I especially appreciated the idea that maximized reproduction with many children (often not spaced according to nature’s typical rhythm), according to *some* particularly eroded religious beliefs in *some* particular religious communities is in itself an industrial concept. This, in contrast to the opposite modern idea of delayed chid bearing in favor of careerism as the ideal goal, another very industrial idea.
The place in the middle, which favors love and commitment and respect for the body as an agent of the human soul, is the good place.
I also really appreciated the quote from Berry about the skilled housewife turning into the factory minion. It is a vivid image of what we can lose, and have lost, when we favor large-scale production which reduces people to things that do, rather than humans who are.
The multi-skilled, versatile, intelligent, creative community member and mother or father becomes that caliber of a person via access to the time it takes to become that person. Career as identity takes this time away from people, and makes them less diverse and dimensional in many ways. Not to say career should not be a part of an identity, but it should absolutely not be the entirety of it. Especially so when babies are desired.
Thank you so much Emily! I'm so glad you enjoyed. The part about the housewife was maybe the most interesting part for me! It's such a clever reversal of how our society thinks about achievement.
totally, and in a time when so very many ‘careers’ are simply working for someone else, are we spending that time to become ourselves? sometimes we are squandering it away making someone *else’s* dream reality, even if we’ve convinced ourselves that it’s the career we want. i get it, but, worth pondering. what kinds of characters do we lose when we try to funnel everyone into college educated professions?
I can relate to much of this Kelly - though I was always a little off the course pursuing the arts (I wasn't exactly making huge money in public radio, though I was getting the necessary accolades). My parents were careerists x10 and I always say I would have traded all the material advantages for a more stable, present family life. I'm glad my Dad and I have been able to put together a good relationship now, but my mother's near entire abcense from my childhood was beyond damaging (no matter how much $, jumpstarts, clubs, horses, down payments, etc. that workaholism could provide.) When she was still working from her blackberry while in hospice care I had a total and complete awareness of the tragedy of this kind of life and stopped desiring it completely - and found a direct path to the Catholic Church and its sane, humane values. I have never for one moment regretted staying at home or pursuing flexible work to be with my kids. I know some working Moms who have a very healthy balance and don't exhibit the either/or of my Mom's life, so I know it can be done in a variety of ways. Keeping the reality of sex, marriage, and children at the forefront will always lead to a well-prioritized life. Wendell Berry - and you! - explain all that brilliantly here.
Oh Katie, I feel this soooooo much. I cannot even explain how much. The part about the Blackberry in hospice care...let's just say I've had a few very similar experiences with my parents. Thank you for this comment <3
At 21 my husband and I married and by 24 we had had our first child, with three more to come between 25-30. So many around us shook our heads at us, thinking we were wasting our time and money. Now, at 34, I’m beyond the postpartum stage of life, a housewife who has been able to stretch my mind through gardening which has led to education in conservation. I’ve gone back to school to finish my degree in music. I’ve taught myself photography and I’ve been published on various writing platforms (before Substack was mainstream). And I get to educate my kids- learning alongside them everyday! Motherhood has been my greatest classroom, my muse and inspiration to learn more skills, and grow my mind!
It didn’t make sense almost 14 years ago- but being a housewife has been the honor of my life!
I have considered writing something about this Berry essay, but couldn't figure out how to do it without quoting the entire thing wholesale 😄 You have done a great job making original connections while drawing much-needed attention to Berry's work on this topic. I love the dignity and skill he attributes to the housewife-- such a subversive idea in modern times. But in The Unsettling of America (ch7), he also discusses that the work of the housewife *was* reduced in dignity due to modern conveniences, where the housewife became a highly dependent consumer rather than a producer. (Hence the stereotype of the bored, medicated 1950s housewife.) I think part of restoring a true sense of dignity to homemaking is to reject the perverted 1950s version of the housewife as ultimate consumer. (Do take my opinions with a grain of salt though because I have no children yet and work outside the home.) Thank you for writing this!! Really enjoyed the read!!
Thank you so much, Yumi! Yes, you are so right! I almost pushed this essay back two weeks so I could add even more to it but the timeline was too tough with a toddler. He’s such an amazing thinker and there are so many threads to explore here!
"It is also hard for us to admit how much modern notions of sexual freedom are actually driven by a desire for control." --> This concept of control is something that has animated a lot of my thinking as of late. There's just so many facets to it, so many ways it can grip us and strip the rich goodness out of living.
Great piece, Kelly. Berry's essays are always goldmines, and you dug into this one so well.
Amazing article, Kelly! it's funny, I'm currently writing and finishing up a reflection on how I decided to get married and have a child in lieu of starting a career. And I talk about the reactions I received from my peers and family as a result. but i'm glad I did what I did because now it can show other young women that you can start a family young and it won't be the absolute end of the world. I, too, was conditioned to want a certain life, but when I rejected it, it was a huge deal for many, when it shouldn't have been.
