I feel this so much. Just opened a cookbook of my mom’s from the 70s and it was from a women’s group they all made and contributed to a cookbook every year, but they would meet and do service things and just potluck and support each other... I was sad there wasn’t something like this now
See this is what I mean! It’s all really so simple. I think it’s easy to get carried away with details and overcomplicate things and get overwhelmed but really it’s as simple as a shared meal and shared commitment to show up.
EMILY, YES. Gorgeous. Being in the regular company of other women doing the sacred work of home and children is something I deeply crave and don’t have enough of.
Regarding my own stuff, I’ve been making concerted efforts at decluttering because I am a terrible housekeeper and owning less makes it all easier. I’m also trying to be better at basic homemaking habits: meal planning as priority número uno, picking up at certain times of the day, doing the damn dishes, etc. Like, the basics. I feel like I looked down at this work for years and now the universe is laughing at me and my incompetence🙃
I loved this part in particular: “We have to reshape our smallest societies (the society of the home and family) in order to help reshape the larger ones. This is because home and the family are microcosms of society at large, and instead of allowing society at large to fully and blatantly influence us, we must make an active choice to exert influence outward instead. Subvert at all costs, ladies.” Think I’ll make myself a big old post-it that says SUBVERT and put it square on my fridge next to my grocery list💃🏼
Ok those are my thoughts from bath time supervision-- grateful for you!
I frequently think about the waulking and women’s groups and how we are severely lacking such spaces now. We’re moving into a new home and my first order of business after getting settled is to start reaching out to other women in our local “crunchy” groups to see if people want to meet in person for potlucks or sewing circles etc. I feel like those type of fb groups are very hit or miss usually, but gotta start somewhere. Loved the YouTube ep you linked too.
That’s wonderful that you have a plan! The closest friends I have made in the area we most recently moved to are from FB homeschool groups so you are right, it can be hit or miss, but you do have to start somewhere! A sewing circle sounds so perfect too. Best of luck in finding some new women to befriend 💕
This piece was healing in so many ways. I have also been longing for a community of women and mothers to gather with semi-regularly but it’s been so hard to find. I have a few mom friends but none of them live close to me, although I do meet with some of them when I can.
I loved your list of things to work on. Thank you for being so real. Although I am a stay at home mom, I consider myself an aspiring homemaker because my home is always a mess no matter how hard I try. Having an almost two year old who is a Velcro baby and a boob barnacle on top of being almost 27 weeks pregnant makes things very hard. But I aspire to be a good homemaker, particularly when it comes to cooking and cleaning. I have been doing a good amount of knitting lately, although it has been at the expense of many house chores. Oops.
Your life sounds like it parallels mine! And congratulations on that new baby! Homemaking is a skill that I truly believe takes a lot of time to learn and hone, I’m so grateful for the experience to hone my own even if it may be overwhelming! I’m in the aspirational phase too, we shall get there in good time.♥️
Thank you for your warm words! And yes I agree! THIS is the relatable mom content that I am looking for! And yes you are right, we will get there in good time! Here’s to being the homemakers we want to be one day! 💗
Relate to this so so much! I also have so many things on my heart I want to offer and invite my community into but I have to be patient with my own energy system as I’m also mothering an almost five month old. But I definitely long for a community of women and have been actually seeking it for so, so very long it seems. Part of it was moving through a season of getting into right relationship with women after I had most of my female friendships die off in my young adult years.
I think so many of us are in this spot, and it’s a tough spot to be in. Mothering young children in a space and time where there is no built-in female support system is hard, having to facilitate and build that system while also fulfilling our responsibilities as mothers is harder! I almost see us as a transitional generation-like we have to choose to bridge the best of the previous generations in the ways they made time to sit with one another and care for one another and their children with the future that lies ahead for our daughters. And transition is often, if not always, uncomfortable. First and foremost it truly is about giving ourselves some time to think it all through, get ourselves right, and then open up our arms even when things are not perfect. A sense of hospitality that isn’t rooted in appearances but instead in the way our interactions shape one another. Anyway, I’m rambling! We will get there! ♥️
I feel like this whole essay is a thread pulled from my own heart. Hubby and I are going to start trying for our first baby later on this year. We live in LA which simply means I'm the only woman in my friend group whose lifelong (verbalized) ambition is to be a SAHM and homemaker. Have some career ambitions as well but none so big as the kind I have for my kin. Not looking for pity just other women who are as fierce in their commitment to a slow life as they are in making their own butter and cool shit like that.
Aww I love to hear all of this! I also love the idea of “fierce commitment to the slow life”...because the slow life truly requires planning and dedication in this day and age.
