In an article entitled “Eco-Housewives - Enlightened Caregivers or Feminist Nightmare?” found in the Fall 2008 issue of Brain, Child magazine, Tracy Sutton interviewed Shannon Hayes, a self-proclaimed Uber-Mom and “enlightened homemaker.” As such, her goal, as she explained to Sutton, “Cuts out the consumerist middleman and asks people to work hard for what benefits their family and their community directly.” In other words, Hayes lives with her family on a farm where they grow their own food, she gets up at 2:30am to milk the cows, and her family buys everything second-hand and trades their clothes and baby gear with others in their community. This is all in an attempt to stay out of our consumerist culture as much as possible.

Now first, let me make a little disclaimer on behalf of . . . myself: I wanted, and expected, to love the ideas touted by Hayes. I fully prepared myself to finish the piece and promptly relocate my family out into the wilderness somewhere and build a cabin next to our newly-planted organic vegetable garden. I am easily influenced by the whole eco-movement, and proud to be as involved as I can in that endeavor. I tell you this to make sure you know I did not have any sort of negative preconceived notions about what this woman would say - in other words, I didn’t want to fight; I wanted to agree and be inspired.

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