Actress Barbara Billingsley, best known for portraying the quintessential supermom on the television comedy ”Leave It to Beaver,” died recently at age 94. In her signature role as June Cleaver, Billingsley personified the ideal middle-class mother and housewife in an era when relatively few American women with children worked outside the home.
June Cleaver was presented as a flawless housewife cheerfully running a home: baking cookies, stuffing celery with peanut butter, vacuuming in high heels, preparing meals, greeting her husband with a kiss when he arrived home from work, and tucking in her two adorable sons at night. June was kind, gentle, loving, and ever-patient. She was known for her signature line, “Ward, I’m very worried about the Beaver,” whenever her younger son got into trouble or seemed despondent. June’s life revolved around her family. Though college educated and capable of a career, she was happy and content in her role as a wife and stay-at-home mom. And therein lay the rub.
In the early sixties, a landmark book, “The Feminine Mystique,” burst onto the scene. It claimed that women were NOT happy as housewives—at least they shouldn’t be happy in that role! Those women who were content as wives and moms simply hadn’t had their eyes opened to the extent of their oppression. Men had duped them to believe that a June Cleaver-type of existence was worthwhile and satisfying, when, in fact, such a role was subservient, and demeaning. As this feminist message spread, women in the sixties and seventies began to vilify Billingsley’s June Cleaver ideal.
Fast-forward the tape fifty years. A whole generation has had its consciousness raised to believe the idea that homemaking and caring for family is demeaning to women. The June Cleaver “Leave it to Beaver” ideal for womanhood has been replaced with a Carrie Bradshaw “Sex & the City” one. We’ve denigrated the value of marriage, children, home, self-sacrifice, and morality, and elevated the value of independence, career, self-indulgence, and sexual freedom. And our marriages and families have suffered as a result.
Today’s women have realized the feminist dream of being freed from the June Cleaver feminine mystique. But studies indicate that they are more miserable than ever before.
So what are we to do? Should we start playing “Leave it to Beaver” re-runs and tell women they’d be happy if they followed June Cleaver’s example? Should we encourage them to start wearing high heels and pearls while vacuuming? Should we run advertising campaigns that glorify the value of ironing, or disparage women who can’t bake cookies from scratch?
Some people romanticize the fifties, and believe that women would be happy if they squeezed themselves back into that mold. But woman’s happiness does not come from checking off all the boxes on someone’s “perfect woman” list. According to the Bible, happiness flows out of a right relationship with Jesus Christ. Until the spiritual aspect of a woman’s life is in order, her happiness will remain an elusive goal.
That said, the folks in the fifties did get some things right. They placed a high value on character, marriage, children, and morality. They recognized that God created men and women with differences that, when honored, contribute to the well-being and stability of the home. Though not the ultimate foundation of happiness, every woman knows that when her marriage, children, home and relationships are doing well, she feels a whole lot happier than when they are not.
Barbara Billingsley said in 2000, during an interview for the Archive of American Television. “June was a loving, happy stay-at-home mom, which I think is great.” Asked to compare real-life families to TV families, she responded, “I just wish that we could have more families like those. Family is so important, and I just don’t think we have enough people staying home with their babies and their children.” She maintained that “women who stay at home to care for their children may find in it the best—and most important—job they’ll ever have.”
Whether a woman ought to pursue an education, career, or have a job outside of the home is not at question here. The question in my mind is, “Do we as a society believe that family is so important that we uphold caring for home and children as the best and most important job a woman might ever have?”
Let’s just hope that this quintessential June Cleaver-ish idea hasn’t died along with Barbara Billingsley.
References:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/celebrity.news.gossip/10/16/obit.barbara.billingsley/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/arts/television/17billingsley.html
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on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 9:14 am
on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 9:31 am
For us this meant that I did not work for pay when money was tight but used the creativity God gave me to make money "stretch". It meant personal sacrifice of time, choosing to stay at home so children could get naps and nutritious meals on time, rather than a burger in the car and a nap on the run. It meant choosing to read books that challenged my mind when I had time to read in the evening, rather than romance novels. I did not stay home passively, I worked at being a homemaker, wife and mother.
Now I watch my daughter mother her son, love her husband and care for her own home. She does it with grace and beauty. She makes hard choices that enable her to be at home, like choosing to eat at home before joining her girlfriends at a restaurant for a night out to chat. But she finds lasting joy in her daily service to her family that outweighs the temporal feeling of doing without.
So, do I think this is the most important job I could ever have had? Absolutely!
on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 10:15 am
But then I read Nancy Leigh DeMoss's "Lies Women Believe and the Truth that Sets them Free" and I had an unbelievable change of heart. At the time of reading this book I witnessed the consequences of children not being raised in a godly home, and not having godly mothers raising them and instilling in them God's word and truths before sending them out to the world. And that's when I realized that God is calling us as mothers to raise our children with the best that we can and that we are to raise them and prepare them for the world.
I am not a mother, but if God was to bless me with children I know that my husband and I will do whatever it takes so that I can stay at home and raise them as God has called me to. We currently are living frugile and trying to get rid of our debt so that we can purchase a home that will not exceed our current rent. I am both eager and anxious to raise children. I want them to be arrows and pieice through people's hearts with God's word embedded in them. I am looking forward to making little ambassadors for Christ!
I thank God everyday for this change in my heart and to open my eyes to what the world has become since women have made their careers a priority over family.
Thank you for the blog! It also is a nice reminder to be a quiet, patient, loving wife to my husband.
on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 12:44 pm
on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 4:25 pm
on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 4:40 pm
on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 6:17 pm
on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Thank you for the article.
on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 7:06 pm
I traveled on the road for years in full-time ministry (parkertrio.com) and see God's hand in the journey, but I just recently admitted to myself and others how I would love to be a stay at home wife and mother (https://shannanparker.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/chapter-4-expect-a-masterpiece/).
