Are You A Radical Homemaker?

Radical Homemakers live a life where significantly less money is earned, and basic necessities are produced or otherwise procured.  Packages from the mall, plastic-wrapped food, designer labels and television sets are seldom seen inside these households.  Rather, they are filled with books, simmering pots, some dirty dishes, musical instruments, seedlings, wood shavings, maybe some hammers or drills, sewing machines, knitting baskets, canned peaches and tomato sauce, jars of sauerkraut, freezers with hunted or locally raised meat, and potted herbs.  

Outside the door there are no multiple new cars or manicured lawns.  Whether in the country or the city, one is likely to find a garden plot or potted tomatoes, fruit trees, bicycles, probably a used car, shovels, spades, compost bins, chicken, maybe a wandering goat or some other livestock, and laundry blowing in the breeze.  These people are producing their life, not buying it. 

The more homemakers are able to do for themselves ~ whether it be cooking, preserving or growing food, mending clothing or purchasing it used, fixing cars and appliances to avoid replacing them, cleaning with vinegar and water rather than toxic chemicals, or making rather than buying gifts and toys ~ the less time they exchange for money, the fewer natural resources they require from the planet, and the less they rely upon the global extractive economy. {Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes}

So, are you a radical homemaker?  Remember the phrase "barefoot and pregnant"?  That is all I dreamed about being when I grew up.  There is nothing more beautiful to me than a mother at home tending to her family.   Our society has done everything it can to take mothers out of the home and away from their children, beginning with day care, being in public school many hours a day, careers for mothers, malls, restaurants, etc.  Don't let society suck you into its ways but head in the opposite direction, the one that God intends for us.

My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, 

in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.

Isaiah 32:18