I am wondering what the overlap is between subscribers to my blog, Like Mother, Like Daughter (meaning you get it in your email — like the SFH, it’s free) or regular readers, and this Substack, The School for Housewives.

Let me know! Comments are open!

Have a great weekend! Prepare for a restful, worshipful, and festive Sunday!

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The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

Suddenly it’s summer, and there seems to be no time to clean the house when there’s the whole outdoors to be in and make pretty, but also, it’s a mess. Getting your own bedroom straightened out somehow clears the mind and makes the rest seem not so overwhelming. Or anyway, you need a refuge.

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My 3-volume book on Order and Wonder in Family Life:

The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

Now all chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy, but sorrow: but afterwards it will yield, to them that are exercised by it, the most peaceable fruit of justice. ~ Hebrews 12:11

It’s easy to be swayed by whatever parenting trend is going on. But one way or another, most of it is something along the lines of “here’s how to react to what your child is doing.” Endlessly explanatory and gentle, or strict and unyielding: which way?

Having raised seven children, made all the mistakes, and seen others make all the mistakes, I can tell you one thing for sure: we’re all reacting all day long to everything and everyone. But for the good of the child, we need to pray and think about how we want to act, not react.

Perennial wisdom, found in good traditions and in Scripture, guides us to see that children need both a firm hand and plenty of love, understanding, and affection.

“Is this behavior good for my child and for others? Is it normal for his age? Does he need any intervention at all or am I randomly asserting authority where it’s bound to backfire, and we all know it? Should my intervention be to show him a way to grow, or should it require him to demonstrate self control, even if it’s not easy for either of us? Is it a bad habit? Is it innocent? Am I feeling the need to intervene because I think someone who doesn’t understand what’s going on wants me to? Am I afraid of the short-term sorrow?” And so on.

We have to walk the line between basically letting them be and also teaching them to trust us and respond with prompt obedience. This balance gives them self control and makes them nice to be around. It takes practice on all sides.

It’s not for nothing that people have always said children make parents grow in virtue!

Avoid the analysis spiral, but because of the lack of collective memory around us, do build good habits built on observation and conclusions. When you find yourself feeling overwhelmed by your child’s behavior, ask yourself: “Am I reacting to him, or acting for his good?”

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The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

The books children read (or listen to in your family read-alouds) affect how they play. Some books even have stories that feature characters, children, whose play is based on books they read, providing another layer of imaginative formation. (E. Nesbit’s stories are wonderful in this way.)

When children read books and fairy tales with orphans in them, it seems that their imaginations explode. Their play reaches new levels, and a big feature in it is that you are not there. So if you want an hour or so to organize a closet, talk to a friend, or read your own book, you need to be sure they have a good orphan-book stash.

If you could possibly provide an abandoned railway car in the backyard, that would be great. If you know, you know! (Hint: Boxcar Children!)

Go here for my list, with our family’s favorites as well as crowd-sourced suggestions from when I randomly posted a query on Instagram (you can see my highlight here).

Do you see your children’s favorites on that list on my blog (again, here)? If not, let me know! I will add any beloved old orphan books I have missed!

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I saw a post about a beautiful, super aesthetic, totally appealing set-up for outdoor mud-kitchen play. The account encourages providing what children need, letting them engage in open-ended play to form their imaginations.

Without deep, absorbed play, something will be lacking in their development. Putting a toy together according to the maker’s vision is certainly an activity with its place, but it’s not this vitally important play.

So I totally endorse romanticizing it. We need images to help us see what children need from us: basins, appropriately sized tables, old spoons, and so on.

I just want to say: Let those kids get their own sticks.

Let them put their own handmade signs on the playhouse and even build the playhouse themselves.

Let them ask you if they can have whatever it is they find they need.

What’s so funny — something I can really relate to — is that the mother herself really enjoys setting up the mud kitchen or playhouse or treehouse or whatever it is, and surely her interest can activate a child’s desire to play this way. There are some children who need to be shown what to do at first, and then, possibly after a little resistance, they are flying. Sometimes they do need to detox from the sort of toys they are surrounded by. Then, Mother gradually extracts herself.

