Seven years after Your Working Boy wrote a book about the subject, Emily Matchar discovers that there is something about the attraction of domestic life and the crunchy, small-is-beautiful mentality that defies conventional political labels. Excerpt:

It’s hard to know what to make of all this. Crunchy progressives are arguing that quitting your job to become a homemaker is a radical feminist act, far-right evangelicals are talking about “women’s empowerment” via Etsy, lefty liberal writers are excoriating the First Lady for hating to cook, and dyed-in-the-wool conservatives are giving birth in their bathtubs with midwives and self-hypnosis tapes.

Both sides of the political spectrum turn to domesticity for many of the same reasons: distrust in government and institutions from the EPA to the public schools to hospital maternity wards, worries about the safety of the food supply, disappointment with the working world, the desire to connect with a simpler, less consumerist way of life.

The fact that domesticity is so appealing speaks to the failure of these systems. Until these things are fixed, I predict we’ll see an increasing number of people from all parts of the political spectrum deciding to go the DIY route with their food, their homes, their children. And yes, this will mean more progressive people opting for lifestyles that seem uncomfortably retro. But maybe too we’ll see Rush Limbaugh at the farmer’s market.

You don’t say! :::Cough, cough:::

Patrick Deneen notes, upon reading Matchar’s entire post, that she seems to be trying really hard to cling to her liberal/conservative, left/right categories. And:

Matchar doesn’t acknowledge the possibility that these “systems” can’t be “fixed” short of downsizing, re-localizing, and by becoming more personally and communally-invested in all these practices.  That is, what she can’t bring herself to acknowledge is that the “new domesticity” is a better and truer way than these “systems.” No, she wants them to be “fixed,” and I have a pretty good idea who and what will do the fixing.

I love this comment under Patrick’s FPR post about the Matchar bit:

I’ve never been on this site before, but stumbled on it by accident. My husband and I aren’t really of a liberal disposition, but we do, in fact, want to live more simply. I was born in the 80s, and as such, have never lived in a world where I wasn’t told constantly that I could be anything I wanted (except for a housewife, because despite that being exactly what my mother was, it was always made clear that this life-choice was simply not an option for me or my sisters) and that I should study hard so that I could have a sucessful professional life, and never need to depend on a man. Fast forward to 2009, I’m married now to an awesome Welshman, and we’re planning to move to Wales and buy a bit of land for our own. I’ve done everything my mother taught me not to. I’m married, I have a baby on the way (gasp! you’re much to young for a family!) and I’m moving to the other side of the Atlantic to hang out on a farm. I can veggies and make jam, I garden, I sew, I cook, I bake bread everyday, I knit, I teach my baby the basics (but she goes to Welsh School now.) I embroider, and you know what, I love every second of it. I’m not stupid, I read extensively, and I don’t feel like I’m short-changing myself just because I’m not out working for a company who doesn’t give two straws about me or my well being. I didn’t choose this life to be rebellious and do what I was told not to, I did it because my family is more important to me than some nameless faceless company that wouldn’t give two straws about me. I don’t hate business, business is important. But I feel that I’m doing more good in my home. My business is my family and it’s my job to make sure that I raise healthy, happy, moral children, and dare I say it….to take care of my husband and ensure that he has a good, happy life. I do it becuase I care, and because I love those that I share a life with. With that being said, I don’t consider myself a hippy or anything of the sort, I’m just trying to live my life and have a bit of peace because there’s a great big world out there, and it’s loud, scary, and often brutal. This is my way of making it a little less horrible.