Talk:Homemaking

Template:FA Should mention argument that "the husband being the only financial supporter makes the wife economically dependent on him" ignores, which is that the wife who has a job is financially dependent (usually) on her boss (unless she is the boss, which is highly unusual). --Daniel C. Boyer 19:32, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think the sentence is meant to because of this dependency, the wife usually has less liberty about matters like divorce or husband's affiar outside marriage. -- Taku 19:40, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

This should be fleshed out then. Because the meaning it gives or appears to give is very different. The dependence on the boss should be acknowleged, or at least the POV that that exists should be acknowledged. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:47, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Please do not update until the VfD deletion and move is complete - to preserve history from Housewife - Texture 19:58, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Move complete. I have readded Daniel and Taku's edits (I hope I did) from before the move. Daniel and Taku, please check to be sure I didn't miss anything. Jwrosenzweig 20:01, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This word is not used in British English. Could we make some mention of where it is used? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:19, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Can we move some of the pieces on dependence / finance to another page or another section, and try to make this page a little more gender neutral? It sounds like a 1950s manual for young women! Mark Richards 08:04, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Done my best to clean this up, encorporating the bits that you put back in. Mark Richards 08:19, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Should discuss movement to have women paid for housework. --Daniel C. Boyer 15:39, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, but it's not women, its people, who the movement wants to have paid for housework. Mark Richards 22:56, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm, my wife is a smart lady, if I asked her to pay me for my work as stay-at-home dad, I think she'd start asking me for rent. Hmmm, I wonder if we are avoiding tax by not declaring our home industry. ;) Alastair Haines 06:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to see a reference or link to some statistics that show that the number of homemakers has indeed been increasing recently. Ephemeral life 23:03, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Health Problems For Male Homemakers

Someone deleted this part. Why? Hope we don't have feminist trying to push their agenda here ;).

Historically documented information is available re gender roles - Human Anthropology. It notes the physical attrubutes that benefit the mother or closest female within the unit and being the prefered partner for the childs early years, prodominatly due to postnatal changes, yet also impressivley details the stronghold relationship a father should develope with the child from 9-12 months and their 5-9 years of age. Noted in these documents is that men develope higher levels of stress than the woman at times of change in the infant, ie; initial birth, then full physical ability without the aid of another, then the infants enviornmental awareness, and in retrospect should the father not be around this can lead to family disputes and cognitive and chemical disruption & imbalance within the child.

"Page not available!"

A stay at home mom in the United States in the year 2006 could earn the equivalent of US $134,121, if paid for all of her work, according to a study by Salary.com [1]. (under Economics heading) I thought that was interesting, but the link's expired. It's just annoying. Would that article be gone forever, or does the link just need to get updated?

PS. I wish there were more links in the External Links section with more info about the history... the 1950's, stuff like that. Basically, more info on what I had just read. Right now it's all links to tips for homemakers. --Nuggit 13:52, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I think that this section should be removed from the article until there is a reputable source. -- User:Starcreator

Formal Education

There's a gaffe here: first the article says that women and men are homemakers. Then the formal education segment talks solely about women taking courses. These sort of courses are available to both men and women. --70.30.59.2 00:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And it is a load of crap.

Well, I'm English, and I only got to this page becuase I wanted to explain the etymology behind "husband" and "housewife" and their having the same root of Nordic (I think) "hs" for house.

I think it is dreadful that Wiki automatically reroutes me to this page in a tornado of political correctness. It even does so from "huswife" which is the close relative of "husband".

Please, please, please let's have a proper "housewife" page. On it we can state all the politically-correct bits we fancy.

Simon Hallam Birmingham, UK 18 July 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.44.37.124 (talk) 08:04, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The term "housewife"

The introduction to this article is decidedly US-centric. Homemaker would generally be seen as an American term on the European side of the Atlantic. Usually people just use "housewife", if referring to a stay-at-home married woman. There are no commonly used terms for other stay-at-home people, male or female.

Even if academically and for political correctness it makes sense to use the term "homemaker", it is nevertheless not a common term in the UK and Ireland.

If editors wish to include a diatribe on the social backwardness of the UK and Ireland mostly still only using the term "housewife", well and good. But the term needs introduced in the first line, and dealt with.

zoney ♣ talk 16:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I concur totally with Zoney's comment (though wonder how long this will continue to be the case!) Hogyn Lleol 16:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have changed the section to clarify that it is an American term. I established this to myself by doing google searches limited to UK or US pages, but added a citation to a less WP:NOR source. I have also clarified that it refers to two highly overlapping, but slightly different concepts. Kevinpet (talk) 06:18, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Housewife Salary

Under the economics section, it is still stated that:

A stay at home mom in the United States in the year 2006 could earn the equivalent of US $134,121, if paid for all of her work, according to a study by Salary.com [1].

However, the link given is now inactive. In light of there not being a source for this assertation, it should probably be removed from the article until we find a reputable source.

The following link might suffice ...

http://swz.salary.com/momsalarywizard/htmls/mswl_momcenter.html Hogyn Lleol 16:09, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

or better still, this link ...

http://www.salary.com/careers/layoutscripts/crel_display.asp?tab=cre&cat=Cat10&ser=Ser253&part=Par622 Hogyn Lleol 19:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I have to say that is bollocks. If a "homemaker" decided to be paid for all her work, the price would drop, given the sheer number of "homemakers".

Also, do we really need a full list of "skills" that the homemaker can do? I don't understand this constant need to justify how hard housewives work. Yes, it's a 24 hour job for a while, but after the child reaches a certain age the excuses start to wear. Get back into work - or stop trying to justify yourself! 89.213.25.50 23:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

 I'm wondering what exactly you do that makes you feel that a comment like that is justified.  It is more of a "9 to 5" job than the commuters on the road at four o'clock everyday.  Some people work hard in what they do and others don't.  I don't think generalizations or people's personal judgments should rule how articles are edited.

