What is a Suburban Housewife Uprising?

This blog is inspired by the Food Revolution happening right now, but it goes so much further than that. Every generation is shaped by what is going on around them in the world. Previous generations of housewives have grown their own wheat, or taught their daughters to fight for the right to vote, or gone outside the home and entered the workforce, or replaced tired old recipes with new and exciting flavors found in mixes and boxes...or become housewives now, when Green is the new Black, and Eco Chic is the new Economical and Cheap. We are Suburban Housewives, and we are changing the rules. You might say we're even having an Uprising.

What is a Suburban Housewife Uprising?

Well, I can tell you what it's not. It's not judgmental. It doesn't convince. It doesn't cajole, nag or bring you down. It doesn't preach. It doesn't confine itself to one religion, ethnicity, area or social group.

What does that leave us with? I want to create a space where we can share our ideas, our experiences and our thoughts. Are you a mama that feeds their children nothing but homegrown vegetables and eggs from your back garden? Come on in! Do you just do your best to make cookies with real butter instead of buying Chips Ahoy? Awesome. And bring some with you. Do you make your own clothes? Sew your own table linens? Know how to tie a bow onto your daughter's hair? Come on in! You're all welcome. Just bring whatever you've got, and let's chat.


This will be a space to share links, ideas, passing niggling questions and other such thoughts as might help us to live up to our vital role as housewives. We keep the hearth warm. We feed the tiny bellies and mold the growing minds. We are homemakers - those mythical creatures who turn four walls and a roof into the place our children, once grown into adults, will dream about and try to emulate.

The Suburban Housewife Uprising is about us, as women, embracing that role. Never being ashamed of it. Stretching our wings and finding out where our creativity will take us. I was in my 20's before I realized I was creative. I wasn't creative like my friends were - I couldn't draw, or paint, or sculp Fimo dough into tiny, intricate shapes. I could sing, but I couldn't create the melodies. I could play piano, but couldn't perform anything that was truly great.

After I became a housewife, and was subsequently fired from my (extremely non-creative) filing job, I decided (with my husband) that it was time to finally be what I had always wanted to be when I grew up - a mother. I wanted to stay home, and play house. Shortly after I was married, my parents found a (relatively inexpensive) sewing machine for me, and made it my birthday present. To christen it, I went to a Black Friday sale and bought more yards of Snuggly Flannel than I had any right to. I had sewn when I was a child, but the experiences were never great. I could sew with some level of ability, but I never enjoyed the things I made. That all changed with that 16 yards of flannel.

 My husband has been able to let me stay home and raise our children, and it has been wonderful. I know not every woman can stay with her children 24/7. Circumstances might dictate otherwise. However, I would suggest that every mother has a duty to raise her children as best as she can. We use our instincts to raise our children. Nobody can do it better than we can. Nobody knows them better than we do.

So, our creed is this - armed with our creativity and our instincts and our knowledge and our experience, we will raise our children to the best of our ability. We will beautify our homes, care for ourselves, and feed and clothe our families as best as we know how. We will use the knowledge we gather, and we will decide what is best for us.

So, just one question remains - Are you in?