Across the Fence: Hausfrau

Have you ever come across the Germanism Hausfrau (pronounce: ‘howse-frouw, literally house woman) in the English language? I have to admit I haven’t. I only learned the English terms housewife and the much prettier one, homemaker. Housewife and Hausfrau to me have a different vibe from homemaker. The first two seem to focus on a woman’s decision to stay at home, the second describes a person who focuses on making their family comfortable.

When I grew up, Germany experienced the change from the family model of a bread-winning father who provided for his Hausfrau-wife and usually several children to both parents having a career. Which also meant that even small children were latchkey, as school rarely lasted beyond noon during elementary school and the first few grades of any secondary school, or given into the care of strangers. Instead of viewing it as a privilege that a woman could make a choice between a career and making a home for her husband and children, society started looking askance at families with a “Nur-Hausfrau”. The term “nur” (pronounce: noor) means “just”.

My mother was such a Hausfrau. She got up as the first in the family every morning to make everybody breakfast and food for their second breakfast and/or lunch. Apart from cooking, baking, cleaning, and whatnot, she oversaw our homework and later learned all the stuff we came home with from university, did the bookkeeping, planned our family travels, knit and sewed clothing, read to us when we were little, played and crafted with us, gave us time to listen to our joys and sorrows, kept a flower bed, looked after sick people, sang in the church choir, was a wonderful host for friends and family – in short, she was the soul and core of our family. Not a Hausfrau only, but a manager, a psychologist, a nurse, a travel agent, a book keeper, a teacher, a go-to person, and a networker. And all this unpaid and with rarely any time, leisure, or quiet for herself. Try to look down on that. Thankfully, a renowned German actress picked up on the snobbery and sang an homage to homemakers.

There were quite a few Hausfrauen around in our upper middleclass and upper-class suburbs. These mothers were all loved from all their childrens’ hearts. And, of course, these mothers had all once had a career of their own, but decided to be these Janes-of-all-trades for the good of their children. It was almost as if we kids trusted even other kids’ Hausfrauen-mothers as go-to persons in emergencies.

Maybe, this classic distribution of roles derives from the Stone Age with the men as hunters and the women as gatherers and keepers of the fire. It worked then. It would work better now, if the cost of living didn’t often force a woman to take a job in order to make ends meet. The freedom of choice that feminism originally demanded is again no given. Whereas formerly women in Germany had no choice but to be a Hausfrau, now they often don’t have a choice but to take whatever job they can get (I’m not even talking of having a career in a field of one’s true, passionate choice) and work as long as they can.

It is similar over here, I guess, although I have never seen anybody raise their eyebrows at anybody when they said they were a homemaker, a Hausfrau. I guess, by now, everybody knows that, apart from the privilege of working outside competition, being a Hausfrau means overtime and sacrificing independence for a family’s love as only salary.