I am “homemaking.” That amuses me. I am homemaking now in the way I “normally” should have been doing in my twenties. But in my twenties, I didn’t have any semblance of a home to make.

I wonder why “homemaking” was and is so important to me. To actually “make” a home, I mean. A place on the planet that reflects my taste, my loves, my values, my accomplishments, me. For a childhood trauma survivor like me, both the dream and the leap to get here was huge.

What needed to change first in my adult thinking was the notion that I deserved a home. That may sound odd. Surely, everyone believes they need and deserve a home. But no.

When home was as unstable as mine was growing up, the biggest association I made with the concept of “home” was pain and instability. I honestly felt all I had to bring to the table as an adult was more pain and instability.

In my father’s world, a home was something a man bought for his wife and family. It was not common for women to have the financial or social wherewithal to own a home on her own in his generation. I learned the mandatory tasks of keeping a home well enough. Dad made sure of that.

While he worked at his day job, I went to school and then came home and worked some more. Normal household activities. Setting the table. Putting out the cutlery and napkins and glassware. On spaghetti dinner nights, Dad instructed us on the proper way to eat the long pasta twisted up into a ball with a fork and a spoon. It felt so sophisticated.

After supper, I’d clear away the dishes and wash and place them in the dish drain beside the sink. That way, they would be ready to use in the morning.

I remember one night being so carried away by TV sitcoms that I was too tired to do the dishes. The next morning, Dad was clattering about in the kitchen making breakfast and muttering about missing things he needed. He was decidedly unamused when he found the dirty dishes from last night’s supper “soaking” (my excuse) in a dishpan under the sink.

To say, Dad was uninvested in my life and any career ambitions I might have had would be an understatement. His parenting “style” reminded me of how my sister once described her own parenting: “If the kids are still alive by five, I’ve done my job.”

In Dad’s mind, the career and life ahead of me was wife and mother and housewife. My journalism and academic career aspirations were about as realistic to him as manufacturing fairy dust. It was the subtle undercurrent of these expectations that affected my day-to-day life.

I believe that undercurrent affected my view of “housewifery” but it never tamped down my desire for “a home of one’s own.” Never mind a simple, single room. I felt a strong and consistent call to interior decoration principles but it was never so strong that it became an occupation.

And now, I am turning my hand with more industry to homemaking. Once might even say “at last.” I fought through the souring of the homemaking experience due to the constant expectation of my father. My own mother’s deplorable housekeeping skills were her emblem and matter of pride for not caving into a life of domestic servitude.

She looked down her nose at the “house proud.” It became obvious that her disdain was a co ver for her own ineptitude in managing a household. It would appear I am a member of the “skip” generation. My grandmother kept a lovely home. Many of my fondest childhood memories were made there.

Nan’s house was immaculate. It always smelled of something freshly baked, like bread or cookies. She grew African violets that had fuzzy leaves which we were cautioned not to touch for fear of killing them. To combat the dry winter air, she placed empty soup cans full of water on radiators around the house. Nan knew stuff. I always felt safe and protected in her presence.

Maybe that is what I am going for in this “homemaking” journey. Safety and protection. I am finally building a physical and psychological fort of my own creation.

One day, this home, too, may be filled with the smell of baked goods and African violets and little people who gain a level of comfort from my presence as I once did from my own grandmother. That is incentive.