the home-maker

Earlier this summer, I read Dorothy Canfield Fisher's The Home-Maker, originally published in 1924. Despite its title and publication date, it's quite a forward-thinking novel (not that that stopped me from feeling embarrassed when people saw me reading a book that was ostensibly about home-making).

The Home-Maker is the story of an efficient, energetic housewife, Eva, who is utterly depressed with her life and utterly unfit for motherhood. Despite this, she devotes herself to her housekeeping and family life in order to fulfill traditional societal expectations for her. Although Eva is viewed by her neighbors throughout the novel as an unimpeachable and perfect mother, her children are completely stifled, stressed, and anxious around her, to the point that they literally become sick. Her husband, Lester, is also unhappy. He is a very insufficient breadwinner who cannot seem to make his way in the career world.

One day, Lester is fired from his job. Feeling he has failed his family in every possible way and that the most he can now do for them is die and let them collect life insurance money, Lester decides to commit suicide and make it look like an accident. But, the perpetually unsuccessful Lester is not successful at suicide either. Instead of dying, he becomes paralyzed and can no longer work.

Eva, always the perfect wife and mother, makes the sacrifice of entering the workforce to support her paralytic husband and her three children. As expected, she finds she's very good in the workplace and her husband in turn finds he's very good at home with the children. After working for a little while, Eva's personality changes. She becomes more relaxed, her relationships with her husband and children improve, and the family begins to genuinely enjoy their time together. Conversely, Lester benefits from being home and from watching his children grow and develop. He becomes a more attentive father and contributes to the family in ways he couldn't before.

Although the book is occasionally didactic and somewhat predictable (there is, however, a bit of surprise toward the end), I thought Fisher still managed to create a fairly compelling novel that is well worth a read.

In particular, I enjoyed how Fisher examines what it means to be a parent. This book is not really about liberation for women, although that's a theme. Really, it's more a book about liberation for families and individuals. Fisher argues that each member of a family inherently has specific talents and abilities, and that a person's role within the family should be dictated by what they have to give, rather than by what they are traditionally expected to do. Fisher makes it clear that she feels good parenting is a difficult and complicated process that requires respecting children as individuals with wills and personalities of their own, and not seeing them as creatures to be "managed." She recognizes the skill and intelligence it takes to parent well and to truly make a home, and is therefore just as passionate about celebrating the role of home-maker as she is about pushing for tolerance for working mothers. I find it interesting that Fisher seems against the idea of passing the parental role on to someone outside of the family circle. For Fisher, each family needs to figure out for themselves a lifestyle that respects and nourishes each member of that family, including the children.

P. S. Although The Home-Maker is, I think, still under copyright, you can access Fisher's Understood Betsy at Project Gutenberg. I actually read this book first, and stumbled onto The Home-Maker in an attempt to read more of this overlooked author. Understood Betsy is a children's novel about an overly-coddled little girl who learns how to take care of herself and develops some self-esteem. It's even more didactic than The Home-maker, but worth a read for the hilarious opening chapter alone.