Job description, please?

Here's a thought...How many of us stay at home mums, housewives have ever heard or been given the advice that part of our role is to make ourselves presentable for our husband's return at the end of the work day? It's never an oppressive or forced suggestion but it's presented in perhaps the same way as the age old wisdom of never going to bed on a cross word.

I do like to look good for my husband - I love to get ready for a day together or a night out but I somehow object to this notion that ten minutes before he walks in the door I should rush and slap on some makeup, brush my hair. Now, it's not that I don't do that (for the most part) but I don't want a voice in my head telling me I should or making me feel inadequate in my role if I don't.

You see, there are days when I have worked hard, very hard. I always joke about my lack of housewifery but I'm down there on my knees with the best of them. I will get that fluff from around the toilet, I will clean those skirting boards and I will even move the furniture instead of vacuuming around it! Along with making dinner, playing with Olive, getting her outside for some fresh air in the often chilly weather, getting the groceries in, and so on and so forth! Sometimes, just sometimes i don't want to paint my face and this impression that it was all in a day's work and I'm still perky and gorgeous. I want to say yes, it's all in a day's work but I'm a bit stinky and ragged and I'm looking forward to a shower this evening.

I would never 'expect' my husband to check his hair, straighten his tie and be wearing his suit jacket when he returns for work. He usually looks tired and dishevelled. I take this as a sign that it has been another day of 'work'. Shouldn't our appearance suggest the same? That we too have worked hard? I'm not saying that we need to be in our pj's, people, but if my top has the odd stain on it, what's the problem? Is there a problem?

Aren't we by perpetuating this stereotype somehow undoing years of feminism? Or am i just taking a few wise words too much to heart? Should we also be waiting with a smoking jacket and a martini?

What I'm saying is that we stay at home mums/homemakers/whateveryouwanttocallus work hard and work even harder to somehow prove that we work that hard...still with me? That we don't just watch soap operas and nap all day. So, why at the end of the day should I somehow find an extra ten minutes from nowhere to get ready...for...for what?

When both my husband and I were working outside of the home we often didn't know who would make it home first. We would both come in, take off our coats, kick off our shoes and walk to the bedroom and the first thing we would do would be to pull on "more comfortable clothing." Sometimes, I would work out after work and come in a sweaty beast...

For those stay at home dads, do you gel your hair and brush your teeth before your wife comes through the door?

Where did this advice come from? Is it so that the working husband wants to return to his stay at home wife at the end of the day...and is impressed and comforted that she looks just as good as the women he sees at work? Didn't Paul Newman say "Why go out for a hamburger when you have steak at home?" In which case, what about the wives that work that return to the home shattered with panda eyes where their mascara has been rubbed after a day hard at work...?

Now, I'm not saying there is anything WRONG with this but I just question that this advice is being still passed down. Is it outdated? Or, is it just words that work from women who know? Is this actually how marriages survive?

I'm just wondering...any thoughts...?