Customer Reviews

Building Her House AudioBook

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I found this book very encouraging, uplifting...teaching scripture based biblical womanhood in an easy to read book of short essays. Nancy Wilson doesn't sugar coat our duties as christian wives and mothers.

Thankfully, not all women want to rule the world, do heavy lifting, fight on the front lines, or have a need to compete with men to prove their worth or value. And for those women who want such things...this isn't the book for you.

Nancy Wilson practices what she preaches. And since I live in community with her, I get to see how her teaching has impacted the lives of her two daughters, her son, and many, many women. Her daughters are well-educated, intelligent, beautiful by any standards, witty, gutsy, courageous, fantastic Moms, and passionate about life. You won't find any repressed women in the Wilson family. I dare you to try. Her son married a very strong woman who would laugh out loud at the idea that submission equals repression.

If you married a man that isn't worthy of respect, a man who fails to take responsibility for his household, there's no wonder the words "submit" and "obey" make you cringe. The difficult truth is, you might have had something to do with the fact that he's not very respectable. In which case, you might want to read this book and "How to be Free from Bitterness, and Other Essays on Christian Relationships

In this book, Nancy Wilson covers the topics: Service, Family Relationships, Marriage, Mothering, and Attitudes. She writes from a life experience of loving her husband, raising her children, and living in a community where accountability is held in high regard.

Why am I giving four stars? Because there's always room for improvement.

I was very excited about receiving this book after reading the selection posted on Amazon. I have been married 5 years and we recently had our first child. I am at a new stage in my life where I need godly guidance on how to raise my family. I thought this book would offer that. Instead, it infuriated me. There are many references in the book to her family drinking alcohol. Now, I realize that not every Christian is a teetotaller, but the author should at least respect the fact that a large percentage of Christians choose to refrain from alcohol for various reasons, and should aim to not offend. She paints alcohol out to be a necessity in family dinners. That's right, family dinners, with young children. As the wife of a youth pastor, I see the extreme danger that elevating alcohol can have on young children who do not know well enough how to discern from the evil the world has turned alcohol into. I am not one who think that alcohol is never okay, but I am one who believes that in this day and age in America where alcohol has become an extremely worldly lust, maturing Christians should abstain from it to protect their own walk and the walk of others who are also striving to grow in their faith. When a high percentage of the population is prone to alcoholism and I can clearly see the death and destruction it causes, I certainly don't want to be the Christian that someone looked up to and saw drinking and thought to himself, "Well, if they can do it, then it must be okay for me." I am very surprised the author was willing to put herself in this dangerous situation.
"Woe to the world because of things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!" Matthew 18:7
In summary, I am leary about the spiritual accuracy of the rest of the book, so while I am sure some chapters offer godly guidance, my discernment has forced me to set it aside. I will by no means recommend it to my friends, family, or church members.

There are few things I love more than Christian essays and cozy home-books. When I spotted this book, the title and adorable essay titles in the Table of Contents drew me in right away, even though Nancy Wilson and her bear-trap ideas of womanhood generally have me making tracks really fast. This looked cozy, adorable, and of course challenging too, all in one book! Yet, I forced myself to do what I dreaded: looking into the book to make sure there weren't any points that I just couldn't endure. Unfortunately, there were; a lot more than I feared.

First, though, I'm going to discuss the good parts. Once I decided to ignore the offensive chapters, I allowed myself to appreciate all the many gems of wisdom. Aside from certain limitations Wilson puts on gender, she can be a woman of wonderful groundedness and sense. This book's good parts lie in the family stories and the Christian advice and uplifting words for women. Wilson put together an awesome, warm package of wisdom, experience, and reflections from the past, all of which were wonderfully written. These gems, in the end, are what made the book irresistible to me and convinced me to buy it. The book would have been perfect, if Nancy hadn't allowed the typical Wilson patriarchal tone to occasionally seep in. As for that..

