker, a refrigerator, a firstclass vacuum cleaner. A Tired Woman is Invariably a Muddler As to the work, let system dispose of all its fatigues. It can. The woman who is always tired is invariably a muddler. She rushes at work like a bull at a gate. She expends immeasurable energy on tasks that ought never to have occurred. She does one job and makes another as she is doing it. J woman who is boss of the household tasks runs her day to a schedule. There is a time for everything and a place for everything as well. By intelligent thought and systematic planning she eliminates superfluous effort. Mental complacency is as important a factor as any in the useless 6 mastery between you and your house. Blind energy is Start with the conviction that housekeeping is easy when it is well done. Don t panic and don’t treat your home like a tyrant who is for ever bent on getting you down. If your home is your boss it to your 'masterful * 3 * P3rtner ' t 0 -pond