I have to say, Emily, I am impressed and inspired by your words here, and their ability to create coherence for my own ruminations. I am also a habitual distractionist and procrastinator, as well as a constant complainant that I have no women/support/friends/community in my life--particularly when in the depths of managing the chaos created by my own habits.
So thank you for laying this ground work. I might work on using my own little substack journal for JUST this correspondence and to take part. I'm in. I'd love it to be real people, but yes, I feel like i have lottle to give when i am in my chaos. Thank you!
We're waiting on its arrival, but my family is moving into a yurt within the next month or so. I'm hoping to find the perfect storm of inspiration and self motivated effort to create in it, the home I truly want for myself, my husband and our babies. And THAT, is finding some accountability.
I would absolutely love it if you did utilize your Substack in this way! Also I would love to see your path unwind with your yurt and all of the doings and undoings that will come along with that shift!
I've FINALLY been able to be still long enough to do some reading and I'm glad to have read this one first. Feels like a good collection of thoughts for a new year. So much of community care (and self care/family care) is of a totally practical nature. Hierarchy of needs and all that. I know I have to be diligent with the drugery to have the creative space for the other important things. Here's to figuring out how to make the housekeeping and the creativity happen this year!
I’m so glad you are here Brenna! Hierarchy of needs is such a good framework from which to perceive all of this. Now my brain is busy fashioning a “mothering hierarchy of needs”, that would honestly be a perfect way to start this out! Meal planning on the bottom, time to knit at the top! Haha thank you for reading friend ♥️
I always see those sorts of cookbooks in thrift stores and they make me simultaneously joyful and sad. I also have no worldly idea what happens at a KOC meeting but in my tiny amount of research for this piece, I did learn that the namesake of my little article here, The Fraternal Order of the Eagle, founded Mother’s Day! So go Eagle bros, go! (More here for anyone who cares-https://www.foe.com/About-The-Eagles/Who-We-Are)
I just want to craft in a circle!!!!!
Ya know, SAME! I could have just written that sentence instead of this entire thing because thats what it comes down to!!!
I feel this so much. Just opened a cookbook of my mom’s from the 70s and it was from a women’s group they all made and contributed to a cookbook every year, but they would meet and do service things and just potluck and support each other... I was sad there wasn’t something like this now
See this is what I mean! It’s all really so simple. I think it’s easy to get carried away with details and overcomplicate things and get overwhelmed but really it’s as simple as a shared meal and shared commitment to show up.
EMILY, YES. Gorgeous. Being in the regular company of other women doing the sacred work of home and children is something I deeply crave and don’t have enough of.
Regarding my own stuff, I’ve been making concerted efforts at decluttering because I am a terrible housekeeper and owning less makes it all easier. I’m also trying to be better at basic homemaking habits: meal planning as priority número uno, picking up at certain times of the day, doing the damn dishes, etc. Like, the basics. I feel like I looked down at this work for years and now the universe is laughing at me and my incompetence🙃
I loved this part in particular: “We have to reshape our smallest societies (the society of the home and family) in order to help reshape the larger ones. This is because home and the family are microcosms of society at large, and instead of allowing society at large to fully and blatantly influence us, we must make an active choice to exert influence outward instead. Subvert at all costs, ladies.” Think I’ll make myself a big old post-it that says SUBVERT and put it square on my fridge next to my grocery list💃🏼
Ok those are my thoughts from bath time supervision-- grateful for you!
Hell yeah to a dispatch from bathtime supervision! Maybe I should make a “subvert” flower garland for above the sink I do dishes at 3-5 days a day 😝
In all seriousness though, thank you as usual for reading and for witnessing and mirroring so many of my thoughts and experiences.
I frequently think about the waulking and women’s groups and how we are severely lacking such spaces now. We’re moving into a new home and my first order of business after getting settled is to start reaching out to other women in our local “crunchy” groups to see if people want to meet in person for potlucks or sewing circles etc. I feel like those type of fb groups are very hit or miss usually, but gotta start somewhere. Loved the YouTube ep you linked too.
That’s wonderful that you have a plan! The closest friends I have made in the area we most recently moved to are from FB homeschool groups so you are right, it can be hit or miss, but you do have to start somewhere! A sewing circle sounds so perfect too. Best of luck in finding some new women to befriend 💕
This piece was healing in so many ways. I have also been longing for a community of women and mothers to gather with semi-regularly but it’s been so hard to find. I have a few mom friends but none of them live close to me, although I do meet with some of them when I can.
