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260 of 266 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thank you for the vindication!, March 15, 2010
This review is from: Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture (Paperback)
This is a very subjective and emotional review, admittedly, BUT I just wanted to thank this author for lifting the monkey of guilt off my back: the one that's been living there, whispering little nasties in my ear, ever since I left my Ph.D. program, abandoned my dissertation, shocked my fellow feminist academicians, disappointed my ambitious father, and exchanged the career track for two decades of living simply, raising my daughters,and doing our little part to save the environment.
Back in 1991, when my second daughter was born, my husband and I had no "manifesto" to explain our decision to scale back our lives. No one had attached a "name" to the conclusion I reached--after an ordeal of soul-searching, self-doubt, and even recrimination--that staying home with my babies, scaling back our ambitions and our lifestyle, and throwing my energies into raising our own organic food, becoming caretaker to a large flock of (although we didn't call them that at the time) natural, pastured chickens, of spending many, many hours volunteering with other like-minded women in our community health food cooperative, of devoting time and effort to various environmental organizations and causes, working for politicians who had believed as we did, and--most importantly--unschooling my two girls so that the world became their classroom and their minds were not limited by pedagogy or ideology, was THE most worthwhile use of my time, my passions, and my talents.
Nope. It was just a bizarre detour from my carefully laid, feminist plans. This was a life choice my husband and I HAD to make, because in our hearts we could accept no other, but society (and my own critical, Intellectual Self) sneered at our rusticity, our modest income, my domesticity, our family-centered existence. And I never, ever was able to dispel the vague shame that I had somehow, some way, failed myself and my feminist beliefs.
It was a lonely row to hoe, back then. My colleagues went on to professorships, acclaim, even some modest fame. I collected eggs, read to my children (and then taught them to read) picked and jammed strawberries, marched in parades for liberal politicians, stuffed envelopes for "good causes" and made ends meet. By conventional standards, I had "wasted my valuable education" and yet--when I looked at those healthy, happy, flourishing faces smiling up at me like sunflowers,when my Little Family paused at the end of a quiet, green, sunny spell of learning,playing and experiencing the day ON OUR OWN SCHEDULE,when I saw the stress that eroded the contentment of so many of my contemporaries (the rushing and dashing and scheduling and conflicting desires)our choices seemed right for us, and no waste at all. But...how I wish I'd had a greater sense of community! Of someone else to say, "Oh, yes...we reached the same conclusions and made the same "sacrifices" and we don't think you are nuts."
THIS book is that long-awaited community, that absolution of the last vestiges of guilt ("Quitter...Quitter"..taunted the little voice in my ear) still remaining, 20 years later. For publishing this, you have my deepest, most heartfelt gratitude.
(Oh, and it's a fantastic, well-written, carefully researched, intelligent read, as well!)
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81 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting topic, but a poorly written book., December 9, 2010
I really expected to like this book, but it had so many glaring flaws I just couldn't. For one thing, it needs a different title. As others have already pointed out, it should be called Radical Homesteading because that is what the book is really about (although the "radical" is extraneous since it's pretty much exactly what homesteaders do, not just the "radical" ones). If your parents don't already have a farm you can live on and/or you have no interest in rural life, there's nothing here for you. Even if you buy into what she is saying and want this life for yourself and your family, the book offers no practical suggestions for achieving it--again, unless you come from a family who will give you land, or is willing to pay your bills while you remove yourself from the "extractive economy".
The book is divided into two parts. Part one is entitled "Why" and part two is entitled "How", but she never actually delivers on the how. She, and most of the people she interviewed either live on land provided to them by their parents from a family farm or are having some portion of their bills paid by their families (student loans, health insurance, etc.).
She makes some good points here and there--in fact I'd say overall I agree with of her core ideas-- but the historical interpretation is questionable at best, the whole thing is poorly researched and written, and in the end it really never offers any practical advice. The good points she does make have all been made before--by far better writers. Additionally, it comes off as preachy and privileged with it's all-or-nothing stance.