There may even be a period of the child wanting Mother to stay involved, but it’s better to keep directing him to play with other children or even alone (“I have to fold laundry, but you can keep making soup out there!”). This process might be a little rocky and involve insistence, but it’s so they can be really free and not dependent, imaginatively speaking. It’s a balance…

In fact, saying, “Why don’t you go see if you can find any interesting sticks and rocks for your play kitchen — here’s a tin can for them*” is a fine suggestion for one’s children, of an early morning or indeed any time of day, firmly communicating that they will figure it out. Maybe then you can turn to romanticizing your very own kitchen!

*I recommend getting this kind of can opener (affiliate link). Some cans have marvelous labels, making them great for play. This opener smoothly removes the top, leaving no sharp edges, and makes it possible for kids to use the can safely. I’ve had mine for 5 years and it still works great.

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The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

Housewives are needed now more than ever. For instance, think about how important books are to your child! The odds are very much against them in school, at the library, and at the bookstore. I am honestly shocked whenever I take a peek.

Even when my children were young (in the 80s and 90s, which, make no mistake, were replete with unacceptable reading material for children), parents would say, “At least they are reading!” But I must strongly object to that approach. We would never use it if the children were eating skittles all day, or chewing on lead paint peelings for their supper. Yet corruption of the mind is far worse than poisoning of the body.

I want to encourage you to choose and monitor the reading material (and of course, this goes for music, film, and library “shows” as well). Our society is not trustworthy and I am here to tell you that even decades ago, reading material was carefully placed and crafted by nameless people to put ideas into children’s heads. Today it’s almost all of it, as what was subversive before is commonplace now.

But who has time to do that? The housewife!

I go more into depth here, including about what to do when your child is clinging to a really dumb or even harmful book!

They learn to trust you, because when they bring home, say, four books that are marvelous and two that are really sort of mindless, they notice. Especially if, after reading a mindless book, you say something that guides them — “Oh, I thought this would be better,” or “I can’t read this one out loud again, it’s really boring.” You’ll see, they will agree. Even if they don’t agree, that’s okay. You make lots of decisions for their own good, and this is one of them. (If they happen to stumble on a gem that you weren’t aware of, well, rejoice!)

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Jessie Wilcox Smith

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My 3-volume book on Order and Wonder in Family Life:

The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

{I was sitting on the porch to record this — birds and my wind chimes in the background!}

I gave you the reason I keep random, mismatched flatware quite close to my work area in this post.

Same with salt. You need salt and pepper on the table, but you also need salt in your work area. Learn to judge salt amounts by measuring the quantity and putting it in your hand before you pop it into the pot. After some time, you’ll know by weight and area in your palm what a teaspoon of salt is, without having to get out a spoon. I have an extra salt shaker and a salt container nearby, as well as a pepper mill. I don’t want to have to walk to the table!

This idea of having things handy as you work holds for other areas of the house (and car), not just the kitchen.

Are you having to go somewhere else fairly often for tissues, or throwing things away, or vinegar to wipe something down? A handy jar or container or trash basket smooths the daily round.

When you buy some new blouse or pants, do you have to leave your bedroom to find scissors to cut tags? I even keep a pair of scissors in the mudroom, and those have orange handles in case I’m using them outside and want to ever find them again; and scissors in the console of the car, because you never know when you’ll see some herbs or flowers on the roadside…

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Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. Proverbs 15:1

This post from the archives is autumnal, but the idea applies to spring as well! Every season calls for a little renewal, and the way we eat dinner together changes as the days get longer. Perhaps there’s time now for playing some catch with d\Dad or biking around after the meal.

In any case, the housewife’s work is to reset even the ordinary things, to express her motherly love. Setting the table with care (even if the work is delegated to the children, even if it’s a picnic table! ) is one way to put her loving touch on the home.

The family bonds by gathering for even the humblest supper. Lots of grace there!

