The Life of a Domestic Goddess
On a lighter note, I’m taking a quick detour from neo-pagan goddess worship into the realm of the domestic goddess …. check out this new book for every woman who is NOT Homemaker of the Year 
(and can I just say that I live in that category):
"I am more than just the laundry stain getter-outer, the head muffin maker, the sibling squabble solver, the on-hand consultant for junior high science projects…." (from Queen of the Castle by Lynn Bowen Walker).
Lynn is a Stanford grad who was trained as a journalist, but chose instead to dedicate herself to raising a family and building a strong home. A homemaker now for 25 years, Lynn wrote much of Queen of the Castle while in the car waiting for her children to finish practices.
I had the chance recently to ask her a few questions…
Q. Can you talk a little bit about your initial career plans? What made you decide to forgo full time journalism and dedicate yourself to being a homemaker?
A. I met my future husband when I was a college freshman, so by the time I was a senior it was pretty
clear I could choose to go to New York to pursue a career in magazine journalism, or stay in Silicon Valley and embark on marriage with my sweetie, who was an electrical engineering and computer science major. So right off the bat in getting married I knew I was making a choice: family over career. Once our kids were born, I really wanted to be home with them, snuggling on the couch and reading them books. It would have broken my heart to leave them with a babysitter every day.
What was more of a struggle for me was having to give up even part-time freelance writing when the kids were small. I was too sleep-deprived to think straight, and when I did have a spare hour I really needed to spend it washing my hair, not writing magazine articles. It was a painful time. But I knew I was doing the right thing.
Q. Have you ever experienced a backlash from other women for your decision? How did you respond?
A. There has been the occasional odd comment, but generally when you’re home full-time, you don’t run into people very often with drastically different lifestyles. Most of the people you see day in and day out are your kids! And the moms you see when you’re at school helping the second graders learn to read or watching the third grade play tend to be other full-time moms, or women who wish they could be.
Q. Do you think women can “have it all”? Why or why not?
A. I don’t have the energy, for one thing, and I don’t have the organizational skills, either. If you’re the
kind of person who leaves the dishes half-done at the excitement of the mailman’s arrival, or forgets she has something boiling on the stove because she’s caught up reading emails, you probably shouldn’t even think about trying to “have it all”!
But I do like the saying that women can have it all, just not all at the same time. When your kids are little, there’s a period when you can hardly do anything other than keep them fed and changed and relatively happy. Later, as they get older, you really will have time and energy for other things. The little old ladies come up and tell you that in the grocery store, and I’m here to verify that those little old ladies are right. They have not been lying to us.
More from Lynn Bowen Walker, Queen of the Castle, in my next post…
Dearest blog readers: I have a signed copy of Queen of the Castle to give away. If you leave a comment on this post, I’ll enter you in a drawing and the winner will get Lynn’s book!
Note: if you’re a subscriber, and would like to comment on this post or read the comments, click here to go to the Unmasking the Goddess blog.
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SUSY FLORY is a New York Times best selling author, speaker, and journalist who searches out big stories with happy endings. She's I'm always looking for true stories that inspire and challenge her readers to embrace a life of passion, boldness, & adventure. 
Great blog! I don’t keep up with many people’s RSS feeds, but I’m adding yours to my list.
Given your topic, you’re probably familiar with “A Twist of Faith” by Berit Kjos? (Very interesting book about Christianity’s absorption of pagan spirituality.)
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Cathi,
Several people have told me about Berit recently! I’ll check out her book soon.
Blessings,
SUSY
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I liked this post. It made me think of many things. The stream of consciousness goes like this: I once asked for (and received) a cookbook called “How to become a Domestic Goddess.” I was drawn to the title and yummy cupcake on the cover. Because I was pregnant when I received the book, I’ve never actually tried any of the recipes. “Having it all” (i.e. a business and a family) kind of derailed my trip to domestic goddess-dom. Now that I’m a full-time mom to my 3-year-old son, I have it all: all the smiles, all the tears, all the potty training, all the tantrums and all the snuggles one could ever want. What suffers most? My writing. There’s just no time most days. And when there is time, it’s spent doing mundane housework so there’s more toddler time. At a recent MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) group, our speaker, a mother of 4 grown children, told us, “These are the hardest years of your lives.” I cling to those words most days. And so when I’m frustrated to the point of tears because my writing is on hold, I think back to my freshwoman year of college when I read most all of Virginia Woolf’s work. (My stay-at-home mom friends and I often wonder why we even went to college since our degrees are rarely utilized at home) As I was saying, in Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”, (I did finally get one of those) she asserts that as women we shouldn’t be divided. We need to pick one thing (home or career) and do it well because doing one thing well is better than doing two things mediocre. So for now, I’m just trying to do motherhood well. Next I’ll try my hand at being a “domestic goddess.”
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Kristy,
Quite a different take from the current pressure on wives and moms to always be multitasking. I like how Jesus never seemed to be in a hurry. Sigh….I want to be like that today.
Love,
SUSY
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