Training Our Daughters to be Keepers at Home

In a world where most homes have two sources of income and most women continue their careers after marriage, homemaking skills have tended to fall by the wayside. Many girls grow up with no clue how to maintain a home at all. Our culture has misunderstood the biblical concept of a woman’s role in the home, and have run to the extreme of completely abandoning the idea of homemaking altogether. Training Our Daughters to be Keepers at Home seeks to counteract this trend, and provides instructions and lesson plans for a wide variety of skills, from basic homemaking activities as well as incorporating lessons on character development.

How Does This Work?

This is a seven year course, intended to start at age eleven and continue till graduation. It’s basically a lesson planner, listing skills to learn and practice each week, accompanying instructions, books that go along with the activities, discussion questions for each section, and lists of supplies. It’s a very organized approach, and hard-working mothers, concerned about covering all the bases but who don't have the time to plan out how to do it, will greatly appreciate the organized, thorough methods used in this curriculum.

The skills covered in this curriculum range from basic skills everyone should know, such as how to sew buttons and how to cook breakfast, to more specialized skills like taking care of animals and making soap. It also includes information on giving birth and breastfeeding, which some parents will deem unnecessary information for their daughters at the ages prescribed in this curriculum. The character building aspect focuses on the basics like serving and helping, but also in later years helps learn about finances and even some marriage preparation. It’s saturated with scripture and at all times maintains the idea of serving God and man through the skills learned.

Our Honest Opinion:

Though no doubt the authors have intended this to be a full-blown course, for most people this curriculum will be a bit overwhelming. It is very helpful as a reference, especially for those who want their daughters to know the basics, but if it’s followed strictly as intended, one could easily drown in the huge amount of pressure to learn everything there is to know about homemaking. Many activities aren’t even that necessary to maintain a home (such as the soap-making and animal-tending). If someone has interest in these activities, this is a handy reference. But in the grand scheme of things, it simply won’t be necessary for most families to devote a whole course to learning things that most people will never use.

Though when initially describing this curriculum, ‘prairie muffin bible’ was the term that came to mind, we do recognize the need for women to devote themselves to godly homemaking, and we appreciate the great effort the authors have made to provide all the information any would could possibly ever need to know. This curriculum may be a little extreme, but its intentions are the best. Godly homemaking doesn’t necessarily mean you have to know how to milk goats or to be able to sew all your own clothes, but it does mean serving God and your family through keeping of the home, and that’s the main message this curriculum seeks to convey.

Review by Hadley Payne (nee Ayers) Hadley was an exemplary employee at Exodus for several years. Full of life and laughter, she is an avid reader who loves both classics and popular literature. Her reviews are clear, helpful and often witty. Check more of them out here.

Review by Hadley Payne (née Ayers)
Hadley Ayers was an exemplary employee at Exodus for several years. Full of life and laughter, she is an avid reader who loves both classics and popular literature. Her reviews are clear, helpful and often witty. Check more of them out here.