Defining Domesticity
What makes you domestic?
Is it full-time domestic diva status or is it the ability to create a 4-course meal in 20 minutes with an elaborately set table complete with a centerpiece and matching place cards?
This is a debate that Mom from the South and I have been having for quite some time.
Mom is the uber-domestic. She's so talented that Martha would run off crying in a crafting showdown. How can you challenge a women who sews her own slipcovers, has a backyard that looks like the cover of Better Homes and Gardens and still manages to put gift baskets together for the our mail carrier, Ted, and all the neighbors at Christmas? She also makes her own soap. Yes. Soap. Fantastic soap that's similar to Lush and makes my skin look awesome.
Given that I grew up with this model of home economics, I gained much of her knowledge. (How many 4-year-olds give consultations about drapes and ask questions about the nap and repeat of fabric?) However according to Mom, my skills are still not up to par.
What is the average domesticity level of other women in their 20s? I can bake, cook, decorate, paint and even Sheetrock. I'm a mad crafter and know the basics of gardening (apartment living has hampered that pursuit). While my sewing skills are somewhat lacking (I hate the exactness that patterns require), I was the one that sewed on buttons and hemmed pants and skirts for roommates and friends in college. Heck, I've even given lessons on ironing before, and the entire SOC was enthralled this semester with my Oreo truffles.
Two events prompted this discussion today. Earlier, Mom asked me to slice cranberries just as I was leaving to run errands. While I love baking, chopping 3 cups' worth of individual cranberries into fourths is not my idea of a fun time, so I bolt when the cranberry walnut bread ingredients appear.
Later tonight, I was wrapping presents for our belated Christmas with extended family. I'll note here that for several years, I've been the official gift wrapper of the GFTS family. I literally live to wrap presents at Christmas. The only presents that I don't wrap are the ones given to me. Even though we didn't get home until 3 days before Christmas this year, the parentals saved all the presents for me to wrap. If I could start a business gift wrapping presents for people, I happily would.
Hence this conversation which occurred in Mom from the South's dream craft room (formerly known as my bedroom)
Me: (looking through a box of ribbon) Can you help me with bows? I'm terrible at making bows.
Mom: (picks up ribbon and proceeds to make an elaborately looped bow) You can't make bows, and you call yourself domestic? (joking, I think).
Me: I'm just horrible at making them. I never practice.
Mom: (starts on a new bow). Just watch. Loop and twist. Loop and twist. It's that easy (think Bree Van de Camp).
Me: (attempting to follow) Umm...this doesn't look good.
Mom: (looking at it) It's ok...
Me: (holding it at a distance) Are you sure?
Mom: Bow-making and cranberry chopping are requirements for domesticity.
Me: Sigh. I am domestic. I'm just bad at making bows. And for the record, I can chop cranberries. I just hate doing it.
Mom: One day you'll need to know how to do those things.
Me: You only know how to make bows because of all the matching hair bows* you made me growing up.
Mom: True, but I practiced.
By the time we finished the latest round of this debate, Mom had assembled 2 gift baskets and decorated 4 loaves of cranberry bread with clear plastic wrap, red bows and sprigs of holly. Me: 3 presents had bows (sad ones) on them. Looks like I have some work until I pass the next level of domestic divaness.
*My childhood was spent in puffed-sleeved dresses with sashes and ruffles that were popular in the 1990s. Since Mom made most of my clothes, I always had a matching hair bow, and many of them were quite amazing. At one point she had about a 12 hour turn-around time from buying the fabric to cutting out the pattern, sewing and making an elaborate hair bow to match. Of course, I always ended up hemming the new dress. She sewed. I hemmed. We had a pretty good deal going plus I rarely have to pay to get clothes altered.
Is it full-time domestic diva status or is it the ability to create a 4-course meal in 20 minutes with an elaborately set table complete with a centerpiece and matching place cards?
This is a debate that Mom from the South and I have been having for quite some time.
Mom is the uber-domestic. She's so talented that Martha would run off crying in a crafting showdown. How can you challenge a women who sews her own slipcovers, has a backyard that looks like the cover of Better Homes and Gardens and still manages to put gift baskets together for the our mail carrier, Ted, and all the neighbors at Christmas? She also makes her own soap. Yes. Soap. Fantastic soap that's similar to Lush and makes my skin look awesome.
Given that I grew up with this model of home economics, I gained much of her knowledge. (How many 4-year-olds give consultations about drapes and ask questions about the nap and repeat of fabric?) However according to Mom, my skills are still not up to par.
What is the average domesticity level of other women in their 20s? I can bake, cook, decorate, paint and even Sheetrock. I'm a mad crafter and know the basics of gardening (apartment living has hampered that pursuit). While my sewing skills are somewhat lacking (I hate the exactness that patterns require), I was the one that sewed on buttons and hemmed pants and skirts for roommates and friends in college. Heck, I've even given lessons on ironing before, and the entire SOC was enthralled this semester with my Oreo truffles.
Two events prompted this discussion today. Earlier, Mom asked me to slice cranberries just as I was leaving to run errands. While I love baking, chopping 3 cups' worth of individual cranberries into fourths is not my idea of a fun time, so I bolt when the cranberry walnut bread ingredients appear.
Later tonight, I was wrapping presents for our belated Christmas with extended family. I'll note here that for several years, I've been the official gift wrapper of the GFTS family. I literally live to wrap presents at Christmas. The only presents that I don't wrap are the ones given to me. Even though we didn't get home until 3 days before Christmas this year, the parentals saved all the presents for me to wrap. If I could start a business gift wrapping presents for people, I happily would.
Hence this conversation which occurred in Mom from the South's dream craft room (formerly known as my bedroom)
Me: (looking through a box of ribbon) Can you help me with bows? I'm terrible at making bows.
Mom: (picks up ribbon and proceeds to make an elaborately looped bow) You can't make bows, and you call yourself domestic? (joking, I think).
Me: I'm just horrible at making them. I never practice.
Mom: (starts on a new bow). Just watch. Loop and twist. Loop and twist. It's that easy (think Bree Van de Camp).
Me: (attempting to follow) Umm...this doesn't look good.
Mom: (looking at it) It's ok...
Me: (holding it at a distance) Are you sure?
Mom: Bow-making and cranberry chopping are requirements for domesticity.
Me: Sigh. I am domestic. I'm just bad at making bows. And for the record, I can chop cranberries. I just hate doing it.
Mom: One day you'll need to know how to do those things.
Me: You only know how to make bows because of all the matching hair bows* you made me growing up.
Mom: True, but I practiced.
By the time we finished the latest round of this debate, Mom had assembled 2 gift baskets and decorated 4 loaves of cranberry bread with clear plastic wrap, red bows and sprigs of holly. Me: 3 presents had bows (sad ones) on them. Looks like I have some work until I pass the next level of domestic divaness.
*My childhood was spent in puffed-sleeved dresses with sashes and ruffles that were popular in the 1990s. Since Mom made most of my clothes, I always had a matching hair bow, and many of them were quite amazing. At one point she had about a 12 hour turn-around time from buying the fabric to cutting out the pattern, sewing and making an elaborate hair bow to match. Of course, I always ended up hemming the new dress. She sewed. I hemmed. We had a pretty good deal going plus I rarely have to pay to get clothes altered.
Labels: Christmas, crafts, domesticity, Mom from the South
