Home Fire #1 - Introduction

Home Fire

Introduction

I have a full-time job for which my only qualification is my uterus. Sure, I went to school, even earned a graduate degree—summa. A lot of good that does me now. I am an at-home mom.

I have absolutely no training for this position.

Professionally, I taught college-level philosophy and psychology for five and a half years. Three of those same years I was an editor. I have no formal background in family finances; food and nutrition; home maintenance, repair, and improvement, anything that would have equipped me in the slightest for this job.

I’m not alone in being completely unprepared to handle the responsibilities of a “domestic engineer,” as it shows up on Mensa’s list of occupations. Ours was the first generation of American women for whom it was possible to receive virtually no training in home economics. Born in and around the ’70s, our mothers went off to work to help meet the mortgage, feed the family, and some to pursue aspirations. At school we were told we didn’t have to stay home. We could do and be whatever we put our minds to. Cooking and cleaning and child-care were cultural expectations of a bygone, oppressive era, not the natural state of the human female. I, for one, received as much education in “family resource management” as I did in welding. That is to say, three weeks.

Now here we are, with our careers eating 40+ hours a week. More often than not we work because we have to, not because it’s on our path to self-actualization. The reasons have changed little from our mother’s era — to meet the mortgage; feed, dress, and educate the kids; or, a new twist, because we are single parents or could be any day. So we work, hard and a lot. And we’ve found that the cooking, cleaning, and parenting still have to be done by someone. Sure, a few of us have found enlightened partners who take on their fair share of the work, but many more of us have not.

I come from this collection of ambitions and expectations, the have-it-all mentality that leads to the hurry-hurry, go-go way of life, with never enough time and always too much stress. So, what happens when someone like me decides to step aside from the race? Does the mortgage still get paid? Are the right schools still an option? Will I go completely insane? Will I spiral into debt and find myself unmarketable when I return (some might say inevitably) to the workplace?

Such is my experiment. The essays gathered here will record my ongoing adventure. I expect (and not so secretly hope) my perspective will appear different from other “you too can be a stay-at-home mom” voices. This is so for at least three reasons.

First, growing up a punk rocker in the ’80s left me with a healthy mistrust of corporate capitalism and materialism in general; a belief that creativity, spontaneity, and going against the grain is somehow morally superior to participating in the status quo; and the word “epiphany” tattooed across the back of my skull.

My undergraduate years do provide some useful tools. A B.A. in religious studies and psychology has made life somewhat more understandable and at times more entertaining, as well as very occasionally providing facts that turn out to be useful. More than specific facts, though, I have benefited from a knee-jerk reaction to look to books to find answers. While there are several situations I face now that no one’s written about, at least not directly, there are just as many with substantial bodies of literature devoted to them. I don’t study subjects as exhaustively as I used to. I am motivated only to solve the problem. I no longer dread missing some crucial fact, the absence of which will make me a laughing stock and ruin my chances of employment in perpetuity. Now I only read until the thought of another book on the subject makes me run screaming from the threat of insufferable boredom.

Finally, a graduate degree in sustainability left me with a firm understanding that humanity is on a bright and shiny path that leads right over a very steep cliff. I maintain the position that solutions to the problems of sustainability will come through large and small scale acts of creativity, simplicity, and conservation.

These are the lenses that most tint my vision. Other than that, I’m just another middle-class American girl who’s found herself in a place other than she had planned. I present here those things that have helped me make the best of it and some of the things I’ve ignored or chosen not to do. Different situations demand different actions. If you are reading this, it’s possible that you are seeking ideas or commiseration. I hope you find what you’re looking for.

Home Fire

Amy Vaughn