I really liked this quote of yours: "As you gain money, you become more free - but also less free." Society has equated being wealthy to being free, and I guess if you value material things that could be true. but what's the point of all that money if you have no family to love and cherish and spend time with? That's when I knew that I wanted to be a mother above everything else--I could see myself without a career and being happy, but I couldn't see myself without a family/children and being happy.
I'm so glad you enjoyed, Dani! And I think the people around you will admit in a few years that you have it figured out. We used to talk about "golden handcuffs" in my old job all the time because the money chains you down, in a way. It's kind of sad.
Thanks for sharing this. It does feel that modern feminism leads to a resentment towards fertility, and ultimately to the feminine itself. The irony is that as we sterilize ourselves so we can have sex on tap, we sort of forget why we wanted it in the first place.
Your reflections of the industrial of the body have made me think of porn.
In the obvious big business way, of course.
But also on the way it can desensitise people, young men especially, on everyday uncontrived sexiness of other people. The everyday curve of a breast in an ordinary blouse doesnt provoke inconvenient sexual feelings - instead sexual feelings are scheduled for 10 to 11pm when you log on to extremehardc0re.com
I don't think it's particularly widespread at present but it exists and is growing, and follows the trend
Oh yes, this was actually inspired by some of Emily Hancock's Substack writing about porn and the industrialization of sexuality. If I had addressed that topic, this essay would have been three times as long!
I need to read the full essay now. I’ve loved Berry’s fiction but haven’t yet dipped into his nonfiction (which my husband has and loves). I especially found your point of how two extremes at the opposite ends of political/religious perspectives can be animated by the same dehumanizing principles.
I am so delighted you found and are enjoying that great collection of Berry’s works! I was a big fan of “Native Hill” and “The Work of Local Culture” myself. I’ll have to go back and read this particular essay, thanks for the great piece!
I loved this article, Kelly! I’ve only read one book by Berry (Hannah Coulter), but he hits the nail on the head in so many ways, both in that book and this essay.
Just getting a chance to read this, and I relate so deeply! Beautiful work!
"None of this is why I quit my job at twenty-nine. I did that because I missed my baby and felt that I had to do everything I could to be with him. I did not feel that my choice to stop working was a concession to patriarchy, though I suppose some would interpret it that way. But I was tired of the vision of freedom I had absorbed through so many years of elite education."
This was almost exactly my experience, though I quit shortly before my son was born, which also entailed turning down a promotion.
People (though notably not the people I really care about) thought I was nuts, and I never in a million years dreamed I would do such a thing, given my longtime obsession with "achievement" and the kind of women I admired in my youth, but there was simply something physically intolerable to me about letting anyone else spend their days with the little being I spent years yearning for and nine months gestating.
I actually felt some friends pull away, which made me feel a little insecure about my choice, particularly in regard to "conceding to patriarchy," but then I realized there was perhaps nothing more pro-woman than honoring my bodily wisdom by going with my gut and choosing CARE over accomplishment.
And among the most important gifts I received as a consequence choice (aside from getting to raise my babies!) was getting to step back and reflect on all the ways I'd been conditioned to value things that actually didn't bring me lasting joy, but instead kept me hungering for more and more.
Yes, I so relate! I did receive pushback from people I cared about, but I absolutely think I made the right decision. Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
Berry’s collection of essays, The Unsettling of America, is one of my favorite books. It affirmed so many of my choices to stop pursuing a career in favor of being a stay at home mom. I also went to an elite school, and I remember one time when I was an intern for a professor, she remarked how she had been working with a rural community. She lamented how the girls she worked with had no “goals” for themselves but to have a family. I didn’t know how to tell her that was my primary goal, too.
This was great, Kelly.
I especially appreciated the idea that maximized reproduction with many children (often not spaced according to nature’s typical rhythm), according to *some* particularly eroded religious beliefs in *some* particular religious communities is in itself an industrial concept. This, in contrast to the opposite modern idea of delayed chid bearing in favor of careerism as the ideal goal, another very industrial idea.
The place in the middle, which favors love and commitment and respect for the body as an agent of the human soul, is the good place.
I also really appreciated the quote from Berry about the skilled housewife turning into the factory minion. It is a vivid image of what we can lose, and have lost, when we favor large-scale production which reduces people to things that do, rather than humans who are.
The multi-skilled, versatile, intelligent, creative community member and mother or father becomes that caliber of a person via access to the time it takes to become that person. Career as identity takes this time away from people, and makes them less diverse and dimensional in many ways. Not to say career should not be a part of an identity, but it should absolutely not be the entirety of it. Especially so when babies are desired.
