Food and freedom

Ideal home-making requires the combined, or- ganized effort and unselfish devotion of both a man and a woman; it includes such feeding, clothing, shelter as well as moral, mental, and social education for each member of the family as shall enable each to get the best and the most out of life by giving the best and the most to life. On the material side, the man's part has dealt primarily with providing shelter and acquiring such raw materials as might be converted into suitable food, clothing, and furnishing. Wom- an's part has dealt primarily with the conver- sion of these raw materials into their most use- ful form. With progress and development, the type of raw material, the method of acquiring it, and the ^ Helen Campbell, Household Economics, chap, i, p. i8. 22 FOOD AND FREEDOM means of converting it into the desired end have changed from time to time. With progress, also, man's efforts and services have become definitely organized and are now recognized, valued, and paid for on some exact basis of calculation; they are commonly called wage-earning. Woman's efforts and services have remained unorganized, have not been defi- nitely recognized, and have been accepted with- out being fully valued; they are commonly called housekeeping. To-day, man brings money to the home rather than raw materials, while it is largely a woman's work to use this money to the best possible ad- vantage— for the individual, the home, and the nation. This means wise spending for both raw materials and finished products, as well as wise uHlizatiofi of all materials and products pur- chased. This twofold effort is not entirely simple, how- ever. It requires some knowledge of values, with the power to choose wisely; some knowl- edge of production, with the ability to do and make things well; some appreciation of the re- lation of the home to outside production and distribution, with judgment to rightly direct and wisely control home demands. All this, in turn, requires trained intelligence, skill, en- ergy, time. In addition, the growing and right- ful desire of all women for freedom and self- development, for recognition of their services, for a "paid job" of their own, has added other WHAT WE SHOULD KNOW 23 complications. Moreover, the old habit of lack of organized effort has persisted, and confusion and waste in the home have followed. To-day, with fewer things to do in the home than formerly, with means to make more simple those things that remain to be done, with a broader, freer, sweeter individual life within our reach, home-making has become the unsolved problem that we find it, and our homes are suf- fering, and the world beyond is feeling it.