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The housewife is going to have to cook. If it’s a priority to live on one income (and it really, really needs to be, for it is madness to live on two), going out to eat or even ordering in must be avoided except on the rarest of occasions. We just can’t afford it! By the way, not factoring in the cost of eating out/ordering in is what tanks most budgets.

If the husband has the burden of working to, as I like to say, fund the bliss, then it’s the wife who gets the food on the table. It’s nice if he likes to cook, but I don’t see how it’s practical for him to do it every day.

So let’s think about five ways to change our attitude about what really makes cooking seem hard and unpleasant, and that is time. Solve the time issue and you’ll solve your resistance.

First — take time to study the systems involved. No one likes anything they have to think through every time they do it. Learning is good. I talk about the books that helped me here.

Second — realize you need to think about your meals in advance. When it comes to dinner, you need to know, at least by 10 am, what you’re serving (this gives you a fighting chance to thaw something). Optimally, you’ll map out your menus a week in advance, because you have different things to do on each day and need to choose what to cook accordingly. If you have to be at the physical therapist at 4pm, you’re not going to be home grilling. But if you are home, you have time. Plan it ahead.

Third — it just does take time to cook for a family. I realized this once I had three children and needed to get out of “gee, what’s for dinner” mode if I wanted to avoid meltdowns. You’re not making a quesadilla for your single self; you need to set aside some time to cook. You’re also not on Top Chef; you need more than 20 minutes.

Fourth — take a little time to make the area over your kitchen sink pretty. How your work area looks to you is a factor in the work’s pleasurability.

Fifth — realize how important it is. Besides being economical, cooking at home is a cause of what gives family life its precious quality. We give time to important matters: the dinner table with family is of the utmost importance: everyone sitting down together, praying, and enjoying the conversation and togetherness. Being the person who makes this happen is worth the time it takes to figure it out.

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Now is a good time to start, with school winding down. Here is a nice challenge, by the way, if you want some varied ideas and motivations:

School of the Unconformed

The Eating Rebellion: Recapturing the common art of cooking

For those of you who prefer to read off paper rather than the screen, we have converted the post into an easily printable file below. Please consider supporting us with a paid subscription if you download it. Thanks …

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14 days ago · 53 likes · 13 comments · Ruth Gaskovski and Peco

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Let’s remind ourselves of how important the housewife’s time is, no matter how it seems to be taken up with mundane issues:

Thanks for being here! Apply my thoughts to your situation with discernment, prudence, and confidence — and a sense of humor!

Who am I? Go here.

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The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

I knew a lady who would cheerfully ask her husband, and anyone who was coming home after a day away (children coming home from school, for instance, or a small child coming back from a visit at a friend’s house), “Who did you talk to today?”

Sometimes she would say, “Did you meet anyone interesting today?”

That would always get the conversation going, and struck me as much more, well, interested, on her part, than, “How was your day?”

When I consider the effectiveness of her question, I realize she wasn’t vaguely putting the burden of characterizing the day on the other person. “How was your day” feels like “make the effort to tell me if your day was good or bad.”

There are some other questions that might add a layer of being asked to judge oneself, even morally, and the day, just when the person is rather tired and hoping to stop having to meet others’ demands. Feels like school or a meeting all over again — not home.

Hers is a relaxing, not stressful, question. Even a trip to the grocery store might involve, after all, talking to someone! I could tell about that!

It leaves room for more, including recounting funny interactions or even troubling ones, or whatever information the person chooses to share, but at his own pace.

I first unconsciously, then purposefully, learned to imitate her. Sometimes it’s funny when it’s just the two of us, my husband and me, here together all day! But you know, it still stimulates a conversation!

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The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

Is this the “Era of Artificial Intelligence”? If so, who decrees it to be so?

Another question: If AI, as a digital regime, ultimately threatens us with disembodiment and alternate consciousness, what is the counterbalance, whereby we reclaim the soul God gave us, along with our material existence?

