The 2021 Guide to Being the Perfect Housewife

Children should be seen and not heard, from a distance of at least 50 yards. You’ve seen all the traumatizing reports about child rearing during a pandemic, and would not bring that kind of emotional distress upon you or your spouse.

Remember, your spouse’s job is absolutely essential. But maybe not as essential as your job, where you make $50k more than he does without leaving the house.

When your spouse comes home from work, greet him with a kiss and a bottle of hand sanitizer. After all, he’s been at Trader Joe’s all day managing a bunch of hipsters — not to mention the snot filled customers (you wish he’d never told you that story).

Practice smiling, nodding, and looking agreeable. This will come in handy when you have an important video call that you can’t feign bad wifi on.

Put extra love and care into making lunch for your spouse to take to work. Then hold it over him for the next three weeks as a way to watch whatever show you want.

Keep a clean, tidy home by making sure the Roomba is charged. Post videos of your cat sitting on the roomba to instagram, for the public good.

Exercise regularly to keep your figure, whatever that figure is. Your local CrossFit misses you too, and appreciates you keeping your membership even if it’s just for a zoom call once a week.

Never tell your husband he should exercise. Besides, he’s lost more weight since working at Trader Joe’s than he has in the past five years.

Look your best, do your hair and put on makeup when you need a way to keep your hands busy, so you don’t spend the next 40 minutes on Instagram scrolling through videos of corgis dressed as unicorns. Also if you have a really, really, really important zoom call.

Have dinner ready on the table every evening for your family, by supporting local restaurants. They need our business, and so do the Uber Eats delivery drivers (of course, you tip big!)

Talk about your spouse’s hopes and dreams with him, even though the pandemic has made it clear that his career as a stand up comedian is never going to happen and also, he’s been happier than he ever has been before working at Trader Joe’s.