3 Reasons I Am Still a Homemaker in the Empty Nest
Photo by Alyson McPhee on Unsplash
I don’t miss the volume of homemaking. I don’t miss the mountain of daily chores required to keep nine people dressed, fed, educated, and delivered to whatever appointment on time. I used to call my clean laundry pile Mt. Garment, but I never named the daily climb. Maybe because I never reached the peak.
I’d fall into bed knowing I’d worked very hard, but never felt like I’d completed the tasks necessary.
I don’t miss that reality of the big family. But -- and this is a big but -- if I decide I am done with homemaking because the kids are gone, they won’t have a safe haven to come back home to.
In the book, Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home, the author Jen Pollok Michel, makes the argument that the first homemaker was God. Think about how He created the world in Genesis 1 and 2. Everything required for the enjoyment and work of His people He placed there.
Work wasn’t part of the Fall, just the struggle of work. The Lord created, formed, established. Every imaginable color flowed from His brush. Abundant textures appeared on His earth and in everything He made. Scents from floral to musk wafted in the air. Songs resounded, from the stars to the crickets. The Lord created a lovely home and placed mankind within it to produce FAMILY.
Formed in the Creator’s image, I also long to nurture a beauty and comfort that welcomes my people home. I haven’t aged out of this call and desire, even as my energy for it wanes.
These days, being a homemaker is out of fashion. I heartily disagree with that trend, though I do understand the struggle.
Podcast episode for this article! Hit the link below.
My friend, Allison Weeks, has a beautiful podcast called The Art of Home Podcast. I interviewed her in Episode 45 of my podcast and we talked about why homemaking still matters in the empty nest. I’ll put a link on my website page with this podcast, if you want to find that.
She interviewed me on my career of homemaking on her podcast. Check out the Art of Home Podcast Season 1, episode 6
Homemaking is not a paid job or career. There is no 401k available. Homemakers United doesn’t demand equal pay for equal work. Most of the work goes unnoticed unless it isn’t completed. The work offers no raises, no accolades, no rewards. Not even retirement - unless you decide to live somewhere until it is actually condemned.
But all of that doesn’t diminish the value. It increases the sacred duty.
BUT, After all these years, I still find myself balking at the unfairness. Maybe I should work in the corporate world. Maybe I’ll be appreciated?
But Who else gave up what He could have in order to give Himself for others? Who sacrificed His rightful place in order to attend our needs and heal our hearts?
I’m not saying moms are Jesus in their homes. But He is our role model, and He did set a high bar. He didn’t demand His turn or His rights. He looked to the good of others -- the good of US -- and acted from there. Remaining a homemaker amongst all my other jobs affords me a place to follow my Lord and lay down my life. It provides the privilege of continuing to create a safe haven for my family.
Here’s the podcast on the same subject: 3 Reasons Homemaking Matters In The Empty Nest
3 Reasons Homemaking Matters
Provide adult kids solid foundation and Safe spot.
Foundations support buildings. A poor foundation and the building crumbles. Home serves as that sturdy rock in our kids’ lives. Even as they age and create their own homes, having a base of support helps them in their construction. When they make sure their own children have a solid place to stand, that legacy continues.
Last year, our family faced a physical change of home base. The home we’ve lived in for eighteen years represents that foundation to our kids. It was hard to change that. One of my greatest reticences came from not wanting to take that home base away from my adult kids. So many family memories dwelt in every fiber of that home.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
The security of home we provide isn’t the actual location. Our kids will not become unmoored when we move locations because home is not just a physical place. It is a Person, and He never changes or moves or leaves or looks away.
Yet, home IS also a place. We moved last year and leaving somewhere we had been for 20 years really could have been devastating,
We still want to provide a foundation even in our downsized version. Not only for my husband and me, but for our kids and grandkids.
I want a place of warmth and welcome. I want echoes of their childhood home so that it doesn’t feel like somewhere they’re visiting, but rather the place they belong. I want to create spots of joy for my grandchildren and never have furniture that they can’t climb on. Yes, that means I always have spots on my carpet to clean. But I prefer cleaning up messes than shoo-ing them out of the living room.