I woke up thinking about the words “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb,” exclaimed by the Holy Elizabeth, herself expectant (Luke 1:42). These words are repeated every day by Catholics at least 50 times! Her womb: The humble Mary offers her inmost sanctuary to God made Man; He receives His human nature from her — God the Second Person, embodied: Jesus Christ.

This is her role, her iconic role. Icon means “window to the transcendent.” Do we take for granted this radiance offered to us for contemplation, day after day?

Does being a housewife seem humble — too humble? So many practical things to think about in keeping the home. Is there a higher excellence for the woman to pursue in this world?

And yet, every person comes into the world by means of a family, with a mother and a father. What happens in the life of a child to teach him his embodiment, his humanity? Who is his first teacher?

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The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

Friday is a good day to think ahead to Sunday, to the day of worship, rest, and festivity. The housewife makes her plans so it all happens and Sunday, let alone a high feast day, doesn’t slip away.

This Sunday is Pentecost, the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit. We can’t really analyze this day — we simply have to experience it both as a revelation meant for each one of us and also as a familiar return of an ancient reality for the whole Church. But one thing we know: we need the Holy Spirit.

Karl Stern muses in The Flight from Woman (affiliate link), that all the conflicts of the world can be

“… reduced to one fundamental pair: Love and Power. Love and Power as a moral antithesis are at work inside every human being, regardless of sex… the polarity of all human relationships… all moral conflicts arise out of a tension between the two… God started, one might say, His relationship with man by renouncing power over him.”

Paradoxically, and to our perennial wonder (tricked as we are by that binary, Love/Power), He does not renounce His authority.

Stern says,

“Woman as real or potential mother possesses the sense of creativeness by which one lets something grow, nurtures it, allows it to follow its own mysterious law of becoming. Man’s sense of creativeness is that of making things work.”

Man and woman are meant to complement each other. Out of balance, they wreak havoc on everything. In balance, rejecting the mode of conflict, they pull together and fill in what the other lacks.

The housewife is pivotal to keeping the world on its axis, in her body as well as in her spirit. Stern again:

“… the sense of the infinite importance of the single individual is rooted in the experience of pregnancy, birth, and nursing. Spriture and theology teach us that the world has been created for man to dwell in. But while someone is reading this line, a woman gives birth, with that immediate sense of certainty that the world has been created for this particular new human being…

But Mary treasured up all these sayings, and reflected on them in her heart… all the errors of contemporary materialism concerning society and the person… cannot be considered apart from the charisma of womanhood.”

Speaking of paradoxes, the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles on Pentecost; Our Lady, without herself being an apostle, is there in the very center. She is the housewife’s model and pattern!

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The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

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They are actually good at it — let’s review how to start them out:

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The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

For maximum housewifery in the kitchen, especially with a large family, learn to make a white sauce, AKA Béchamel. Practice until you can do it without the recipe, without measuring, and without heating the milk separately, whisking it slowly into the roux.

In French cooking, there are a few basic sauces that are played with for endless variations. It’s worth figuring out. I hope you can find a copy of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking or The Way to Cook at a used book sale.

Béchamel becomes Mornay (cheese sauce), Velouté (browned butter), Aurore ( tomato-based), and many others. There are tricks, there are shortcuts. Practice makes perfect!

Today I want to say that when you master the basic sauce, you can up your Save-A-Step Cooking game. Make double and pop the extra in the fridge. Here are the things you can then use it for in the next few days:

• Leftover broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, carrots, assorted squash-type things, or any other substantial vegetable? Spread out in a shallow dish, cover with your Béchamel, sprinkle cheese (and breadcrumbs if you have stashed those) on top, and heat up with whatever is in the oven. Picky eaters can be won over by bubbly, cheesy goodness.

• Cream-of-whatever soup.

• Chicken or turkey pot pie: fold your chicken dinner leftovers (carrots, potatoes, peas, onions, plus plenty of sage) in Béchamel and top with pie crust or biscuit dough. Bake in a medium oven until brown and bubbly inside.

• Macaroni & cheese or scalloped potatoes.