What greater "stage" in life is there, than to see love fulfilled in the heart of a child? What greater status is there, than knowing you've created a peaceful place for one to run to when this world is cruel? And, what greater challenge could there be? Try crossing that finish line and not feel fulfilled!
Thank You,
Shannan Parker
on Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 9:50 am
These are simply the fruits of the seeds God has planted in my life and I "chose" to honor them by making good and godly decisions. I did this AFTER I was a 15 year old who was pregnant, married and raised in The Church of Christ and then remarried to a man 31 years my Sr. and also living a single life after that marriage as a flight attendant and looking for love in all of the wrong places while have a child who was also suffering from these decisions. I should have been shot and killed for my lack of sense in which I suffered and still suffer the consequences of my actions.
I now live my life as a woman who works full time, not by choice, but by the continuances of my husbands’ actions in his previous life of making bad decisions that were not pleasing to the commandments and proper role of a husband and father.
We now chose to walk that path of righteousness and cleave to his word and obey his rules as a husband is the leader and the wife is the follower of the leader with obedient and loving agenda's for the best possible outcome in our eternal future with Christ. I feel that this is a very deep subject that has become controversial and by those who are not living in the light of the lord and obeying his word whole heartedly. If a person were to take a look into my life now as a married, Christian woman who cleaves to her husband, makes our home and prays everyday to be a day of service and obedient, they'd see the girl who was broken, her son who is struggling between being gay or straight and a husband who is a recovering porn addict.
The would also see a woman with a clean home, meals cooked almost every day, me looking at my husband with admiration and desire, a humble heart and a stern and concerned patient mother loving her son unconditionally as well as an almost luxurious home wanting for nothing.
The reason is because I have chosen to live my life exactly how God told me to in the first place. Also my husband is doing that as well. It has taken us a very long time to get here and has been a painful road. We fore see a life where I can stay home and live that "June Cleaver" life in the future, and all because those are the fruits that we will see blooming from our seeds that we are sowing. I wish all and young women would be able to see now that the decisions we make are going to directly impact what is to come and what will come down when the smoke clears if that choice is not to obey his commands about how a woman must live her life.
With books and messages going against that, some women don’t have a chance and we should write more books and scream at the top of our lungs that we love all these women and to please listen to us as we know from the path we have walked, which road to take..... Remembering 'June Cleaver" follow after that Beaver and consult Ward over the trouble he was always getting into was the way I hope I am seen by others. My son is 17 and he is always being watched by his mama. My husband tempers how I watch him but, that is how we should be with our kids and I believe that God won't give us things we cannot handle in this day and age. It is all happening for a reason and until I know the reason, I just keep obeying, trusting and cooking and cleaning, LOL!
With love,
Tara Thompson
on Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 1:18 pm
I know as a stay-at-home mom my greatest battle is not wanting to work outside the home, but instead filling my days with my own pursuits that leave my kids in the dust. I may be at home in the physical sense, but I can become so busy with personal pursuits (usually things I want to do not necessarily what God is calling me to do) that I am not really present in spirit.
There are so many good things to be involved in, but not all things are beneficial for me to participate in. There are so many things I want to do (and most are things that will glorify me...not God), but not all things are what I am to invest my time in. We as woman must protect our time, thoughts, and energies so that they are devoted to the things of the home.
Sadly I think this is even an issue in the Church. I see very few women that are truly being intentional at home and with their kids and husband. I am seeing it in my own church which is filled with a lot of "church-going kids" but not a lot of kids that have been trained in the spiritual things.
(Even as I write this I am being convicted of spending time responding instead of listening to my kids tell me a story...it is so easy to be distracted from the things of the home!)
on Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 7:33 pm
My epiphany occurred about three years ago, after a serious car accident which left me unable to work for about a year. I felt "useless" and "worthless" being forced to "just stay home." Ironically, I always liked taking care of the home, but now that I had no other choice, I felt demeaned. It took me (or rather God) almost 8 months (as well as listening to ROH) to have an attitude change.
After much evaluation and studying, I began to wonder where this demeaning attitude came from and why and when did I (or society) decide that doing the dishes and picking up clothes was "beneath" me? Why did I feel that I was "less than" to feel happiness in making meals and grocery shop? After a series on Titus 2 from Nancy Lee DeMoss, I began to understand that I was called to do these things and they are actually holy.
We have no children, but our home is more peaceful, has a sense of order and more respectful - all the things that the Cleaver home had that I craved as a little girl. I am a slow learner, and it took a car accident to get me to see what I was missing. But, now, I am able to ignore the "looks" I get when I say I work from the home (I do work for myself, but I am also a home maker). I am even thinking about writing a book on the subject.
Home management is a talent that God bestowed upon women and entrusted with us so that we may care for our families in ways that will send them out into the world armed, and bring them back into a safe and godly haven. I can't think of a greater, more honorable task.
The Cleavers had it right. Don't let the pearls and heels fool you - that is only fashion or a trend. They come and go. But respecting the husband, keeping an orderly home, and maintaining peace are never trendy, those are things that are meant to stay and serve a purpose: to glorify God.
I am very grateful for many things, but mostly, for the chance to wake up daily, and try again...usually my day ends not as well as I envisioned when I awoke in the morning. But, I keep trying.
on Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 9:21 pm
on Monday, June 11, 2012 at 8:23 pm
on Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 5:21 am
on Tuesday, February 12, 2013 at 9:40 am