Every now and then I’m amused by the blogs that link to me. This one is quite exuberant. I just discovered it today and, being slow and careful to formulate opinions, I’m not sure yet what to make of it. Is it a valiant celebration of the art of homemaking? Or is it a feverish attempt to romanticize drudgery, to style it up, and thereby make some money off the concept? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve made my peace with drudgery—but not by dressing it up in a frilly apron.
There’s something desperate about the edges here that doesn’t ring true, for me, and yet if it inspires or gives joy I’m not going to knock it too hard. Simone de Beauvoir would have knocked it, we know that. (We must destroy the family ghetto!) I only mention her because I’ve been reading a bit of some of her work again. Virginia Woolf wrote that we think back through our mothers, if we are women. De Beauvoir thought back through her mother so hard it’s a wonder the poor woman’s head didn’t explode.
Her mother was unhappy as a housewife. De Beauvoir was determined not to suffer the same fate.
But what if her mother had been a happier, more well-nourished person? The whole history of feminism might have got off to a different start.
The more I read the more I simply think that the shoe which fits one, pinches another. It takes some time to find the right pair of shoes, but that's what youth is for. It's best just to avoid those people who would try to shove your feet into the wrong shoe. You know it's because their own shoes pinch and misery loves company.
To thine own feet be true.
11:09:17 AM 
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