…despite what the stereotype suggests.

I am a house wife. I look after my daughters 24/7. I am a full time cleaner. I am a cook. I am a nurse. A therapist. A health and safety inspector. A builder. A boxing match referee. I am a personal shopper. I am I am a mother. I am a wife.

What does this stereotypical house wife feel like? She must feel tired from being on her feet all day, she must be quite lonely in fact.
What does she look like? Probably a mess. No make up and her clothes are dirty and stained with cleaning products and baby food.
What does she do all day? Clean clean and clean, she most definitely does not have time for anything else! Hell no! As long as her husbands dinner is on the table ready for when he comes home.
She must feel like crap having no money of her own, and her husband keeps a close eye on the finances.
And at night? She must just climb into bed exhausted and fall straight asleep (only for baby to wake her up a few hours later) or she just has a quick shag to keep her husband happy.

These thoughts my dears friends, are real thoughts by educated adult human beings. And I am sure as hell confident that most of them at some point has been suggested about me. To my face or behind my back.

Well guess what ladies…. All that is big fat BS!
I am the happiest I have ever been in my life. Yup, I cook and I clean (what feels like non-stop) but I also play and laugh and 80% of the time I look smart and presentable, I even roll my hair in the morning on some days! Although I am still yet to master the art of finding time for that morning shower…

I am incredibly lucky. My husband is the most wonderful man on earth. He helps me. He never moans if his dinner isn’t on the the table- he offers to cook it, he never bitches when the house is a mess- because he finds us all at the bottom of the garden covered in mud. He accepts it when I am tired and I just want to flop onto the sofa and look at him when the kids start fighting, and guess what ladies? He even gets up in the night with the kids.
Oh, I forgot to add, my husband is also HAPPY!
We have never had a blazing row, we have bickered maybe 2-3 times at the most, we say ‘I love you’ every night before we go to sleep, and we remind each other how happy we are with the simple things in life.

He keeps me as an individual, and while we can’t afford nights down the pub or go to rock gigs every week, we make the most of what we have. With a cuddle. We never have baby sitters (I think we have had the girls watched 3 times and we always picked them up again at bed time, we have never left them) and I don’t care! We don’t ever go on holiday (the last break we took was to Eastbourne when I was 12 weeks pregnant with Willow our first born, and that was only for one night!) but we are taking our first ever cheapie family holiday later this year to Clacton.

What I am trying to say ladies, is that I do fight for women’s rights, I strongly believe in the passion of both parents sharing the ‘work’ load, I don’t believe a woman should be a slave to the kitchen. I strongly believe women are equal to men!

BUT, if you are happy at home and it makes your family strong then do it!
Spend time with your children, spend time with your husband/fiancé/boyfriend, but just keep each other happy. Sexually, emotionally and well… With good food!
I earn some small money working on bits here and there, not a lot but it’s extra house keeping, I am still independent.
I also like my house to look and stay clean – dirty is different to messy, a clean house can still be lived in and look untidy now and then. Toys and science experiments are happy mess, food mushed into my carpet and muddy shoes on in the house are bad mess.

So, next time you fit a housewife into this stereotypical frame, think twice, maybe she is happier here than you think, and she isn’t at all what you imagined her to be.

She’s an independent. She performs magic. She is beautiful. She is a woman… Not a mug!