• Mix in something tomatoey — that half a can of petite diced tomatoes (plus its liquid) you didn’t use up, some tomato paste, leftover pasta sauce — and now it’s Aurore. Toss over pasta, sliced sausage (shrimp works too), green beans cooked al dente, onions, and peppers, and a little cream. Grate parmesan on top. A quick supper in one skillet.

• Add curry and mustard powders and a good amount of shredded cheddar, plus some plain yogurt mixed with mayonnaise. Layer leftover rice, a little sauce, chicken, and chopped broccoli. Pour sauce over all, top with more cheese and some breadcrumbs. Bake at 350°F. for 30 minutes until bubbly and browned on top.

This sauce lasts about four days in the refrigerator. It also freezes pretty well.

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The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

{If you are in the antipodes, time to think about staying warm — read about it here.}

Whether you have air conditioning or not, it’s time to get practical (and frugal!) about keeping your house cooler. With AC, you’ll save on the cost of running it. Without AC, you’d be surprised at how much difference a few little strategies makes.

Close up the house on the sides that face the rising heat: Shut the windows, lower the blinds, close the curtains. If you can plant something to provide leafy shade outside, do! First thing in the morning, when the temperature is the lowest, go around shutting that side of the house up. Turn off lights.

Even if you have AC, drawing the window coverings on the South and East sides makes a huge difference to how you feel, as does having fans going.

Open the windows on the sides that are shaded: On the North side, and the West in the morning, open up. Put fans in those windows, facing in. As the sun moves to the West, close those curtains or blinds. If you can set up a cross-breeze, you’ll be more comfortable; it’s a matter of paying attention (and having a house that allows it).

At night, open things up to let the hot air escape and the cool air come in.

The first heatwave of Spring is the time to get your strategies in place for later in the Summer, and your housekeeping habits, too. For more, go here.

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The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

My Federalist piece is about how daycare has gone from something working women need to something society (that is, the taxpayer) owes all women.

Under it all is the worry, exploited by feminists to make it true: that women will not, in fact, be able to take care of their own children and home. Not necessarily financially (which may be the case, depending on choices made), but in the sense of the panic anyone would experience upon suddenly being asked to pilot a jet or operate on a patient. Women have gone from innate confidence in their ability and suitability to raise a child, to abject fear of being left alone with one; hence the pervasive anxiety to get the government to step in.

The School for Housewives is my very humble and simple attempt to help with the “What now?” The woman who is convinced to be home nevertheless may not know how to carry out the duties and enjoy the benefits of the situation. There are practicalities! I try to indicate them, one short post at a time.

That’s what I’m here for! In a way, the simplicity is the message.

NB: I found the sweet image below on Pinterest, and the pinner had commented, “No, not scary at all.” Proving my point, sadly.

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My 3-volume book on Order and Wonder in Family Life:

The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

In my book, I say you don’t want to launder children’s bedding too often, because “those sheets will tell you when they need to be changed.” This is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek nod to my experience, that no sooner would I launder the sheets just because, than everyone would start throwing up, and it would all have to be done again.

I felt the universe was trying to tell me not to bother; that it would let me know.

However, that said, keeping things clean, especially in the bedroom, is better for everyone’s health.

Mites are real and are all around, not that this is something you should dwell on too much, because it’s really gross. So without thinking about it or looking up any pictures, let me suggest a few things as we go into spring cleaning and if you’re noticing general stuffed noses, coughing, and sneezing (and crusty eyes — here is an interesting account of a simple remedy):

Open the window when you clean the room; pull back the shades and curtains. According to old-fashioned principles, pull the covers all the way down to air before making the bed, and consider folding them at the bottom of the bed, leaving the bottom sheet exposed to air and light. At the minimum, teach your children to fling covers all the way off, go do their ablutions and get dressed, and then make the bed.

Wash the pillows on a regular basis. Use pillow protectors (100% cotton will do and are more breathable) and occasionally wash those also. And wash the pillowcases. Order of frequency: pillowcases, protectors, pillows. Hang them on the line if possible. Sunshine is your friend.

