Wastina Time at Home

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 60, 16 August 1940, Page 6

Wastina Time at Home

"THE housewife’s problem is to weigh and judge : the importance of each of the factors which make up home life, so that when something must be sacrificed the thing given up will be one of least real value to the family’s welfare. Sometimes the housewife ‘will find that there is quite a lot that she can give up without hardship to anyone, Take, for example, all the work which some women put into baking cakes, or in dusting and polishing their houses so that they are kept always cleaner than the proverbial new pin. Much of this time is time wasted, as there is actually no need for more time

to be put into cooking or cleaning than the amount necessary to prepare simple but nutritious and appetising meals, or to give the house its usual routine weekly and daily cleaning. To do more than this, at present, may be to waste valuable time, and if there is anything else which the housewife might more profitably be doing she must realise that her delight in fancy baking, or in keeping the house absolutely spotless, is a luxury which she must give up-for the duration-at least. Over-finicalness over trivial details and all other little unjustified prides must go by the board too. I feel that I must emphasise to-day, as I have done in an earlier talk, that there is no virtue in a woman’s working herself to a standstill. On the contrary, it is a form of waste, for it robs the family of the higher and more important contributions which she could make if she devoted more time and energy to organising the home and living with the other pecple in it. (Home Science Talk, 4YA, July 5.)