House Work

House Work

Homemaking is a mainly American term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, or household management; it is the act of overseeing the organizational,day-to-day operations of a house or estate, and the managing of other domestic concerns. This domestic consumption work creates goods and services within a household, such as meals, childcare, household repairs, or the manufacture of clothes and gifts. Common tasks include cleaning, cooking, and looking after children. A person in charge of the homemaking, who isn't employed outside the home, is in the U.S. and Canada often called a homemaker, a gender-neutral term for a housewife or a househusband. The term "homemaker", however, may also refer to a social worker who manages a household during the incapacity of the housewife or househusband.

Housework is not always a lifetime commitment; many, for economic or personal reasons, return to the workplace. In previous decades, there were many mandatory courses for the young to learn the skills of homemaking. In high school, courses included cooking, nutrition, home economics, family and consumer science (FACS), and food and cooking hygiene. This last one may underlie the tradition that a homemaker is portrayed wearing an apron. More recently, most of these courses have been abolished, and many youths in high school and college would be more likely to study child development and the management of children's behavior.