Homemaking returns…with a new name

By Jennifer Bowman

Radical homemakers. It’s a combination of stay-at-home parents, not unlike the stay-at-home parents in the beginning of the century, and environmentally conscious people. It’s a way of making a housewife sound more glamorous and giving stay-at-home dad a whole new meaning. In a way, it’s going back to Canadian roots and the hard work and family values that defined the country’s infancy. Ironically, so much of it seems exactly what feminists were trying to get away from. Now more and more people are embracing it.

The difference is, these people are making the choice. They want to do it, they don’t feel enslaved by having to do it.

In the article, “Meet the radical homemaker: Goodbye rat race, hello vegetable garden,” in The Globe and Mail, Wency Leung said, “Although today’s homemakers are returning to the home front, they’re doing it ‘with a sense of not being consumers in the home, but being producers, which takes a whole other level of sophistication.’”

It’s the same work, with a different attitude.

Stay-at home parents have traditionally been thought of as moms. Taking it back to the beginning of the century, this was not entirely the case. Women did most of the house and garden work, but since it was an agrarian-based society, men were at home too. They took care of the often physically demanding farm work. It was a family life-style.

Being a radical homemaker in many ways mirrors that society. It is a demanding lifestyle. That means there is a much greater time investment at home, which in turn means something else has to suffer, namely, a job.

By spending more time at home, it is impossible for two people to put the same amount of hours in at work and still have time for family and community – two of the major benefits listed for this lifestyle. Having a garden, preserving their own food, making their own soap, bartering services for essentials like eggs and milk all cut back on life style expenses immensely. That is part of what being a radical homemaker is all about. Self-sufficiency. There are still the necessities that need to be paid though, such as rent or mortgage, taxes, and transportation. Sometimes money gets tight. Then they have to get resourceful. It becomes a “roll-up-our-sleeves moment” said Rick Juliusson, one of the stay-at-home dads who was interviewed. He described some financially tight times, but said their standard of living hasn’t dropped.

Some of these people run small businesses from their homes to help bring in extra income while still being at home. It’s not a soap-opera-watching stay-at-home mom job, that’s for sure. It’s work, hard work.

Stay-at-home parents may be making a come-back, but there are people who have stuck to it all along. They held their heads high when society tried to convince them they should walk around shame-facedly for their stay-at-home decision. In society’s eyes, staying at home was the epitome of failure. There was not chance of success with that kind of life. Will it take a term, such as “radical homemaker” to inspire respect for homemakers again?

As family farms decrease, maybe hobby farms will increase. Radical homemakers are on the rise. The grass roots are rippling, how far will the wind take the seed?