When I created my online accounts (blog/ig) as a homemaker I was craving community – I felt that there was a whole world of homemakers out there sharing their lives and I wanted to join in the party – it granted me and anyone else who was interested a private sphere made public. I felt I could be embraced as I was in that world – and in many ways I was – but as I got more into this world I felt I had to conform to some of the louder voices, beliefs, preferences and conventions at least in the digital space – taking an extended break from blogging and Instagram made me come back with fresh eyes.

I’m going to break this little ditty into two parts – What is a “homemaker purity test”? And what does it mean to be yourself especially in a very algorithmic world!

The Homemaker Purity Test:

As a homemaker in the digital world who happens to be a Christian – I find that many homemakers think certain traits about me are not “Christian enough” – my husband and I are waiting to begin a family – through mutual decision, we live in a major city, I buy Tide laundry pods, I have friends who don’t share my faith, I love watching horror movies, and I shop online. I engage with arts and culture which is not of religious nature – thoughtfully I hope. And while I think many well intentioned homemaker accounts encourage growing your home economy, motherhood, homeschooling, living simply and extremely frugally – a lot the text posts and sentiments I see shared seem to have an undertone of shaming women who don’t live the same way.

So there can easily become a bit of a homemaker purity test when you start to think the things you do aren’t acceptable enough and you start shifting to fit and aesthetic or lifestyle you see online – maybe you start to feel that you really should be making detergents yourself, have a beige color scheme in your wardrobe, or make sourdough – and maybe you sincerely want to do those things and they make you happy – or maybe you don’t and you think that those things will make you a more “legitimate” homemaker.You know your value isn’t in those things but you kind of fall into it because the community around you does. Or maybe you feel the need to push your husband into a lifestyle you’ve seen online – even when it doesn’t match your original dreams as a couple, maybe you feel like being quirky and having disparate and ranging interests like anime, or water skiing don’t match up with the aesthetic – so you bury or compartmentalize those aspects of yourself.

If you’ve done these things – you might have fallen into the homemaker purity test. I know I have wanted to just portray a portion of my personality and not the full woman God made me – not because I sought to be inauthentic but because I fell into the exact “purity culture” of Homemaking.

So what’s the best way forward?

Being Yourself:

Know that you’re free in Christ- and keep that close to your heart. Being yourself is a simple phrase but it’s hard isn’t it? We may feel if we show up with our quirky sense of humor, our unique sense of style, our peculiar interests that we may be rejected or disliked. That may be true but we can only hide ourselves for so long. And there isn’t a lot of fun in being just like everyone else and none of you! For me that’s my new goal as well as sharing Homemaking (which I still love don’t take this wrong) I will be sharing my interests – fashion, running my small biz, exploring Chicago and random things I enjoy like reading about tudor England or thriller books I can’t put down.

Wishing you peace,

Margaret