Revolution Starts at Home
A growing movement of "Radical Homemakers," whose mission it is to promote ecological sustainability, social justice, and family and community well-being, see themselves as an integral part of the United States moving from an extractive economy to a life-serving economy. According to the activist and economist David Korten the goal of a life-serving economy "is to generate a living for all, rather than a killing for a few."
For Radical Homemaker Shannon Hayes this means, "our resources are sustained, our waters are kept clean, our air remains pure, and families can lead meaningful and joyful lives." Despite college degrees and a high income potential, mothers, and dads, single-parents, and those childless, like Shannon view the home, not the workplace, as the starting point for social change.
In a nation plagued by alarming civil statistics: soaring school drop-out rates, poor health, an epidemic of depression, thoughtless consumption and some of the longest hours worked by any industrial nation, perhaps it's time Americans viewed wealth not in dollars but good sense?
Image: "Ruokala Lokki" by CielChen on Flicker, courtesy of Creative Commons.
- 7-9-10
- Marisa Smith's blog
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we've been there all along
Maybe it’s the worldwide fervor of “going green,” in the growing climate crisis or the media acceptance of ecology in the past decade that has allowed more book titles that appeal to the masses. Maybe now there is more demand for information from those of us who have been living it for the past 30 or 40 years, and who are now ready to take our places as teachers. Maybe now society is more ready and willing to listen to women’s voices that have been there all along.
But I’m really glad there are more books like this, that can appeal to a wide range of seekers. The more voices there are, the more people can be reached. And those of us who have studied environmentalism and spirituality and who have passed through our childbearing years at different times and rates, may now be more ready to contribute to the canon.
We have been there I agree
Through all the generations of women in my family and the familys of my (our) friends and relations. It has always been this way. Wealth or poverty have made little difference.
Mother of the Godless
It seems a shame that we even have to comment of "family" ... yet here we are apparently so far removed from an integrated community of families.
As we become "familiar" with one another ... "the only family that ever was" ... {all of us} ... will transcend the strangeness that turns sharing into business ... community into government ...
How easy it is to just leave it all behind ..
The Enlightened being says "Chop wood and carry water"
Mother says ... "chores, chores, chores"
.. 'lest we speculate upon all we do not know ... 'making a humanistic science out of our own lost nescience.
The mother of gods and goddesses ... 'lest the Freudian "monster of love" that all ones pathologies are formed around
Another helping Ma, Please!
Of course this is not a new phenomenom, yet many women, couples, single parents, etc. do not know there is an alternative way to live. Convenience trumps all, even happy living, but many are unaware of the consequences of ease.
I do not see 95% of women in my Chicago suburb riding bikes and hanging laundry. I see them piloting large SUVs from their subdivision homes shuffling their children from one event to another while the kids munch Pop-tarts, sip drinks from disposable containers, and watch movies from the back seat.
As the mother of three teens, I see this next generation making strides toward happiness. I include in this happiness sustainablitiy, social justice, and welfare out of both necessity and desire. Most will not have learned these things from their homes so they will need instruction. Radical Homemaking could fill in the gaps.
I recently spent a week with my seventy six year old mother who was reared by parents from Europe. We had wondrous conversations about all the things these two immigrants knew how to do and how well they lived. They were surely not wealthy, but they lived a life of grace, where happiness reigned instead of chaos. I thanked my mother for passing on these values to me, even when they were not popular.
My Bulgarian grandfather grafted grape vines to produce multiple varieties on one plant, tended fruit trees (no pesticides here), kept bees, and was the town purveyor of pine trees, many of which I am able to see still growing when visiting the small eastern Pennsylvania town on visits home. He made wine in his basement and shared it often, much to my grandmother's annoyance, with their international group of friends who, all told, spoke six different languages between them and honed their knowldege of world affairs through reading and conversation.
His German wife made soap, weaved carpets, sewed clothes for seven daughters, grew and preserved their food. Once a year she whitewashed her basement to keep it tidy. Hardy vegetables were stored for the winter in a large hole dug in the earth and lined with burlap that she prepared.
My grandparents are the model of sustainablitity that we need today. They used everything and overused nothing, and were happy people because of it.
Choices by all will lead the way.
Evolutionary Definitions of Family, Please
Advice for home