Ladies,

Our society may see things like college courses as a means into the workforce, but college courses are valuable as a means to running a home.

In fact, how many of us have stepped into our homes after college to realize we did not have an education in homemaking even though we held a degree in something else? And how many times have women at home been labeled as “not using her degree” even though many of the things we learned in classes helped us at home?

It is up to us to see all information we learn as pertinent to our home job and apply it there as well.

As the years progressed in my homemaking role, I realized how educated I needed to be, even for life-threatening reasons.

Don’t want to kill people with food poisoning? We need to know how to properly cook food.

Don’t want to kill or injure myself or others by playing “cleaner chemist”? I need to know what chemicals to never mix together when cleaning.

Injuries are inevitable in the home. Time to learn basic medical skills.

Learning is Essential to the Homemaker

College classes and a lot of different courses are an education for your life skills if they were never learned at home. You can either just take individual classes or even use them toward a specific degree or certificate. But the point is, take the classes that will be most pertinent to your home and family.

Cooking Classes

Never cooked before? Good thing we have youtube and endless blog posts giving us delicious recipes. But those videos and recipes won’t chastise you for looking away from your stove too long. You need someone standing there pointing out these things. You can learn a lot alone, but there are some things a novice just needs in real life. The pot handle has to be turned away from you, not toward where you stand where it can get hit when you move, sending hot liquids flying. That part won’t be written in the recipe you found. If you did not get these lessons in person growing up, you need to sign up for a class where you will at least get some element of the teaching that is not in a video, show, or recipe. Look into your local community college culinary program for cooking and baking classes.

Cooking Shows/Cooking Videos

Look, they edit things in shows and you won’t get a full understanding of certain skills in the kitchen. But cooking hosts are generally good at detailing why they are doing what they’re doing. This is also a good “cooking class”. But the fact is, watching an expert cook, while very helpful, is not you stirring the food, grating the food, chopping the food. There is a learned dexterity to these things, and you need to actually do them yourself, not just watch them being done. Cook along with the video as a substitute to an in-person class.

Health Department Food Safety Course

This is one of my favorite resources to give fellow homemakers. Talk about dry facts and memorizing to pass a test. But so helpful. This course will not be the most exciting thing you ever did, but you will be shocked to learn how important it is to cook certain foods to certain temperatures, and what temperatures to store food at to keep it safe to eat. You will learn incredibly pertinent information to keep your own kitchen hygienic and your friends and family will not be afraid of getting sick.

Medical Training

The Red Cross and other medical training programs offer courses to learn CPR, heimlich maneuver, wound care, and other emergency medical responses for different situations. Look into your local area for this potentially lifesaving knowledge that comes in handy for everyone from infants to adults, to pets.

Nursing Program

As a mother, you are in a way, a nurse. You patch your children up when they get all kinds of scrapes, you nurse them back to health from illness, and you need to know the signs for when things need serious medical intervention. You can apply to a nursing program and go through the entire thing to become a nurse and turn around to use that knowledge for your own family. If you have the means to pay for the classes and you want to devote a few years to learning all of it, you can go as far as to become an actual nurse. Maybe you do want to work as a nurse in different seasons of your life that allow for it.

Gardening Classes

Your local extension office runs various workshops and classes about local things, like gardening. You can even sign up to programs like the “master gardener program” run through the local extension office.

“An extension office is a local department run by university employees and volunteers who are experts in areas like crops, landscaping, gardening, and pests. They provide highly localized information and expert advice to residents based on the specific soil, wildlife, and crops found in their county.” (via DuckAssist on duckduckgo.com)

Sewing Classes

Look to your local and chain fabric stores for sewing classes, most are just a small fee to join the courses. Some classes may only be a day or a few days, or a couple of weeks. This affords you the opportunity to have experienced seamstresses assess what you are doing and walk you through a group project. It’s a great place to begin when new to sewing.

Online Communities

There are online groups to join in order to become skilled in a specific topic. This is a place to get direct lessons, ask questions, gain insight on the topic and share your projects and progress with others in the group. Often times you can find these online communities by following bloggers who offer these types of facebook groups, private groups, printables and downloads, workshops, classes, and their own published books. Bloggers are some of the best resources when it comes to learning specific topics and while not an in-person class, it is the next best thing.

Read Books

Aside from taking classes, reading books is one of the best ways to grow in your education, whether it is a homemaking book or not, collect books that interest you enough to actually read them. We can get so use to reading online articles or snippets; we’re not getting the richness of a full book on a topic.

These suggestions have benefitted me in my own home, giving me a foundation in each topic and vital information I may not have known otherwise. But there may be other classes and courses available in your local community college, extension offices, and local shops that span a range of topics.