Generally with women like Wilson, it's the issue of submission (or in her case, obedience) in a marriage that I detest most of all. Of course, there was plenty of that here; in the section on marriage, she tried to feed the reader her usual dose of oily "obey your man" medicine. In this case, though, it was primarily her "Little House on the Prairie" ideas of girlhood that exasperated me greatly.

Firstly, according to Wilson, parents must monitor the kind of sports their daughters play very carefully. Football and hockey, Wilson announces, are too masculine for girls. Secondly, while wisely acknowledging the fact that girls SHOULD play some sports, she practically pulls a muscle advising mothers to carefully monitor their daughters' femininity while doing so. If girls get too tough or masculine, they must be pulled out of these sports right away, Wilson says. More unbelievably, though, is the fact that inspite of Wilson's apparent phobia of "masculine" sports, she insists that girls can remain feminine and soft while playing games like volleyball. She actually says, "We can work the grain in this way, teaching girls to remain beautiful and feminine while serving or hitting the ball." Of course sporty girls are still attractive and feminine, but when it comes to the middle of a game and focusing on the task at hand, this shouldn't be the main focus. No serious game-player respects a girl who worries about breaking a nail, for example; if girls are that caught up in their looks while playing a game, they really have no business playing.

Along with the "looks are more important than goals" theme, Wilson also supported the age-old stereotype that girls shouldn't be taught the same tough endurance that boys are. Her actual words were, "Boys need to be taught to get hit and take it, while girls need love and security." This is sports, Wilson, not marriage; if you're not tough, get out of there. Besides, I've always resented the idea that girls must be taught to have delicate hides, while boys should practically be pushed through meat grinders. I have no doubt countless parents in the old days would coddle a girl who scratched herself, while yelling at a boy to "be tough" after falling off his bicycle and getting a bump on his head. Wilson, boys are not made of stone and girls are not made of satin. Women are meant to be partners to their brothers in Christ for the battle of God, and this can never happen if they're taught from childhood to shove boys in the frontlines and hide behind them.

Wilson also offers a bunch of patronizing advice on channeling young girls' behavior into her own limited views of lady-hood. She says that if a little girl refuses to wear a dress, her mother should "laugh gently and instruct her otherwise". If a girl insists on wearing a baseball cap, her behavior must be stopped. While discussing the faults certain mothers make in uneffective womanhood-training, Wilson mentions that certain mothers are guilty of "sins of omission". All very true, but do you know what one of these "sins" was? Failing to teach your daughter how to put on make-up. Ladies, I'd call this carelessness (or maybe forgetfulness, since God knows there are more important things for wives and mothers to worry about), but implying that it's a sin? Wilson really thinks this is serious stuff! She says, "It's no use for you to say, 'I don't know how', because you'd better learn fast or else take out your wallet and get someone else to teach her." All I can say is, if teaching your daughter make-up is at the top of your list, you need more than cosmetic tips. All the most troubled girls I've ever seen know perfectly well how to apply make-up; it's the more important things in life that they have no knowledge of.

In short, I just couldn't tolerate the fuzzy picture of femininity Wilson tries to paint. There are many shades of womanhood and they're not all pink and coral. Wilson says we should laugh out loud at the world's definition of womanhood? Well, all my laughs would be at her ideas, if I didn't think them in the least harmful. In the future, if I want advice about raising tough kids (of both genders) from conservative people, I think I'll stick with Michael and Debi Pearl.

Aside from these flaws, the rest of the book is excellent. I've found that Wilson has excellent advice for raising sons (usually) inspite of her often failed logic regarding femininity. If you found yourself agreeing with all of my objections, then I'd simply suggest you skip the chapters "Submission", "Tomboy", and "Daughters and Sports". (Do NOT skip the chapter called "Mothers and Daughters", though. Great stuff there).

Btw, why doesn't the woman on the cover have a head? I'd prefer to see her face and eyes, not her housedress and oven mitts; they're not exactly good as identifying traits.