Desperate Not To Be A Housewife

Words like:

Knitting, sewing, baking, cooking, cleaning, mending, ironing, slicing, dicing, icing, measuring, sifting, kneading, and scrubbing...All make me CRINGE.

I can't cook, and I'm not clean.

When I was 11, I could make a delicious, homemade apple crisp.

But now? How about I throw some Pillsbury chocolate chip cookies in the oven, hope I don't make the portions too big, put them on the wrong oven rack, screw up the temperature, or forget to set a timer.

I’m not exactly the housewife type, nor am I any where close to blossoming into a ‘Domestic Goddess’.

Iain doesn’t want a housewife. (Thank god.) And I certainly don’t want those nasty, yellow rubber gloves to become a regular part of my wardrobe.

A 'Joan Cleaver', I will never be. I will never knit a fucking sweater...Or sew an inspiration quote on a throw pillow…

So then why is it that I can’t help but stare at Nigella Lawson's book “How to Be a Domestic Goddess” every time I go to Waterstones?

I suddenly become possessed by an intense urge to bake cupcakes from scratch, top them with swirly clouds of pink frosting, and shower them with dainty, little sprinkles. (And then skip through fields of wild flowers while I sing and dance and play.)

There’s even something about the presence of pink kitchen accessories that makes my secret domestic cravings become painfully obvious.

It’s like I have this tiny Martha Stewart on one shoulder, and a tiny Betty Friedan shouting “Put the whisk down!”on the other.

However, I can’t ignore the fact that I’d really like to cook for Iain, instead of always having him cook, or to play hostess and have friends and family over.

I would even love to someday cook a Thanksgiving dinner for my family.

(Cut to a vision of me in 10 years trying to explain what Thanksgiving is, to my half-British children, who wear cowboy boots but speak with proper British accents...Our poor, future spawn. They'll surely be made fun of in school for being freakish, cultural hybrids.)

I feel like I'm betraying that charmingly neurotic, undomesticated, unruly side of me.

It feels practically blasphemous. How am I supposed to keep up my ‘don’t fuck with me’ attitude while I’m baking blueberry fucking muffins?

Maybe I'll just be the charmingly neurotic, undomesticated, unruly Wifey that chugs Vodka straight from the bottle as she cooks...But still manages to make a fabulous meal?

(“How does she do it?”)

What does a domesticated, yet feminist, young, but married 'wifey' look like?

Is she naked behind her frilly apron?

Is she smoking while she ices her cake?

Does she marinate over Martinis?

The parts of me that don’t cook, clean, or knit feel so juvenile when I go over to another woman's house who cooks up a Sunday Roast, offers me wine, and has made a Tarte Tatin simply because that’s what they wanted to do that afternoon.

 Am I hanging onto that part of my youth in protest so that I will not become a boring domestic stereotype?

(Or worse…Feminist roadkill!)

Do I treat my domestic handicap as a clear border between myself and all of the other unemployed fiancees/wives that make their life about running their home?

And now I’m realizing that I’m afraid that if I suddenly do excel at things that flirt with "housewife territory" that the separation between myself and a 'subservient housewife' will blur.

Will I start knitting pot holders, and alphabetizing recipe cards, and choose to get a head start on my weekly ironing on Saturday night instead of going out to the pub??

…Ok…I’m not that stupid or naive. I know it’s not really going to come to that.

For example, just because I’m getting married doesn’t mean that our sex life will dry up, we’ll pop out 4 babies in the next 3 years, or that I’ll start sleeping with the Gardner.

It’s just. I’ve never had an example set for me.

My life; It isn’t modeled it after anyone else’s.

My choices, are not choices that Societies Rule Book recommends. So, I surely cannot expect my marriage, wedding, future children, household, or cooking abilities to weigh out like anyone else’s I know, or have seen.

I know I’ll have to figure it out for myself, and blaze my own domestic trail.

And, yeah, it will be tipsy, messy, and rough around the edges.  

But I  just hope to fucking god that it’s edible.