For
nonfiction I read New Domesticity by Emily Matchar. It started with an article she wrote about the popularity of Mormon mommy bloggers and turned into a book
about a growing cultural phenomenon. A lot of women are going country, keeping
it simple, and blogging about it.
One of the points Matchar made that I really
enjoyed was how much money some of these women make of their blogs. Most of
their devoted followers don’t realize the ad space sold or product placement
deals made. It’s also an obvious outlet for mom to connect to other adults and
get validation. Part of Betty Freidan’s feminine mystique was the lack of solidarity
and stimulation those women faced.
The problem
with blogging is that we never seen the first attempt at a recipe that looked
awful, tasted worse, and made the kitchen look like a disaster. Everyday women
are comparing their private life with the public life these women choose to
share. While I think it’s great more people are getting into the ‘lost’
domestic arts, we can’t measure our attempts to someone else’s portrayal of
perfection.
One of
the things that ground my gears was all of these homesteaders saying how “feminist”
it was to opt out of the work place. I’ll readily agree that the modern
American workplace is not kind to mothers. In the DC area, daycare costs can
run as much as $1,600 a month. Combine that with hesitancy to promote “undedicated”
mothers and a recession making raises a rarity and women have a reason to opt
out. Staying at home might be different or even radical but running away from
the problem is not a feminist solution. It just lowers the glass ceiling for
the rest of us. It’s a man’s world but a feminist solution would be to try to
make the workplace less hostile for working parents and stop this BS discrimination
on women who dare have children.
One of
my favorite points that Matchar made was that almost all of the women who weren’t
working were depending on someone else’s income. Many survived on their partner’s
salary or made very risky decisions. One family skipped health insurance while
another opted not to give their children a college fund.
Skipping vaccinations
because a deeply Christian Dr. Sears says mommy knows best is irresponsible and
dangerous, as evidenced by the measles outbreak at Disneyland. One burst
appendix or outbreak of measles and you have a very deep financial hole. The
most extreme example of ‘mommy knows best’ was from Parenting magazine. An HIV
positive mother who didn’t believe HIV caused AIDS and happily breastfed her
baby. They were both dead from AIDS within a few years.
Matchar
did an entire section on how some people are leaning so far left they’re in
line with the extreme right. Attachment parenting and homeschooling might suit
women once they’ve left the stimulation of the workplace but what about once
they’re kids hit adolescence and want to go to public school? Will they be
prepared socially? What will mom do once her primary source of identity wants
independence? People have to make decisions about what best suits their family but
we should stop glamourizing such extremes.
There’s
a big difference between a hipster mom taking a few years off and starting an
Etsy shop for her knitting to make extra money and another mother quitting the
modern world (health insurance and all) to get back to what’s “natural.”
Hemlock is natural but that doesn’t make it inherently good.
The hippies of the
1960’s eventually simmered and I suspect this will as well. Living in a viral
world lets this spread far and wide very readily but I think 10 years from now
it will balance out. Right now the trend is still growing and will be
interesting to watch what happens.
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