I recently got John Seymour's book: Forgotten Household Crafts from the library and I really enjoyed this in his introduction so I thought I would share it with you.
""I'm only a housewife, I'm afraid." How often do we hear this shocking admission. I'm afraid when I hear it I feel very angry indeed. Only a housewife: only a practitioner of one of the two most noble professions (the other one is that of the farmer); only the mistress of a huge battery of high and varied skills and custodian of civilization itself. Only a typist perhaps! Only a company director, or a nuclear physicist; only a barrister; only the President! When a woman says she is a housewife she should say it with the utmost pride, for there is nothing higher on this planet to which she could aspire."
I guess I prefer the term Homemaker to housewife, but still I really like the thoughts he had.