I didn’t even remember it, but this essay was the #1 reason I started Homemaker Barbi, which is now in the Alexa top 1.58 % of all websites.  In the WORLD.  Do I say this because I’m bragging, or because I think I’m so great?  NO! I’m telling you this because if I can do it, SO CAN YOU! 

I wanted to parent my children, be a good wife, be a happy homemaker, be at home, have a fulfilling career and help other people.  In short – I wanted it ALL…  If one little wife and mother could feel lost in the world, start from scratch with nothing, and make such a complete turnaround, there is no reason on earth that you can’t accomplish anything you want tomorrow. 

Looking For a Real Job: A Professional Homemaker’s Essay From the Past

“A long day of jury duty (which happened to fall on the same day as my first day of work at a new job) has come to a close. I made it to the new job for the remaining 2 hours of the workday, only to revel in my wonderful new work surroundings: a poorly heated warehouse with a little room at the back called the “office”, a 10-year-old computer that hadn’t been updated in eons and had been out of virus protection since who knows when, and a bathroom with a brown toilet (the inside, not the outside) that reeked of cigarette smoke and sewage. Oh, and I’m pregnant. When I got in my car to head home, I said aloud to myself, “It’s only for 7 months.” That’s a bad sign on the first day of a job.

So now here I sit, at home, contemplating the dinner I was supposed to take out of the freezer at 8:00 this morning (but forgot to), trying to think of a backup plan before my husband gets home.

So my thoughts right now are not focused on how terrible tomorrow (or the next 7 months) will be. No, and they’re not even focused on finding a different, better job to take this one’s place until it’s time to have the baby. Actually, my thought process is very bizarre right now… it sounds something like: All jobs are bad, working for someone else is bad, why would I want to find another job that maybe isn’t as bad but has its own drawbacks that make it a completely unappealing way of life? I want to do something significant so that I don’t have to work at a job outside the home. Why haven’t I figured out what that is by now? I no longer have a career, have no niche that I fit into in the vast workplace sea. And a scarier secret still: I don’t want one. I don’t want a career. I don’t want that at all. Working feels as foreign to me as speaking a language that I don’t even understand.

What is wrong with being a homemaker? What is wrong with being a wife and a mother? Why is there so much pressure to work when you’re pregnant and to return to work after your baby is born? Why is there this unspoken culture of guilt that says you’re not a feminist or a liberated woman if you actually WANT to stay at home?

Of course I know this suggestion is out of the question. We’re a 2-income house with 2-income debts and a baby on the way. Me not working is not an option. So how can I make my self-worth and self-efficacy stand up through daily activities that make me feel demeaned, worthless, and completely uncomfortable? If it’s right for so many other people, there must just be something wrong with me, right? I cannot reconcile the difference between society’s expectations and the rotten, sinking feeling that I am living someone else’s life and will never fit in. And I don’t know how to fix it.”

                                     – OLD, old essay written by Danelle Ice

It’s hard for me to even read that essay now, because I obviously found the answer! I did NOT get another job! I did not go back to my old career.  I focused on my family, I started my own companies, and Homemaker Barbi would never have been started if not for this process.  But what pain I was feeling!  I was in despair.  I wish now that I had had someone to tell me then what I am telling you now.

I really thought that what I wanted deep down – to be a mother and a professional homemaker- was not good enough, not right, or not possible.  It took me being brutally honest with myself, and making tough decisions, to move past my feeling of helplessness and decide what was best for my family. 

I suppose the moral of the story (at least the moral I’ve taken away from it) is this:  Do not let other people make decisions for you.  You’ve got to decide what is right for you, based on how you feel, based on what you and your spouse want out of life.

I am now one of the most influential women on Twitter, with one of the most successful websites in the entire world.   All because I decided not to do what the magazines said, what friends said, what parenting book authors said.  I did what my husband and I felt was right for us – to put our families first, to create an empire that could help people improve their lives along with us.  I’m not bragging and I’m not telling you this because I want you to think I’m wonderful! I’m telling you this because I am building this empire for every other woman out there who was feeling just like me. And I want to help you in any way I can.  Are you willing to act on your beliefs – whether they’re to stay home or go to work or become a painter or live your dream?  Are you willing to believe that what you really want is good enough? Because it is. 

For more Works for Me Wednesday, visit We are That Family.

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