Finding Myself in My Home

Yesterday I talked about my time and how much of it is eaten up by running our house.  Every single minute of every day is scheduled to the point of overlapping!  But, there is something here that I am starting to really appreciate and value.  Maybe this is coming as a shock to me because our lives changed so much when we moved back to Charlotte.

For the first time in a very long time it isn't just Mark and I.  Even though the boys don't live here full time, they are here a lot.  And even when they aren't here we do stuff with them and for them.  We are a family.

A family is a group of people united, usually with one head.  Okay, in today's world that doesn't necessarily fly.  So may families have multiple abodes and a couple of heads.  But, if you start to look at this as a business.  Take our house and it is one of the franchises in the Swancy business.  The boy's mother's house is also a franchise in this business.  We each have things that we do to make this business run.  My role is operations, maintenance and creative of this location.

Anyone who has ever worked as the CEO of their own home understands this concept.  It does take two people with very different roles to make this family "business" operate at full capacity.  I will probably get shot for saying this, but I think that one person staying at home and managing that part of the business is the ideal situation.

I don't know when we began to devalue what the person who stayed home did.  I understand that it feels like the person at home should have all the time in the world to sit around and watch daytime tv and eat bon bons.  But, that isn't the case at all.  There is a full day and more in managing a home.  There is tremendous value in the operation of a well run home.

Somewhere along the way someone decided that the stay-at-home parent wasn't as valuable as the person bringing home the bacon.  So those who were at home wanted to go out and get themselves the respect they saw the breadwinner getting.  Gradually most homes became two income families.  Divorces rose...of course they did, who was taking care of the family?  And now two incomes are necessary to support multiple family franchises.

It took decades to get to this point.  It will take a societal uproar and movement to change the way we think about how homes operate.  I wonder if the first step is to have a job description, skills programs and compensation packages for the person at home.  Something to think about!