Removal

I removed the sentence saying that 'househusband' was a tautological term (the word husband having its roots in a word meaning house, apparently) since this isn't the case in modern English usage and is irrelevant to the article. Fauxvegan 05:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Modern Responsibilities

None of this information is cited and really seems like someone just giving their opinion about what it means for a woman to be a homemaker. Especially this part:

"Considering the above multi-faceted roles of women as wives & mothers & sisters in society, it really surprises me when a woman is asked what job she has, and her archetypal reply is "Oh, I don't work. I just sit at home. I'm a housewife." Housewife indeed! This "housewife" is actually the CEO, the general manager of the house. She ensures that everything runs efficiently & on time. She is one person who does things selflessly placing her family members needs before hers all the time. She is in fact the Home Maker."

This is written in first person - encyclopedias aren't written like this. And the entire section is uncited and really has no base in fact and no place in an encyclopedia. I motion to delete the entire section. --Nadsat

Homemaker vs. Housewife

I question whether this article should really be using the term "homemaker" rather than "housewife". Homemaker is not used outside the US at all, and a google search shows 4.5 million hits on homemaker, 11.5 million hits on housewife, which seems to show that housewife is a much more popular term. The introduction says, "Finding a term to describe the modern man or woman who has left the paid workforce to care for their family is problematic. The term homemaker is used in preference to either housewife or househusband", none of which is true outside the US. Perhaps the article should be moved to "Homemakers in the United States". --Xyzzyplugh 03:10, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The term housewife is still dominant, as the TV show Desperate Housewives indicates. The simplest thing would be to give the Housewife article an independent existence which can readily done done. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:07, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sauces and sources

This is a balanced and informative article. It would be nice to spice things up with some peer-reviewed article citations, though. I guess I'll try and find some, in between domestic duties. Alastair Haines 06:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

History and Tradition

I am sorry that I need to be critical about this article, but the use of the word "traditional" is something I find needs to be justified much better than it is done here and not taken granted. As far I've understood (as a former history student) the housewife or homemaker concept is new, western, strongly middle class and born only after industrial revolution, in early 19th century. And this is not theory - it is well known fact among social historicians easily found in any good basic level text-book. The "traditionality" is well spread common myth, not a fact, as far as I've acquaint myself with this issue and wikipedia should be about facts not about myths. --193.210.145.13 14:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Fact" among academics amounts to group consensus. It is not a fair academic who would pass off any such consensus as truth without admitting its hypothetical nature.

Musttask (talk) 05:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

HOUSE VİFE NİN İNGİLZCE ANLAMI EMLAKÇIDIR...File:MUSTAFA KORU' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.101.177.165 (talk • contribs) 16:39, 1 April 2008

Verification and sources

In the section on the United States, a "2000 Census (table QT-P26)" is mentioned. I googled the table and found ~~a reference to data drawn from one county in Pennsylvania. Also, even if I am wrong about the source, the numbers in the article just seem not to add up.~~ 69.140.152.55 (talk) ~~17:43, 18 May 2008 (UTC)~~ it. The data seem to be valid, so I am making a small edit, and removing the tag. 17:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge with Stay-at-home dad

Both of these articles cover the same material. Neither provides enough sources to stand by themselves. They should be merged. Neelix (talk) 16:30, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. There's a lot of overlap and the two should be merged. JCDenton2052 (talk) 02:34, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Denastroje (talk) 19:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)I strongly disagree. The stay-at-home dad is a role that is becoming a more prominent part of our society and needs to be addressed separately.[reply]

Disagree; the stay-at-home-dad is a notable subject and should not be merged into another article. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:11, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merge is Clearly Biased

I know that it's popular these days to merge "housewife" with "stay-at-home dad" as part of a new ideological movement. However, in the history of ideas, these are separate concepts. Merging these articles would discourage their future diversification as the distinct historic or ideological ideas they represent. I recommend, for ideological neutrality, that there be a "housewife", a "stay-at-home dad", and a "homemaker" article.

We do not all share eachother's ideology and world view. If you wish to limit the number of viewpoints presented, in all cases you and your audience will grow farther from understanding and tolerance.

Musttask (talk) 05:16, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Should there be a section on how housewives get fat? There seems to already be a heart disease sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.94.232 (talk) 06:28, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

redirect

I have redirected this page to the housewife article. Homemaker is not an international term, in most English speaking nations Housewife is used. Homemaker is purely American.

カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! (talk) 03:37, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unnecessary example

Does this really need a boxout with "Examples of food"? Particularly when the pics are a burger and chips... In any case, isn't there a fair chance that if someone's got old enough to read Wikipedia, they may have encountered food at some point? Torak (talk) 17:14, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

French maid image

Is the image of the French maid really appropriate here? I can't imagine that she's actually a maid--not in five inch heels. She looks like she's dressed up for roleplaying, not housework. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.90.53 (talk) 06:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

househusband?

The article makes repeated references to "househusband". This strikes me as odd for two reasons:

Firstly, I would not consider this a commonly used phrase (unlike e.g. "stay-at-home dad"). In fact, I would go as far as consider it an unencyclopedic neologism. (Not all neologisms are unencyclopedic.)

Secondly, "house" and "hus" are the same thing, with the older "hus" being preserved in "husband" but altered to "house" as a stand-alone noun. (In addition the expression is otherwise awkward and clumsy.)

I strongly suggest that this artificial construct be removed from the article.94.220.243.230 (talk) 17:54, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]