Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Home Economics

I followed a recent link on Hathor the Cowgoddess' website, to this fantastic article "Home Economics, Sustainability, and 'The Mommy Wars.'" It's particularly interesting in light of our recent discussions about SAHM's and the "feminine mistake."

A snippet from her article:
And all of this focus on the women in question, and the impact of whether women work misses the basic point that for most of human history, children spent much more time with both parents than they do now, and that many of the negatives we attribute to the separation of children from their mothers might equally or more be said of the separation of children from their fathers.

2 comments:

  1. Okay, I've only had to time to get part-way through this(it is very long, but I must say that I really like this lady's logic. This recent experience with my husband being out of work made it abundantly clear to both of us that we really want to find a way to get him home all the time.

    I had 4 1/2 months with my best friend, and suddenly we get to see each other for maybe 4 hours a day. We hardly ever get the chance now to really talk and share our thoughts and amazements and feelings with each other. My kids, especially if they wake up after he leaves, have less than 2 hours with him from the time he gets home until bedtime. This is unacceptable in my book.

    As I have immersed myself in the small group of women on the Internet who are finding ways to bring their families back together, live frugally, and create their living from the land, I have become intrigued. I already knew that I wanted a house on a quiet bit of land somewhere, but I am finding that my eyes are being opened still further. Maybe a small, family farm where we as a family could work together to create the things we need and learn from each other. I already have a business that I work from home, but this makes me want to work even harder so we can get out of the rat-race that is not doing our family any favors, except making us dependant on a paycheck. Arrggh!

    Thank you, Rixa, for posting the link to this article. I will have to read it in pieces as I go about my day, but I definitely want to follow this line of logic. Intriguing and thought-provoking.

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  2. I'm only halfway through also, and I find it compelling so far. I always wondered why my parents were so antisocial when I was growing up; they seldom went out with other couples or entertained (except our extended family, which was often).

    Now I realize that all of that time they gave to each other and to us (rather than supper and book clubs, and sporting events, etc, etc) was a great gift, and probably has a lot to do with their strong marriage.

    Sounds like we're lucky if we enjoy our spouses and children enough to want to spend most of our time with them!

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