Lucy Maud Montgomery as a Homemaker

Lucy Maud Montgomery  |  As a Child  |  As a Homemaker  |  As a Writer & Author  |  Lucy Maud & Mental Health

Maud’s responsibilities as a “homemaker” began at an early age because, as a young woman, she was expected to help with domestic tasks. When she visited her estranged father in Saskatchewan, at the age of sixteen,  she was treated as a maid and caregiver for her step-siblings, spending much of her visit helping around the house. 

In 1898, after a successful teaching career and gaining confidence as a writer, her grandmother needed her back at home, and she needed to put her career on pause to serve as the mistress of the house for the next thirteen years. In 1911, her grandmother passed away, and she married Ewan Macdonald a few months later. This was an exciting transition, but it brought much of the same domestic duties to her life. Her husband was a local minister, which meant she was expected to attend numerous church events and behave as a “proper” wife. 

“There is nothing harder to do than nothing, is there? My day starts at seven in the morning, and it lasts until twelve at night. There is breakfast to get, and my younger boy’s lunch to pack, routine work to see to… and then at nine o’clock I am at my desk and there I stay until twelve… I think every woman should have an earnest interest outside or rather independent of her home interests, but one which does not take her away from the supervision of her home and the care of her children.”

While writing was her passion, she put her role as a wife and mother first and, as a result, limited her time writing. The Macdonald family could afford assistants to help with the housekeeping more than most families at the time, but Maud saw these domestic tasks as a way to show her love. 

“While I do admit that well-trained help could do most of these things as well if not better than the wife and mother can, there is still something about the fact that a man’s wife, his son’s mother, doing for her family that makes the little acts mean more than if they were twice as efficiently done by someone else.”

Being a homemaker was quite restrictive and demanding, but she found joy in her domestic tasks of motherhood. Her responsibilities in this role went beyond the children as Maud worked to support her husband, who struggled with his mental health for many years. She served as his caretaker and worked to keep his condition secret, which took a toll on her own mental health as well.  Understanding the seemingly mundane aspects of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s life as a homemaker is essential to understanding her as a person and how her femininity restricted and empowered her.