The Accidental 1950s Housewife

Elena Cimelli - 9 Oct 16

“Oooh, I could quite get used to this” I thought as I knelt on the lawn, trowel in handing ‘doing some gardening’ and alternating between listening to Radio Four and One. “I quite like being a housewife.”

It was summer 2009 and I’d been on maternity leave less than a week. I’d done some pre-natal yoga in the morning, walked to the butchers to pick up some meat, prepared dinner for hubby. Now I was gardening.

Maternity leave, and therefore ‘being a housewife’, was turning out to be most enjoyable. That was then.

I had been working for ten years since leaving university. My last job before maternity leave had been fun, yet incredibly demanding for a global technology company. I was exhausted and a slower pace of life was very much a blessing.

Plus, whilst I was 38 weeks pregnant ‘with child’ I really had no idea what life would be actually like ‘with A child’ – let alone two! Of course being a housewife seemed wonderful.

I’m seven years down the road now. I’m not quite so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.  Somewhere along the way, I seem to have become a 1950s style housewife. I’m not talking about the Stay-At-Home-Parent part but the house-work, housewife part.

Without realising it, my non-return to full-time work, my fundamental principles and our move two years ago to the US have all contributed to this role I’ve accidentally created for myself.

I’ve always been a bit of a ‘Greeny’ at heart. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been aware of the environment, all things ‘Eco’ and wanting to do my bit.

I have always line-dried our clothes. And now that we live in California, especially being a Brit, I can’t BARE to tumble dry our clothes. All that sunshine!! No running out  and trying too unpeg three loads of washing as a torrential rainstorm dumps it’s load on your (once) beautifully dry washing.

But of course, this is a fairly laborious extra step in tackling the never-ending task of the family’s laundry.

Hubby and I have always cooked from scratch in the main. And this has been particularly so after the girls were born – suddenly one begins to think a whole lot more about we should be putting into our bodies and what we should leave out.

However, our move to the US catapulted me to a whole new meteoric level of analysing our food and its contents. It started when I could not find any low sugar ‘fromage frais’ for the girls upon our move here. So I decided to try and make my own using Greek yoghurt and fruit. I have now perfected the recipe and the girls love it.

And I love that they love it. No added sugar. Just real food. But time. And energy. And mess. That requires extra cleaning and washing up. (Thank goodness for our dishwasher!)

The levels of sugar in so many of the foods here is appalling! And so homemade sugar-free ice-cream, and sugar-free lemonade, and bread, and granola, and sore-throat remedies, and jello pots, and smoothies, and… and…

There is a LOT of cooking from scratch in our household! All my creations, plus at least two meals a day. Every day. It’s exhausting.

This leads to the final puzzle piece in my transformation from  UK-based Mumpreneur Extraordinaire to US 1950s Housewife Supreme…

There are many wonderful things about our life in California. But food shopping is not one of them. Moving to the US has been a real eye-opener on what additives food companies put into processed food!  Not that we were big processed food eaters, but any of our convenience ‘treats’ like ice-cream, yoghurt, jelly/o, cake, crisps etc suddenly became a whole lot less appealing.

Add on top of that the toxic pesticides banned in the EU and not in the US, and I’m compelled to buy almost exclusively organic (except for the Clean Fifteen). Of course, buying organic is not cheap. So the most cost-effective way is to buy as much as possible in good old Costco, then top up in WholeFoods and Trader Joe’s.

Home-delivery is possible through Instacart, and Safeways does delivery, but it’s not quite the same as Tesco delivery or lovely Ocado. Admittedly I have yet to try Google Express, so that could be my saviour.

But for now, I’m in the supermarket at least once a week, marching down the aisles putting real items in my real cart, instead of standing in my kitchen with my grocery app on my phone adding what I need to my virtual ‘cart’.

And voila! There you have it. My accidental transformation into a 1950s housewife is complete. I will bid you a good day, and will see you at the kitchen, in the supermarket or by the clothes line.

Elena Cimelli

Mum of two gorgeous girls, author of The Contented Calf & Contented Kid Cookbooks, creator of Contented Earth - UK stockist of Zero Waste and Eco products, accidental housewife and lover of social media and marketing.

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