Do not NOT do something, just because your mother didnt do it.

A few years ago I heard a very interesting story. A girl, newly married, had decided to host the Christmas dinner at her house. All the relatives were coming and it was her chance to show off her cooking. She prepared a menu and recipe and had everything ready. She bought the appropriate dishes she needed for serving and baking and the table was beautifully set. All Christmas day she was baking. She had learned so much from her mother that it was quite easy. She chopped off ¼ of the ham as she got it ready to put into the pan just like her mother had done before her. Curiosity struck and she wondered why her mother had always cut the ham instead of just placing the whole thing in the large baking pan. So she asked her mother. Her mother said, “Well I don’t know. That is what your Grandmother always did. Let’s ask her.” So they went up to Granny and asked her. Grandma replied, “Oh, my baking dish was too small so I had to cut off the end to make it fit.”

That’s an interesting story. Two generations did something not knowing why, only knowing that their mothers had done it before them. How often this happens in our own homes now. We won’t take out the garage because that’s the ‘mans’ job (since our father did this). We will not mow because the lady takes care of the affairs inside (because my father mowed). We are the keepers of our domain and isn’t our domain our house, cars, yard etc?

Look at your life and see if you make your husband do something only because your father did it when you were young. If your husband shovels the driveway this winter before work, try relieving his work load and do it. If your husband normally mows, help him out by doing it while he is at work.

My husband is an Associate Pastor and was talking with a man awhile ago, who was venting over ‘the garbage’. He would be sitting down relaxing and his wife would ask him to take the garage out, while she stood but inches from it and only had to take it out about seven feet. This man would take it out without complaint, yet inside he didn’t feel respected. Another time my husband was talking to a different man. This man’s wife would be home all day and wait to fold laundry until he got home from work. So he would work an eight hour day and come home to a wife that asked him to fold the laundry. Once again he did it but felt disrespected.

Break these habits ladies. Find delight in caring for your domain.  But by all means if your husband offers to help, go ahead and take it! And give him great words of affirmation while he does it.

-Amy