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by: Amanda Frittz
I have gotten quite a few inquiries from young wives like myself that are interested in being SAHW but don’t know how to justify it. Yes, adding kids to the equation obviously ups your workload, but being a homemaker before havings kids is still valuable to your family.
Eve was created to be Adam’s helpmate as soon as they were joined together, she wasn’t supposed to wait to fulfill her role until she had kids.
Even if you haven’t started growing your family yet, chances are your husband and his career would benefit from you taking care of all the household duties. While Adam and I are just now expecting our first child, I’ve done very little work outside of the home for the past year. Believe it or not, I’ve managed to stay busy despite not working a full-time job.
Managing a home, hosting, assisting my husband with work, blogging, and helping other women at our church has kept my schedule full!
The Danger of Being a SAHW
The tricky part about being a homemaker before havings kids is just how flexible your schedule is. If you aren’t careful to be disciplined with your schedule it is easy to become unproductive and waste valuable time.
That being said, if you treat homemaking as your career, you will be a blessing to your husband whether you have kids or not.
This is a hard thing to learn how to balance! I’ve been pretty open about some of my struggles with learning how to prioritize my role at home. For a while, I found myself valuing helping other families over keeping my home in order! You can watch, “How to Be a Productive Homemaker” where I talk about this and other things I have learned to make sure I’m being wise and helpful with how I manage my time.
Side Hobbies & Hustles
Homemakers aren’t just limited to doing work for their homes. The title simply means your first priority is stewarding your home. That being said, I know many homemakers who have part-time businesses online. These businesses range from MLM’s to handmade artisan products.
I would especially encourage homemakers without kids to pursue a hobby or side income of some sort. However, when doing so make sure that you are not relying on your income for bills and expenses if possible. Instead, your extra income can just be a financial blessing to help pay off debt, build savings, or have some giving money!
Also note, that your hobby doesn’t need to make money. You could decide to volunteer or take up a hobby like sewing and still make valuable use of your extra time!
How to Make Good Use of Your Time
Even with hobbies, you might still be wondering how you are going to make proper use of your time without kids to take care of. Depending on your husband’s needs and career this may look a little bit different for everyone!
Personally, I try to be consistent with making a to-do list of all that needs to be done each day so I make sure I am making good use of time. It’s really easy for me to push off things that don’t immediately need my attention unless I have accountability to do them by writing them down.
Here is an example of what a daily to-do list might look like for me:
- Bible & prayer time
- Make coffee for hubby
- Vacuum whole house
- Clean litter boxes
- dust blinds
- meet ____ for coffee
- Do a load of laundry (fold & put away)
- Handle online returns
- Make lunch
- Make dinner
- Clean Kitchen
- Edit Video (maybe)
How to Answer, “What do You do?”
The dreaded “What do you do with your time?” question almost always seems to arise when you tell people you are a homemaker (especially before kids). The answer is simple, you manage your home. Don’t feel the need to break it down for everybody, homemaking is one of the only careers where you have to justify your job by breaking down your tasks.
However, if you’d like to dispell all the details and daily tasks feel free. Just know you are justified in your role whether someone validates it or not. God has already told us it is a role worthwhile, and a role that older women should teach younger women to aspire to.