The sacred work of homemaking allows that to happen. I never age out of that oblation, and required maintenance increases with age. The older a foundation, the more likely repairs are needed. When the ground shifts, cracks appear in the walls. I need to keep alert to those signs. Where have we begun to slip? Where do we need to shore up or build reinforcements? If I tire of this vigilance, I’ll turn around to find irreparable damage. That’s why we’re not ever done working on our homes and our marriages.
Homemaking maintains stability and keeps my arms open to our adult kids to support them as they build their own foundations.
2. Place of hospitality
Making a home also creates a place for hospitality, not only for our own kids, but for others. That doesn’t have to mean elaborate dinner parties, but rather a meal to gather around, whether at the dining room table, or everyone balancing plates on their laps in the living room. It can be an afternoon cup of coffee or sweet tea.
Inviting people into our empty nest is a beautiful way to continue the family love. Not everyone has the port in the storm that family was designed to provide. Look around at your church, neighborhood, or work. Who needs a spot at your table? Who needs an older, experienced woman to lean on? Who would be blessed to be invited? To be wanted?
Honestly, somewhere along the way, we started lagging in hospitality. In seasons of dating and engagement, our children’s boyfriends or girlfriends became our focus of hospitality. We’d spend as much time as possible with them. Now, we prioritize hosting our kids and families, and with everyone’s busy schedules, it’s difficult to find that space.
As we fell out of the habit of having other families in our home, we not only missed out on ministry, we’ve been impoverished as well. Rich joy grows at the table. As we gather around a shared meal, opportunities to share what the Lord has done in our lives flows naturally. Hearing how others experienced the Lord encourages us. Learning their stories informs our own. Hospitality receives as much as it gives.
In days of fractured families, people crave stability. As a mobile society, many young adults live far from their own home base and the support it could provide. As we’ve drawn further from each other, whether because of the last few years of Covid, social media, or our busy schedules, loneliness has deepened. Are we becoming numb to how lonely we all really are? How lonely others are?
We weren’t created for independence, but for community. Hospitality opens doors for community.
As homemakers of the empty nest, we can build a respite from the world’s noise, for not only our own families, but for many others as well. Our homes, in whatever form they currently take -- from large house to apartment -- can be welcoming ports to the needy. We can provide safe places of shelter from the storm-tossed seas of society. We can offer re-provisioning when resources deplete. Even young adults who look like they have it all together (and THINK they have it all together) need these things.
We’re not done with homemaking. Let’s make our empty nests as welcoming and restorative as we can. What an opportunity. What a ministry. What a calling.
3. Place of return
I’ve been working on my novel of the Prodigal Son story for some time now. It’s opened my eyes to all the places in Scripture that paint this picture of God. It’s not a New Testament story. It comes down through the OT over and over.
Our Lord is a God of Returns.
Our kids might need to return. We’ve had places of hardship where kids needed to move back in. So far, that’s only been for seasons as things sorted themselves out. But that’s not always the case.
What is your kids needed to move back in to stay? I will be very honest - taht would be hard! I like my quiet mornings. I love grandkids visiting and when they stay I adore the morning snuggles and reading books and making pancakes.
BUT when they leave, I like the return of quiet!
In episode 62: Cathy Lawdanski shares, with beautiful transparency, about the struggles of a grown child with grandchildren who return. If you have a a child returning, you need to listen to this episode!
If you are struggling with an adult child returning to the nest, listen to my interview with Cathy!
Like our Lord, we need to provide a place of return and having an open armed home will accomplish that.
If our kids experience marriage fails or job loss or disease or any of the other earthquakes that can shatter their home, don’t we want to have a solid place for their feet to land?
Your Empty Nest
Even in the Empty Nest homemaking matters. I would like to shout from the rooftop that in these days where families are dissolving and genders are being redefined and living as a Believer in that world grows more difficult every day, that homemaking matters more than ever!
I want my home to be a beacon in the storm. A warm hug and a hot cup of coffee. A safety net. The one solid, reliable place for my kids and others to put their feet when they can’t find anywhere else to stand.
Your home matters. Keep making it a refuge and a small reflection of the eternal home we all long for.
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