Hayes seems completely blind to her own privilege. The vast majority of the people in the book, Hayes included, have college degrees and come from solidly middle class backgrounds. There is a lot of talk about how unimportant income is to them, yet most of the people in the book have household income which put them in the third income quintile in the US (based on the figures from 2005) and some are in the fourth quintile or higher. (Interestingly, the income from the family in which one parent is a medical doctor is not given.) Nearly all are well above the poverty line. There is a complete lack of recognition for the fact it is much easier to be unconcerned about income when your income is large enough to sustain yourself and your family.
Hayes is correct our culture is overrun by consumerism and far too many people fail to understand the real cost of what they own (or even want to own). However, she misses the opportunity to educated people about making better, more life-sustaining choices by presenting the options as a strict either/or. Although she backpedals a bit at the very end of the book, her philosophy is largely presented as an all-or-nothing proposition. If you aren't growing all your own food on your family farm while homeschooling your children, you and your spouse must be working a 60+ hour a week at jobs you hate so together you can earn the six figure income it requires to afford a McMansion in the suburbs and two brand new cars while sticking your kids in daycare and eating all of your meals out of take-out bags in front of the tv. She blatantly ignores the fact, statistically speaking, very few people are actually living that life.
I also found it interesting Hayes encouraged readers to turn their backs on the "extractive economy" and live off the land, but she was fine with people taking money from family members who worked for jobs which were part of the same system they were eschewing. I was also a bit baffled by the rationalizations of the families who turned their backs on the "extractive economy" to become self-sustaining units of production, but then sought out and accepted government aid.
I won't take the time to point out all of the nonsense (asthma caused by working parents, homeschooling to avoid E. coli, pre-industrial life re-envisioned as utopia, etc.), since several other reviewers have already done so.
I was surprised by how much I disliked this book. When it was suggested for our book group I was really excited to read it. But unfortunately it just didn't deliver. Even if you are already a true believer, there isn't much here for you.
The core ideas behind this book are important and certainly ripe for discussion in our current culture. But, they need to be supported by adequate research and practical solutions which can be implemented by those who aren't living on their family's farm.
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116 of 122 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Perhaps well-intentioned but definitely misguided, September 13, 2010
This review is from: Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture (Paperback)
Shannon Hayes and her husband made a personal choice after college to step back into the same kind of "simple" rural life in which she had been raised. Seeing the many advantages this brought to her family, she chose to do graduate work researching how others making similar choices felt about their "radical" lives. The first half of the book recounts "the history of domesticity and feminism" while the second part provides input from those she interviewed, " to give a clear picture of the many ways this lifestyle can work."
Though Hayes attempted to find "radical homemakers" in a wide range of neighborhoods, the lifestyle "works" best for those in rural communities. Even the urbanites included tend to be in areas where they can raise a few chickens in the backyard or have ready access to thriving farmers' markets.
Those who step back from the rat race that our consumer-focused culture has become are to be commended, but there is a disturbing kind of nostalgia for the past that these case studies don't really touch. Hayes idealizes earlier agrarian times while conveniently forgetting that life for many--most--in those times was, quoting Hobbes, "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short." She emphasizes health care as an area where expenditures were far lower in the past, with many homemade remedies published in cookbooks of the early 19th century, forgetting that mortality rates were also much higher prior to the many advancements of modern science.
Hayes too often gives, inadvertently or not, an elitist spin to the topic. She brags at being able to live a "radical homemaker" existence on $45,000 annually--even though the median family income in 2008 was just over $52,000. She fails to recognize that there are "connections" her highlighted case studies have beyond those of an "average" family or couple are likely to be able to rely on. For example, she notes that her own family was able to live in South America for several months while she did research for a book, an unlikely possibility for almost all the population.. Another family includes a husband who stays home while his wife works--not so unusual anymore, except that his wife is a physician, not a secretary or customer service rep or any of many far more common occupations.
Overall, while the concept is one that should continue to be explored, Hayes' book is less satisfying than I had hoped and certainly not one with suggestions for escaping the consumerist trap that could be used by more than a tiny fraction of the population. As an earlier reviewer noted, it would not be possible (or wise) for the world's vastly expanded population to go back to the kind of life she romanticizes. The current overly materialistic culture we live in in the West needs to be changed, but Hayes does not provide a workable solution for more than a few, ironically privileged individuals and families.
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