Home Birds
I am nearly finished reading Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson. 
Flora relates what is was like to grow up in England during the Victorian days. She tells her story in third person and Laura represents Flora. The story flows naturally as a historical account of life for the poor in small town England, represented in the town of Lark Rise. Candleford, a nearby town, has more well-to-do people inhabiting this village. Flora brings to life a long forgotten time in history.
In Laura's day the children of the poor had to find work once they finished their schooling usually around the ages of 13-14. The father's small wages and the large families they had, made it difficult to keep a family together. How to feed the large family on the small wages worried the mothers. So, when a girl turned 13 or 14 and her schooling finished, she would find work outside the home. The girls worked as maids, nursemaids, or household help for wealthier people in the larger towns. They would send the wages home to their families, thereby increasing the food budget. Often when they came on visits they would bring clothes home for the mother and siblings.
There were some families who had more money, and the girls could become "Home Birds". These girls lived at home and did the light housekeeping for their mothers, and for pleasure they would join choirs, host tea-drinkings, attend concert in the village. People called them 'sunbeams in the home'. Laura had opportunity to visit one of the home birds, and this home bird girl complained that she could not leave home to find work and live her own life. This home bird felt that her parents kept her on a leash, and when Laura when into her room she saw, "...and looking around the pretty bedroom and at the new summer outfit, complete with white kid gloves and a parasol, laid out on the bed for her admiring inspection,...(Laura) thought that, at least, the leash was a handsome one." (page 500)
Laura, herself, might have been content as a home bird, but that was not her lot in life.
Today, there are young women wanting to be stay-at-home young women who never leave to go into the work force. They stay home until marriage. Today they are not called home birds, but are called Keepers at Home, and the movement appears to grow. There is nothing new under the sun, as Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes. In the 1890's young girls longed to leave and not be home birds any longer. Today young women long to stay at home. My mother and grandmother use to say, "What goes around comes around." They meant that things have a way of repeating themselves. However the one big difference from the 1890's England to today is that then, the people knew that not everyone could be a home bird. Only those from wealthier families had the luxury of staying at home until marriage. So those girls who had to leave home to work, did not find themselves looked down upon or shunned as less a person simply because they had to work. Today, when you search the web you find women writing that all women who are godly women should not leave the home. Women in the past knew it that whether or not a girl could remain a home bird depended on her parents' financial situation. More compassion existed then. I see little compassion now.
Why are we so eager to make laws that God does not make? Our sin nature I suppose. I think there are many young women today who worked because they must, but if they had a choice they would choose to be home birds. I feel great compassion for them.
Well, dear Reader, that what I learned today as I read. I hope you can find the book, because the reading of it contains great value.
In Laura's day the children of the poor had to find work once they finished their schooling usually around the ages of 13-14. The father's small wages and the large families they had, made it difficult to keep a family together. How to feed the large family on the small wages worried the mothers. So, when a girl turned 13 or 14 and her schooling finished, she would find work outside the home. The girls worked as maids, nursemaids, or household help for wealthier people in the larger towns. They would send the wages home to their families, thereby increasing the food budget. Often when they came on visits they would bring clothes home for the mother and siblings.
There were some families who had more money, and the girls could become "Home Birds". These girls lived at home and did the light housekeeping for their mothers, and for pleasure they would join choirs, host tea-drinkings, attend concert in the village. People called them 'sunbeams in the home'. Laura had opportunity to visit one of the home birds, and this home bird girl complained that she could not leave home to find work and live her own life. This home bird felt that her parents kept her on a leash, and when Laura when into her room she saw, "...and looking around the pretty bedroom and at the new summer outfit, complete with white kid gloves and a parasol, laid out on the bed for her admiring inspection,...(Laura) thought that, at least, the leash was a handsome one." (page 500)
Laura, herself, might have been content as a home bird, but that was not her lot in life.
Today, there are young women wanting to be stay-at-home young women who never leave to go into the work force. They stay home until marriage. Today they are not called home birds, but are called Keepers at Home, and the movement appears to grow. There is nothing new under the sun, as Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes. In the 1890's young girls longed to leave and not be home birds any longer. Today young women long to stay at home. My mother and grandmother use to say, "What goes around comes around." They meant that things have a way of repeating themselves. However the one big difference from the 1890's England to today is that then, the people knew that not everyone could be a home bird. Only those from wealthier families had the luxury of staying at home until marriage. So those girls who had to leave home to work, did not find themselves looked down upon or shunned as less a person simply because they had to work. Today, when you search the web you find women writing that all women who are godly women should not leave the home. Women in the past knew it that whether or not a girl could remain a home bird depended on her parents' financial situation. More compassion existed then. I see little compassion now.
Why are we so eager to make laws that God does not make? Our sin nature I suppose. I think there are many young women today who worked because they must, but if they had a choice they would choose to be home birds. I feel great compassion for them.
Well, dear Reader, that what I learned today as I read. I hope you can find the book, because the reading of it contains great value.
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