Are you getting frustrated and feel like you are failing as a homemaker? Never good enough? Insecure in your abilities? Let me reveal to you five simple reasons that may be contributing to your homemaking failure.
Being a homemaker is a walk in the park:
during a thunderstorm, with wild animals, unpaved paths, thorny bushes and no map.
Homemaking is a crazy and unpredictable job. No two days are alike. Kids get sick, weather makes us crazy and husbands come home and want to do something spur of the moment.
Not only do you have to be the ring leader for this circus, you have to be a cook, doctor, counselor, toy-fixer, launder, gardener, hostess, janitor and soother of nightmares.
But being a homemaker is so fulfilling!
No matter how trying the times and frustrating the kids, you will (eventually, if not tonight) look back with fond, warm memories of being able to pour into your family and home the love and comfort that you could.
And at the end of other days, you just want to throw in the towel and let the house and family fly off the wheel because it seems they already have.
Take heart and consider these feelings of inadequacy or failure. I’ll share with you five reasons you are failing as a homemaker based on my own feelings of failure and confiding in my girlfriends.
Read More: Why Homemaking is Important
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5 Reasons You are Failing as a Homemaker
1. You are trying to be perfect.
Social media and TV is in our faces all the time with images of perfectly dressed and scripted home settings.
Even good ol’ Leave It To Beaver
Let go of these images and expectations of yourself and just be you.
Fill your house with your personality and talents and let it be. Releasing this pressure to be perfect will allow you to relax into your homemaking roll and be present.
You won’t have a million things to apologize for if someone stops in. You won’t have to make excuses for why there are dirty dishes on every kitchen counter.
Because you live in your house! You have a beautiful life there that isn’t put away in drawers and cupboards all the time and isn’t perfectly decorated like Better Homes and Gardens.
2. You expect your spouse and kids to be perfect.
If you have a family, your house will not be spotless and the dishes will not be all washed up at any one time.
Your family is living, breathing and always growing and changing. Let them make mistakes. Let them make messes learning how to make pancakes.
Sure, you’ve trained your kids to have manners and never wipe their mouth on their sleeve and put away their shoes and hang up their wet towel.
But sometimes they may just want to relax a bit or they get distracted by something funny in the next room and everything they’ve been trained to do goes out the window.
That’s ok.
I’m not saying you have to go around picking up after your family members. But I am saying if you’ve trained them, than slip-ups here and there aren’t going to matter. And you can step over the wet towel, strewn shoes and rolling crayons to run out into the yard and see what everyone is so excited about.
And kids are not adults. They can’t reason like adults. So don’t get frustrated when they don’t act like adults.
Read More: Homemaking Skills Your Son Should Know Before Leaving Home
3. You don’t ask for/accept help.
Do you have a big project coming up? Are you expecting another baby soon? Do you have moving boxes to pack?
Ask for and accept help!
Somehow our society has become so proud in our self-sufficiency. To our own demise.
Work is more fun in community. And when we ask for help we are opening ourselves up to learning from a peer or older mentor.
Growing up in the Mennonite culture, it wasn’t a question of “if” you needed help canning peaches. It was “What day are you canning peaches. The girls and I will come help.”
Or a few aunts and cousins would get together to make noodles all day. Or donuts. Or can green beans.
[Hmmm… I see a food pattern here…]I remember my Grandma commenting about how young youth have to go get a job these days. They don’t have time to go help others or volunteer.
Do you have a neighbor girl who loves kids? Invite her over to play with yours and keep them entertained while you attack that long-awaited project.
Having a baby? Ask your mom or aunt or friend to provide you with one hot meal a week for the first month.
It’s not easy for me to ask for help so blatantly either. But when I was home with my son, I asked a couple different people to vacuum and sweep my floors (including my husband!) because that was the most painful motion on my caesarean incision.
Someone would stop by and I’d ask them to run to the basement and grab me a jar of beans for supper that night.
If I needed groceries, I texted people to ask them to pick them up for me.
Read More: Traditional Homemaking Skills for the Modern Housewife
4. You are comparing yourself to others.
Just because so-and-so always wears a cute skirt and has her makeup done to the hilt doesn’t mean you have to, too.
Just because someone else brings the cutest cupcakes into school for snack doesn’t mean you have to bring something cute, too. Maybe all you have time for is animal crackers.
That’s ok. You have to be you in your style, your cooking, your decorating and your 
When my husband and I were picking out trim and paint colors for our house I kept saying,
But you know what? Joanna Gaines doesn’t have to live in my house. She doesn’t have to approve of my bold, warm colors because this isn’t her house. It’s our house and we enjoy the colors we’ve picked and the absence of shiplap.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Gaines’ show, her style, their magazine and her decor.
But, I had to own my decorating style and how I chose to make our house a home. I still compare my tastes to others, but I’ve gotten better at not apologizing or feeling weird about our paint choices.
I have to own that I don’t have to be like everyone else.
5. You’ve forgotten grace.
Lastly, give yourself and your family members grace. When you hit rough patches and everything unravels at the seams – give grace.
Grace is unmerited favor. Grace can’t be earned. But grace can be freely given.
This current situation, mood, emotion, clutter, mess doesn’t have to be forever. But right now, it is reality and that’s ok.
Roll with the punches and start again tomorrow.
Read More: How to Be a Joyful Homemaker
So when you feel like you are failing as a homemaker, remember to forget perfectionism and don’t expect if from your family, ask for help, stop comparing yourself to others and most importantly – give grace.
Running a home and caring for a family is a crucial role in a healthy society. Wear your homemaking badge with pride and use these tips to stop failing as a homemaker.
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