Everyday Heirlooms: Preserving & Teaching Homemaking Skills May 1-2, 2008 Appreciating the Value of Homemaking In spite of the conveniences of our modern world, the • Self-sufficiency need for homemaking skills is still great. The creation • Preservation of culture and management of a home as a pleasant place to live • Connection to past/heritage (reminds us of invites the spirit of the Lord and promotes harmony grandparents, etc.) within our families. The Relief Society and Young • Resourcefulness Women themes both include statements about • Working alongside parents strengthening home and family. Unfortunately, our • Personal growth increasingly busy lives often prevent us from learning • Children learn independence and self-care these skills or passing them on to our children. • Beautification of living environment What is Homemaking? Homemaking skills benefit us and our families in The definition of homemaking is “the creation and every area of our lives: spiritually, physically, intel- management of home as a pleasant place to live.” lectually, and emotionally. According to the Wikipedia definition, a homemaker President Ezra Taft Benson has said: “No nation can is a person whose prime occupation is to care for their rise above its homes. The church, the school, and family and/or home. The term homemaker is original- even the nation, stand helpless before a weakened and ly an American term, and while it has entered main- degraded home, in building character. The good home stream English, it is not in common usage outside the is the rock foundation — the cornerstone of civiliza- United States. tion. If this, our nation, is to endure, the home must “Homemaking,” said Belle S. Spafford, former gener- be safeguarded, strengthened, and restored to its right- al Relief Society president “as I view it, falls into two ful importance.” major divisions: homemaking and housekeeping. Homemaking takes into account the spiritual values: Susan W. Tanner, General Young Women’s President, love, peace, tranquility, harmony among family mem- has said in her 2004 President’s Message: “Listen to bers, security. It makes of a place of residence a spot the power of these words from the [Family] to which family members can retire from a confused Proclamation: ‘By divine design, fathers are to pre- and troubled world and find understanding and reju- side over their families in love and righteousness and venation. Housekeeping involves the work of keeping are responsible to provide the necessities of life and a house clean, orderly, and well managed.” protection for their families. Mothers are primarily (Belle S. Spafford, A Woman’s Reach [Salt Lake responsible for the nurture of the children. In these City: Deseret Book Co., 1974], pp. 24–25). sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obli- gated to help one another as equal partners’. Fathers Why Are Homemaking Skills Important? have the huge responsibility to preside, provide, and They instill and preserve within our culture the fol- protect. Mothers have the sacred responsibility to nur- lowing vital values and skills: ture. What a rich word is nurture, meaning to train, to Everyday Heirlooms: Preserving & Teaching Homemaking Skills/What Is Homemaking? May 1-2, 2008 – BYU Women’s Conference educate, to foster development, to promote growth, bond with each other. Cooking skills provide a chance and to nourish or feed as in the Savior’s injunction, for important spiritual things to happen in a family. ‘Feed my sheep’ (John 21:16). Sister Janette Hales Beckham thought of her dinner table as a place where the family gathered not just for “So today I would like to affirm motherhood, to talk physical nourishment but for spiritual food. Those about the beautiful recent addition to our Young who learn to make homemade meals have a skill that Women theme–to ‘be prepared to strengthen home can help them also make good homes. and family.’ I want you to hear it from me, and I hope your young women will hear it from you. Here are “Homemaking skills are becoming a lost art. I worry five things we must teach them: (1) We must teach about this. When we lose the home-makers in a socie- them how to strengthen their current homes and fami- ty, we create an emotional homelessness much like lies. (2) We must prepare them with skills, both tem- street homelessness, with similar problems of despair, poral and spiritual, that will bless their future homes. lack of self-esteem, drugs, and immorality. In a publi- (3) We must inspire them to want to be wonderful cation called The Family in America, Bryce wives, mothers, and homemakers. (4) We must help Christensen discusses this issue. He writes that the them have the courage to face a world which is dese- number of homeless people on the street ‘does not crating families and family values. (5) We must begin to reveal the scope of homelessness in America. emphasize the eternal responsibility and privilege of For since when did the word home signify merely motherhood and help them understand that each of physical shelter, or homelessness merely the lack of them will make a home and influence children such shelter? . Home [signifies] not only shelter, whether or not they have the opportunity to marry in but also emotional commitment, security, and belong- this life. We must make sure that they know that their ing. Home has connoted not just a necessary roof and righteous womanly role in the home is, as President warm radiator, but a place sanctified by the abiding Hinckley said, ‘the one bright shining hope in a world ties of wedlock, parenthood, and family obligation; a that is marching toward self-destruction.’ place demanding sacrifice and devotion, but promis- ing loving care and warm acceptance’ (“Homeless “We must prepare young women with skills, both America: What the Disappearance of the American temporal and spiritual, that Homemaker Really will bless their future Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest; Means,” The Family in homes...How do we fortify America, vol. 17, no. 1, our girls? Like Moroni’s Home-keeping hearts are happiest, Jan. 2003, 1). people, they need places of For those that wander they know not where refuge from the world in Are full of trouble and full of care; “So we must teach home- the home and Church...And making skills, including they need to be armed with To stay at home is best. the temporal and spiritual practical ones like cook- skills that will prepare them — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ing, sewing, budgeting, to go out into the world and and beautifying. We must establish strong, righteous let young women know that homemaking skills are homes. I believe that one way we can arm our girls honorable and can help them spiritually as well as spiritually is to give them temporal skills, or talents. temporally. Making a home appealing physically will We know that to the Lord, all things are spiritual. As encourage loved ones to want to be there. The tempo- He tells us in Doctrine and Covenants 29:34, ‘I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual, and not ral preparation is spiritual to the Lord, for it will cre- at any time have I given unto you a law which was ate the kind of atmosphere that is conducive to the temporal.’ Spirit. “An example that illustrates this is cooking. If a young woman learns how to cook delicious, nutritious “In such an atmosphere, spiritual skills like peace- meals, she will acquire skills to bless her future fami- making and selflessness will be more readily learned. ly, not only temporally but spiritually. Cooking skills Surely the Lord’s pattern for preparing His temples is can provide young women a way to create enticing the pattern we should follow in our homes: ‘Organize times in her home where people gather to talk and to yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish Everyday Heirlooms: Preserving & Teaching Homemaking Skills/What Is Homemaking? May 1-2, 2008 – BYU Women’s Conference a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a bloom next spring?” “I may not be here,” the woman house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a replied, “but someone else will. I always try to leave house of order, a house of God’ (D&C 88:119). Using my homes, temporary as they may be, a little more any talents, practical or spiritual, for the purpose of beautiful because I was there.” Whether we live in a making a home will invite the Spirit into your home.” cottage, apartment, shack, or mansion, each of us — (Susan W. Tanner, 2004 Spring Presidents’ Message). married or single, with or without children — is a homemaker. Our challenge is to make our earthly What do Homemakers Really Do? homes like the heavenly home we so recently left and The following story from an unknown author illus- to which we hope to return.” trates: One afternoon a man came home from work to find total mayhem in his house. His three children President Spencer W. Kimball has written: “Heaven is were outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud a place, but also a condition; it is home and family. It with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all is understanding and kindness. … It is quiet, sane liv- around the front yard. The door of his wife’s car was ing; personal sacrifice, genuine hospitality, whole- open, as was the front door to the house. Proceeding some concern for others. It is living the command- into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp ments of God.” (Faith Precedes the Miracle, Salt had been knocked over, and the throw rug was Lake City: Deseret Book, 1972, p.