7 Things My Mamaw Told Me as a New Homemaker

She was married 66 years, and knew a thing or two.

Mamaw viewed homemaking as a calling, not a career. But oh, she treated it like a job. No lounging around in pjs and watching soaps for her. When I quit my job to stay home with my 9 month-old daughter in 1998, Mamaw had already been passing on a lifetime of wisdom I could use to guide my days. But she reiterated a few key points, reminding me that I wasn’t just signing on to keep a clean house and feed babies— I was meant to be a servant in the hands of a living and active God.

Seven Key Things

When you start your day, start your day. When you wake up, it’s time to get up and get going. Linger long enough to build some sweet moments into your marriage but a habit of dozing on and off, reading (unless it’s where you read your Bible), or anything else doesn’t make for a productive day.

Don’t treat your husband as a side dish. He’s your entree. Mamaw actually said this to me once, when I was complaining about not getting enough introvert time as we sat in her favorite restaurant (Hillbilly Buffet, no longer in business, sadly). It stung but I knew she was right. God didn’t design a marriage to be you-centered. If He’d wanted that, He’d have kept you single.

Be in the Word. This goes without saying, I guess, but Mamaw read her Bible. Not once, but multiple times a day. The down moments many of us spend scrolling our phone? She picked up her Bible and took in a few verses to feed her soul.

Keep your hands busy. Being idle wasn’t really an option for Mamaw. She kept a “worshcloth” in her apron pocket so that she could wipe handrails and doorknobs and light switches as she walked from room to room. And it wasn’t all cleaning and tidying. She knew that braiding hair was a bonding moment, and sewing doll clothes was the way to a child’s heart.

Pray as you go. The background music to my days with Mamaw was prayer. She spoke to Jesus as if He were in the room, because she knew He was. “Lord, it’s about 2 o’clock. Randy is getting off work and I ask that you’d keep him safe on that motorcycle as he goes home.” “Jesus, help me take that thought captive. It’s not right to think those things.” Right there, out loud, no matter what.

Set aside a quiet hour. For all of her busy, Mamaw valued a cup of coffee in the late afternoon, and she didn’t hesitate to stake that time out for herself. She sat at the table and usually leafed through whatever “sales papers” her neighbor had brought by from her morning newspaper. I wasn’t allowed to join her, and I knew better than to make noise or bother her. It was part of our daily rhythm together.

Be interruptible. While Mamaw announced a plan for every day, I knew to expect that we might change course and suddenly not be baking cookies, but instead be packing in the car to take someone who couldn’t drive to the grocery store, or hosting an impromptu guest. She wouldn’t hear a complaint about these interruptions, either. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares,” was always her answer.

Keep the door open. No one was turned away from a meal or even just coffee at Mamaw’s house. Not the daughter-in-law who was having a bad day and brought the kids over to play just to get out of her own house, or the drunk from up the street who was coming off a long weekend of the kind of debauchery Mamaw stood firmly against. She might give you a come to Jesus meeting as she served you some pie, but she would never say you weren’t welcome.

Make extra, it won’t go to waste. By all rights, Mamaw should have been making fairly small meals by the time she was teaching me to tie on an apron. It should have been just us and Papaw. But that didn’t stop her from making a huge pot of chicken and dumplings, or a beef roast as big as my head. If someone didn’t show up to join us, she’d say, “I’ll fix a plate for Johnnie Mae and Garner,” the elderly couple up the road. Or she’d pack extra into Papaw’s lunch pail the next day, with specific instructions to pass it to, “one of those boys who ain’t got nothing but a cold sandwich in their bucket.”

The New Baby Caveat

These principles have guided the last 27 years of my life, but I do have one little caveat to add that maybe makes me softer than Mamaw, but I don’t mind: post-partum seasons get a long, long reset. I was privileged to give birth to seven of my ten children, and the rest I required to get back to myself grew longer and longer with each subsequent delivery. After having Alice at 46, I stayed in bed a full week and simply basked in the time set apart with what I knew was my last newborn. I didn’t cook, I cleaned nothing, I didn’t even walk downstairs for seven days. Not only that, but there was no hosting for months, I slept in as needed, and I definitely guarded our family time in that long window with a lot more jealousy than Mamaw would have approved of. So if you’re reading this an rocking a baby, ignore any guilt that you might be feeling. I did, and I don’t regret it!

Do you already include any of these seven (eight!) principles in your homemaking lifestyle? Which principles stretch you the most?

In Christ,

Heather