There is this ancient lie that lives deep inside each one of us: we love to feel like we’ve earned the good in our lives. We’ve worked hard enough to deserve a break. We’ve put in enough hours to deserve a leisurely bath. We’ve lived well enough to deserve heaven. We all want to save ourselves by our sweat and blood. We want to earn our salvation.

We’re terrified of grace. Grace means we owe someone something. Grace means the good has nothing to do with us, which means it’s keeping or losing has nothing to do with us either. We don’t like grace because it leaves us feeling vulnerable.

For homemakers, this often plays out in several ways. We see the ideal or those who excel, and we work ourselves to the bone thinking that’s how we earn the right to be home. Or we see the ideal or those who excel, and we reject it wholesale as an impossible standard. We see the ideal as a cruelty. Have we ever stopped to think that the problem is us and our hearts, not the ideal?

Let’s look at this ideal woman. She’s standing in a perfect cottage garden wearing a dress, apron on, thin, with perfect hair, holding a basket of fruits and vegetables. At her feet are chickens and more homeschooled, clean kids than anyone can imagine. Behind her is a perfectly clean house, a manicured lawn, a clean chicken coop, and maybe a cow. Coming up the driveway (yes, she’s both suburban and homesteading) is a happy husband in a smart suit. It’s easy to scoff at such an image. This slim, elegant woman who can collect eggs, milk a cow, make sourdough, perfectly please her husband, and have infinite amounts of children. She probably also owns her own business.

We look at her and we react in one of two ways—guilt or mocking. We have taken an ideal and made it an idol. And like all idols, we both love and hate it. We see her and we think that if we’re not matching her we’ve lost our value. So we work harder to shape ourselves into this ideal. We do starvation dieting. We eject all play and all rest from our lives. We push harder and harder. We become frantic to earn praise for being this kind of woman. Everyone look at me and how close I am to being ideal! Look at my work!

What if we switched our perspective? What if we viewed the ideal not as something we earn but as a gentle guide to our efforts? What if our value starts at Imago Dei, and then from that we produce? We are to work, yes. We are to produce. We are to grow. But what if we did that from a position of grace, not earning. What if every day we made an effort for the ideal from a position of acceptance and not a position of wage earning? (What if we stopped bringing the workplace into the home?)

How hurt would you be if your children came to you and told you they were trying to earn your love? Do your children need to earn your love? No. You love them already. What if your husband came to you completely broken down mentally and physically because he felt like he just couldn’t work any more hours, and he knew that would mean you no longer loved him? How sad would that make you?

But what if your children knew they were loved and made an effort to clean their room? No matter how imperfect that effort was, you would be delighted. If your husband makes an effort to provide for you because he loves and is loved, the smallest sacrifices and compliments become treasures!

Effort not earning.

We’re not earning our rest time, our sleep at night, our play, our hobbies, or our dinner. We’re making an effort to do what is right and best. Will we fall short? Absolutely. But this is the beauty of grace. We’ve lost nothing by our failures and limitations. We just make another effort. When we don’t earn our worth but have worth intrinsically, we just keep going.

I will never be that ideal woman, but I love her because she guides my aim. She is a blessed woman. Will I ever achieve the full expression of the ideal woman in this life? No! But she gives me something to work towards. She keeps me from just running around aimlessly and fecklessly. Ideals are a gift, not a punishment. It is we who misuse them.

We set them up as a standard that we beat ourselves and others up with, instead of using them as they are meant to be used. What a sad way to live. Any time I see women push against the supposed ideal, it makes me sad. They’ve taken a good gift and declared it a punishment. Sometimes the ideal can sting. That sting is good for us. It keeps us from being complacent. It keeps us from being short-sighted about how much we can accomplish. It motivates us…if we let it. Maybe it is us turning the ideal into a taskmaster when it is intended to be a friend because we’re trying to earn our place instead of simply making an effort.

When we have an earning mentality, we quickly let ourselves off the hook. We must. How else are we going to earn our place? We must lower the standard because there is no way for us to meet the standard. We must mock the ideal because we know we can’t meet it. We become defensive all the time. Everything is a defense of why we’re not meeting the standard because we’re trying to earn our worth. Stop, please.

When we have an effort mentality, we keep striving, growing, and tempering ourselves. We speak honestly about ourselves. I’m only one woman with chronic health issues in a fallen, broken world. I’m going to make as good an effort as I can to work, rest, and play. I’m going to make as good an effort as I can towards this ideal woman with joy. Why? Because I’m not earning my homemaker title. I am a homemaker. Now I’m going to make an effort to be the best homemaker I can be.

Can an ideal be wrong? Of course it can! Especially human-made ideals. We don’t judge our marriages by the latest rom-com we watched. They’re a false ideal. Homesteading is wonderful and valuable, but it isn’t the only way to live. We may admire it, but it isn’t a homemaking standard. For some of us it is the ideal life. For others it’s not. What we want to do with ideals is look at what they’re pointing toward. Slim is pointing to healthy, strong, and able to handle the work. Slim shouldn’t mean we all stay at 115 lbs. A huge passel of children points to the blessing of new life and the joy of motherhood. Children shouldn’t be a specific number. Gardens aren’t a requirement; they’re pointing to the importance of beauty. A 1950s dress doesn’t suit all of us, but it does remind us to take time with our appearance. Animals aren’t essential. They signify the blessings of a certain amount of hardiness and self-sufficiency. Husbands aren’t necessary. They point to our tending of our people first, which produces strong families and communities and hopefully happiness.

I read a lot about paratroopers and Navy SEALS. These specially-trained men are held to an extremely high ideal, one I couldn’t match under any circumstances. I don’t look at them as my standard or measure. I look at what they can do and let it inspire me to continue to make an effort.

There are lots of different women held up as the ideal homemaker. Pre-industrial, Little House on the Prairie, 1950s, homesteader, trad wife, witch. Some speak to us, some don’t. For instance, I have zero attraction to the 1950s housewife. She doesn’t inspire me. The homesteader mixed with a bit of witch gives me plenty of “scope for the imagination.” We each have to decide which ideal inspires our effort. What we must not do is worship at the ideal’s feet. What we must not do is judge others by the ideal we have chosen. We are all here to make an effort, ladies, not earn our worth.

Ideals go in and out of style. When I was young, it was June Cleaver, the 1950s American, who was the ideal. Now it’s the homesteader/trad wife/pre-industrial. All of these have good and bad elements. They’re all flawed.

Side Note: These ideals are often blamed on men, but it has been my experience that women are the unfair-standard-holders for themselves and other women. Most husbands have much lower standards for their wives than women have for one another. Ask your husband what makes a happy home for him. It probably isn’t a skinny woman that makes him feel more masculine. It’s probably dinner, respect, and sex. Beware the division caused by pushing blame onto men for our inability to correctly view and use the ideals.

Can we please use discernment, look for the good, and stop throwing ideal women out simply because they make us feel guilty about our life choices? Can we appreciate the sting of an ideal and be motivated to keep going? We don’t have to earn our homes and our place in them. We have homes and our place in them. Let’s stay at the work! Let’s build each other up even if our ideals are different. Let’s make an effort to grow and get better at our callings. It’s effort not earning!

Earning vs. Effort and the Feminine Ideal

Weather, Seasons, and the Homemaker

The Benefit of Fussy Things