The Value of Home

What is the value of home?  Does your home have a heart beat or is it simply where you and yours find your pillows at night?  Sadly, as busyness increases and families are divided, each member going their own way for long hours each day, the value of home is rapidly decreasing.

Portions of the most recent book I've completed, Susan Schaeffer Maccaulay's
For the Family's Sake, 
The Value of Home in Everyone's Life,
reminded me somewhat of the post Homesteading that I had written earlier in the summer.

The book is written for a vast audience.  Whether you are single or married, young or old, whether you live alone or with a large number of people there is something here that will speak to your situation.  The point is, regardless of who you are or where you are at in life, there is great value in home.



Not only does this book cover the ideology of the value of home, but it covers many practical aspects as well, such as how to care for the atmosphere of the home.  The home, the basic building block of society, is made up of the people who live in it and they dictate the atmosphere.  Perhaps you can begin to see where this leads...

Truth be told, I found it difficult to stick with this book at times.  Some parts I found to drag a bit, particularly the parts that weren't applicable to my situation, but as the book progressed I could see the importance of even those aspects.  The slower portions were also the most practical.  Maccaulay succeeds at spelling out the details, which may make for slow reading, but also makes the content most worthwhile.

Macaulay refers often to Charlotte Mason.  It would be helpful for the reader to have a brief, prior understanding of who Charlotte Mason was, as she is referred to quite often.  Even though Mason was an educator in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, her methods are quite useful in home-life as well as in education.

While this book didn't strike any emotional chord, I would count it as a must-read.  It's one that's worth the time and space on the bookshelf.  It offers thought provoking points about how we live our daily lives and what we do to make home more than a gathering place for ourselves and our immediate families.  It prompts you to consider what you can do to transfer your home from a lifeless holding tank from one day to the next, into a joyful place with an atmosphere of love and life.