BookNote: Rant

Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture by Shannon Hayes

Have you ever read a book and been so disgusted by it that you threw it across the room when you were finished with it? That is exactly what I did with Hayes’s Radical Homemakers. This well-researched and highly praised “new” idea of family members eschewing the 2-income households that are so prevalent in our American society and adopting a wholesome and home-centered life so outraged me I returned it to the library the minute I could. I just had to get the sickening and contemptible piece of literary rubbish out of my sight and home.

But a few weeks later I was thinking about some of the material in the book and requested it from the library again. It has taken 6 months or so for me to get it back. My fascination was with the (what I thought were 6 but were actually) 7 qualities of a Radical Homemaker.

Before I get to those qualities, though, I must explain about my indignation around the book. Ms. Hayes’s notion of “radical” homemaking is nothing new! Our foremothers and –fathers have done it for generations. And many of us have been “radical” for decades.

You see, technically, according to Hayes, I and many of my favorite people on the planet qualify as Radical Homemakers. Most of us have been Radical Homemakers since entering adulthood. In fact, horrifyingly for me and my later childhood, my own mother became a Radical Homemaker when I was about 11 years old! In 1972!

The reason that I am enraged and affronted by the message of the book isn’t that I don’t believe in the Radical Homemaker movement, because it’s a way of life I have chosen and would never change. It is because WE RADICAL HOMEMAKERS HAVE BEEN HERE FOR A LONG TIME. WHEN IT WAS NOT POPULAR OR COOL OR SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE OR ADMIRABLE OR “BRILLIANT” OR “VISIONARY” OR “PRACTICAL” as one review of the book stated.

It seems to me that when you choose a lifestyle that goes against the grain of society, when you are publicly mocked, ignored, discriminated against, made fun of, looked down on and rejected by the general population, that is actually RADICAL. And, interestingly enough, we True Radicals are many of the people that Hayes’s newfangled, cool, and popular Radical Homemakers seek out as mentors and teachers.

Well, that’s my rant. I will review the book in more detail in the future.