I loved your list of things to work on. Thank you for being so real. Although I am a stay at home mom, I consider myself an aspiring homemaker because my home is always a mess no matter how hard I try. Having an almost two year old who is a Velcro baby and a boob barnacle on top of being almost 27 weeks pregnant makes things very hard. But I aspire to be a good homemaker, particularly when it comes to cooking and cleaning. I have been doing a good amount of knitting lately, although it has been at the expense of many house chores. Oops.
Your life sounds like it parallels mine! And congratulations on that new baby! Homemaking is a skill that I truly believe takes a lot of time to learn and hone, I’m so grateful for the experience to hone my own even if it may be overwhelming! I’m in the aspirational phase too, we shall get there in good time.♥️
Thank you for your warm words! And yes I agree! THIS is the relatable mom content that I am looking for! And yes you are right, we will get there in good time! Here’s to being the homemakers we want to be one day! 💗
Relate to this so so much! I also have so many things on my heart I want to offer and invite my community into but I have to be patient with my own energy system as I’m also mothering an almost five month old. But I definitely long for a community of women and have been actually seeking it for so, so very long it seems. Part of it was moving through a season of getting into right relationship with women after I had most of my female friendships die off in my young adult years.
I think so many of us are in this spot, and it’s a tough spot to be in. Mothering young children in a space and time where there is no built-in female support system is hard, having to facilitate and build that system while also fulfilling our responsibilities as mothers is harder! I almost see us as a transitional generation-like we have to choose to bridge the best of the previous generations in the ways they made time to sit with one another and care for one another and their children with the future that lies ahead for our daughters. And transition is often, if not always, uncomfortable. First and foremost it truly is about giving ourselves some time to think it all through, get ourselves right, and then open up our arms even when things are not perfect. A sense of hospitality that isn’t rooted in appearances but instead in the way our interactions shape one another. Anyway, I’m rambling! We will get there! ♥️
I feel like this whole essay is a thread pulled from my own heart. Hubby and I are going to start trying for our first baby later on this year. We live in LA which simply means I'm the only woman in my friend group whose lifelong (verbalized) ambition is to be a SAHM and homemaker. Have some career ambitions as well but none so big as the kind I have for my kin. Not looking for pity just other women who are as fierce in their commitment to a slow life as they are in making their own butter and cool shit like that.
Aww I love to hear all of this! I also love the idea of “fierce commitment to the slow life”...because the slow life truly requires planning and dedication in this day and age.
Amen to that!
I have to say, Emily, I am impressed and inspired by your words here, and their ability to create coherence for my own ruminations. I am also a habitual distractionist and procrastinator, as well as a constant complainant that I have no women/support/friends/community in my life--particularly when in the depths of managing the chaos created by my own habits.
So thank you for laying this ground work. I might work on using my own little substack journal for JUST this correspondence and to take part. I'm in. I'd love it to be real people, but yes, I feel like i have lottle to give when i am in my chaos. Thank you!
We're waiting on its arrival, but my family is moving into a yurt within the next month or so. I'm hoping to find the perfect storm of inspiration and self motivated effort to create in it, the home I truly want for myself, my husband and our babies. And THAT, is finding some accountability.
I would absolutely love it if you did utilize your Substack in this way! Also I would love to see your path unwind with your yurt and all of the doings and undoings that will come along with that shift!
I've FINALLY been able to be still long enough to do some reading and I'm glad to have read this one first. Feels like a good collection of thoughts for a new year. So much of community care (and self care/family care) is of a totally practical nature. Hierarchy of needs and all that. I know I have to be diligent with the drugery to have the creative space for the other important things. Here's to figuring out how to make the housekeeping and the creativity happen this year!
I’m so glad you are here Brenna! Hierarchy of needs is such a good framework from which to perceive all of this. Now my brain is busy fashioning a “mothering hierarchy of needs”, that would honestly be a perfect way to start this out! Meal planning on the bottom, time to knit at the top! Haha thank you for reading friend ♥️
I love this so much.
At the moment my areas of significance are:
- growing in faith and my relationship with and love towards God
- cultivating my gift of writing and finding my voice
- growing our little family (baby #2 due this fall)
- learning about home education, especially classical/liberal arts/charlotte mason
- music: learning to play the guitar and piano
- reading: filling my mind with the good true and beautiful from all ages
- thinking through my approach to parenting in this culture: neither fundamentalist nor naive, but prudent, wise, insightful, loving
- pouring into the young people in my church community
I always see those sorts of cookbooks in thrift stores and they make me simultaneously joyful and sad. I also have no worldly idea what happens at a KOC meeting but in my tiny amount of research for this piece, I did learn that the namesake of my little article here, The Fraternal Order of the Eagle, founded Mother’s Day! So go Eagle bros, go! (More here for anyone who cares-https://www.foe.com/About-The-Eagles/Who-We-Are)