Use mattress covers (100% cotton for those who are continent, waterproof for those who are not). Launder them regularly. Flip, rotate, and air the mattress once in a while.

Wash stuffed animals and blankies. Dust (with damp cloth) all around including under the bed. All the dust is harboring the mites… you don’t have to be insane about it, but this is where good housewifery makes a difference in everyone’s general health.

Having a caring mother, willing to do the work, tends towards the well being of the family!

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Be happy at home!

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For the longer version of this Substack and much more on this topic:

More on keeping the home

My 3-volume book on Order and Wonder in Family Life:

The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

The urge to spring clean is strong, but for many families, the calendar is full. So you have to use your housewife mind.

As you go around your home doing your normal tasks, think about whether and why things are on the floor. Could they be in bins (and maybe slid under the bed)? In baskets? On a shelf? Hanging on a hook?

The only cleaning tool you should have resting on the floor is the vacuum. Everything else should be on a hook, in a bin, or on a shelf. Pound a few big nails in the wall if you must (if it’s a wooden wall or the back of a door — use command hooks if not) and feel the tremendous satisfaction as you hang up your broom, dustpan, dust mop, and what have you.

A board with a row of hooks on it, mounted on a door, can transform the kids’ routine. I see those at the thrift store all the time and have snagged my share! They are easy enough to make, too.

Hutches are out there on FBMP. Put one in your kids’ room. If space is tight, put a shelf above the bed. Whatever doesn’t fit is asking to be chucked or donated!

Shelves are a matter of a board and some brackets. (If you’re me, you’ll spray paint those brackets!). Find the studs and get them up. “Shelves in the closet, happy thought indeed!” is a classic phrase for an excellent reason! It is the happiest of thoughts!

Spring cleaning can be done in the little interstices of the busy schedule when you aren’t wrangling all the stuff on the floors!

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...buying me a skein of yarn?

For the longer version of this Substack and much more on this topic:

More on keeping the home

My 3-volume book on Order and Wonder in Family Life:

The Summa Domestica

The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to shake off feminism and make your home. If you’re new here, go to the homepage for the previous Lessons; the categories are arranged in the menu bar at the top.

I wrote a long post about what I consider the joys of summer (according to me, a northeasterner) and why homeschool-as-desk-work should not be a year-round slog. (For that matter, you should absolutely give snow days off and are a monster who hates childhood if you don’t, but right now it’s May so let’s talk about summer.)

The other afternoon I was at my daughter’s house for a little knitting time with one of my granddaughters. My grandson, age 11, was on his bike. I asked him if he was done with school for the day and he said no, that he had one more math problem but he was taking a break because it was giving him trouble.

Off he went to ride around while the littles played in the sandpit, ran around, and picked violets; and we all enjoyed the (all too rare this Spring) warm sunshine.

Later, as I was leaving, he pulled up and talked to my daughter for a moment. “Oh, you solved it while you were riding around?” she exclaimed. Yes indeed, he had.

Our minds do need some concentrated effort with books and pen and paper, but they also need to be set free in the sun and the wind. There is a season for everything. Summer school was invented by Scrooges and Mr. Gradgrinds; but mothers, housewives, know that summer is a special time; minds grow and understand more in the end, paradoxically, when the body is given a chance to splash, play, ride around, relax, and look out across the water towards sunset, while the adults busy themselves with whatever it is that children are happy not to have to think about just yet.

Everyone will of course still read books, do puzzles, play math games, do a few chores, and write postcards — all activities that keep the brain mobile.

The memories that are made in an old-fashioned summer last forever.

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Ella Riemersma

Be happy at home!

Could you become a free or paid subscriber? That way you won’t miss anything!

Subscribe now

As a paid subscriber, you can comment and join the chat!

If you don’t wish to subscribe just now, I understand! How about…

...buying me a skein of yarn?

For the longer version of this Substack and much more on this topic:

More on keeping the home

My 3-volume book on Order and Wonder in Family Life:

The Summa Domestica