For the Love of It: A Homemaker’s Motto

Inside: a look at the real value of a life at home.

My time is valuable. We hear that a lot, don’t we? Almost as an argument against being made to waste it. We’re standing in line. We’re waiting for an answer. We’re fixing someone else’s mistake, and we think, or even say out loud, “My time is valuable.” And the argument for this tends to be tied to some sort of hourly wage: what we would make at our job or working on our business or making big-picture decisions. My time is valuable.

And while this sounds empowering and in a sense it is, it also takes away so much from you. It implies that your time and thus your life can be distilled to a single number. We add, we subtract, and at the end an accountant can hand you a number on a slip of paper, with a dollar sign attached, of course, that will tell you what it was worth.

And when we go down that road, we start thinking about what in our lives is worth it. Is it worth making dinner when, for $35, we can have a very acceptable KFC family meal? Is it worth it to grow your own sunflowers when there are those little bouquets you can pop in the grocery cart right over there by the magazines, and they’re only $11? Is it worth it to stay home raising your own children when right down the street there’s a shiny center with an alphabet on the rug and little labeled bins for every child?

Not really, right? Not when you do the math. Not when you think about how much you could be earning with that time spent breading chicken, cutting sunflowers, rocking babies. Your time is valuable.

And to be clear, the facts bear out the value of your time. Even if you make a modest $50,000 a year, you will come out ahead putting a child in daycare and getting takeout every night. You will have more money at the end of your life. The math will be on your side.

And yet.

There’s another word not spoken by the time-accounting young but more often by the time-poor old. It’s usually, to be honest, something you roll your eyes at. Precious.

We say ours as a threat. “Hurry up, my time is valuable!” But they, past all that, say it as a warning to us. Your time is precious.

Isn’t she precious? What a precious little house you have. These years are so precious.

Yes, yes, you smile, of course, of course. A little annoyed to be slowed down on your errand.

But when you get home from the grocery store, you sit for a minute in the car. Your daughter is chatting about a bird that flew by on the way home. Was it a baby, she’s wondering? Do baby birds know how to fly, or do their parents have to teach them? If so, how? Where? How does it start?

You sit there and listen. You aren’t sure, you say.

She asks if you can find out when you get inside, and you think, well, I have a TON of groceries to unload, and then Spreadsheets Incorporated demands my attention for a conference call, and I am very busy in general, and my time is…

It’s a few trips back and forth with the groceries, lots of bird questions still going, slower because you have a little helper. Is there some type of bird training ground for the babies, you wonder? Surely not.

There are a lot of things you would love to do around here. And you start thinking that after that work call, some of these projects need a plan. That sunny spot in the backyard where you took down the shed will make the perfect little pumpkin patch. It will probably save you money this fall, in fact.

And so you do. Everyone in your family has their own starter plant, and you have a competition for the biggest pumpkin. Winner gets to choose all the Halloween candy.

You’re so proud of yourself. You must have saved so much money doing this pumpkin patch. But by the time you add it all up (the water used, the seeds, the fertilizer, renting the tiller), you could probably have bought ten huge pumpkins. Not even including, of course, the value of your time. Somehow, this doesn’t bother you.

That winter, with the time off you have for Christmas break, you decide to learn to bake bread. Your first loaves are ugly. But you have an assistant in the kitchen, so that’s a big help. You learn quickly. Even over the course of two weeks they get better and better.

When you finally make one that’s shaped like a grocery store loaf, you’re somewhat amazed. Of course, a loaf of Wonder Bread is around $2 and looks more like a grocery store loaf than a homemade one ever will…but there’s just something about it. You aren’t really sure what. It tastes better, but not that much better. It’s kind of a pain to slice, and it goes stale fast, so you end up keeping it in the freezer and just aren’t even sure why you’re making it. Not at first.

Then when spring comes, and you realize that your children will be home more over the summer, you decide to work a few fewer hours. You don’t have as much spending money, so the housekeeper has to go, and you’ll need to do all your own cleaning.

This one does not sound like fun. And many days it isn’t. But when you’re done cleaning and a little bit tired in a good way and look around the place you created and tended and cared for, it’s something different than fun.

The truth is, there are very few minutes of your day that would not be better spent working. It would be more efficient and more profitable to outsource as much as you can, hone your professional skills, and try to achieve the highest hourly wage possible. Or to one day invent a robotic grocery cart so mothers and daughters won’t have to make so many trips back and forth to their car and hear and ask so many questions. You know…one less thing.

But I hope you won’t do any of that. I hope you treat your time not as something to be begrudgingly handed out, like pennies you are scared to part with unless you can use them to get more pennies. I hope you spend it freely and well.

The accountants weren’t there, by the way, when you found the answer. They do learn on their own.