This domestic stuff can be rather soothing.
~ My Sister ~
When I was about fifteen I spent part of the summer caring for two little boys who lived down the street. Their mother had had some sort of surgery and needed help with child care and housework. The work wasn’t difficult but it did lack something in terms of, uh, intellectual stimulation. One afternoon after watching endless hours of Sesame Street and getting the boys down for a nap, I was washing the kitchen floor and remember thinking that there had to be more to life than this. I couldn’t imagine myself trapped in a suburban existence that consisted of nothing but the tedium of laundry and ironing and cleaning and diapers.

Today I was talking to my sister, who has chosen just such a life (although her son is 10 and presumably out of diapers). She mentioned that she needs a bumper sticker that states “I Thought I Wanted a Career, But I Really Wanted a Paycheck”. She’s quite content with her choices and wouldn’t return to her prior job as a social worker for anything. She asked if I had been happy in the past few months of being home and I told her that if we weren’t facing two kids going to college (and one who has mentioned law school frequently), I would retire quite happily today. I find the Zen-like motions of ironing to be calming and the accomplishments of doing laundry to be satisfying.

Of course, if I had to take the washing down to the river and pound it in the rocks, I might feel less positively about domestic chores.