Thank you so much Emily! I'm so glad you enjoyed. The part about the housewife was maybe the most interesting part for me! It's such a clever reversal of how our society thinks about achievement.
totally, and in a time when so very many ‘careers’ are simply working for someone else, are we spending that time to become ourselves? sometimes we are squandering it away making someone *else’s* dream reality, even if we’ve convinced ourselves that it’s the career we want. i get it, but, worth pondering. what kinds of characters do we lose when we try to funnel everyone into college educated professions?
I can relate to much of this Kelly - though I was always a little off the course pursuing the arts (I wasn't exactly making huge money in public radio, though I was getting the necessary accolades). My parents were careerists x10 and I always say I would have traded all the material advantages for a more stable, present family life. I'm glad my Dad and I have been able to put together a good relationship now, but my mother's near entire abcense from my childhood was beyond damaging (no matter how much $, jumpstarts, clubs, horses, down payments, etc. that workaholism could provide.) When she was still working from her blackberry while in hospice care I had a total and complete awareness of the tragedy of this kind of life and stopped desiring it completely - and found a direct path to the Catholic Church and its sane, humane values. I have never for one moment regretted staying at home or pursuing flexible work to be with my kids. I know some working Moms who have a very healthy balance and don't exhibit the either/or of my Mom's life, so I know it can be done in a variety of ways. Keeping the reality of sex, marriage, and children at the forefront will always lead to a well-prioritized life. Wendell Berry - and you! - explain all that brilliantly here.
Oh Katie, I feel this soooooo much. I cannot even explain how much. The part about the Blackberry in hospice care...let's just say I've had a few very similar experiences with my parents. Thank you for this comment <3
This was a beautiful, thoughtful piece.
At 21 my husband and I married and by 24 we had had our first child, with three more to come between 25-30. So many around us shook our heads at us, thinking we were wasting our time and money. Now, at 34, I’m beyond the postpartum stage of life, a housewife who has been able to stretch my mind through gardening which has led to education in conservation. I’ve gone back to school to finish my degree in music. I’ve taught myself photography and I’ve been published on various writing platforms (before Substack was mainstream). And I get to educate my kids- learning alongside them everyday! Motherhood has been my greatest classroom, my muse and inspiration to learn more skills, and grow my mind!
It didn’t make sense almost 14 years ago- but being a housewife has been the honor of my life!
I have considered writing something about this Berry essay, but couldn't figure out how to do it without quoting the entire thing wholesale 😄 You have done a great job making original connections while drawing much-needed attention to Berry's work on this topic. I love the dignity and skill he attributes to the housewife-- such a subversive idea in modern times. But in The Unsettling of America (ch7), he also discusses that the work of the housewife *was* reduced in dignity due to modern conveniences, where the housewife became a highly dependent consumer rather than a producer. (Hence the stereotype of the bored, medicated 1950s housewife.) I think part of restoring a true sense of dignity to homemaking is to reject the perverted 1950s version of the housewife as ultimate consumer. (Do take my opinions with a grain of salt though because I have no children yet and work outside the home.) Thank you for writing this!! Really enjoyed the read!!
Thank you so much, Yumi! Yes, you are so right! I almost pushed this essay back two weeks so I could add even more to it but the timeline was too tough with a toddler. He’s such an amazing thinker and there are so many threads to explore here!
"It is also hard for us to admit how much modern notions of sexual freedom are actually driven by a desire for control." --> This concept of control is something that has animated a lot of my thinking as of late. There's just so many facets to it, so many ways it can grip us and strip the rich goodness out of living.
Great piece, Kelly. Berry's essays are always goldmines, and you dug into this one so well.
Thank you so much, Haley! You were definitely an inspiration for digging into Berry here!
Amazing article, Kelly! it's funny, I'm currently writing and finishing up a reflection on how I decided to get married and have a child in lieu of starting a career. And I talk about the reactions I received from my peers and family as a result. but i'm glad I did what I did because now it can show other young women that you can start a family young and it won't be the absolute end of the world. I, too, was conditioned to want a certain life, but when I rejected it, it was a huge deal for many, when it shouldn't have been.
I really liked this quote of yours: "As you gain money, you become more free - but also less free." Society has equated being wealthy to being free, and I guess if you value material things that could be true. but what's the point of all that money if you have no family to love and cherish and spend time with? That's when I knew that I wanted to be a mother above everything else--I could see myself without a career and being happy, but I couldn't see myself without a family/children and being happy.
I'm so glad you enjoyed, Dani! And I think the people around you will admit in a few years that you have it figured out. We used to talk about "golden handcuffs" in my old job all the time because the money chains you down, in a way. It's kind of sad.
Great read, Kelly. Currently in the process of moving out of the Hollywood/Silicon Valley life to start a family in Louisiana. Can’t wait.
Thanks for sharing this. It does feel that modern feminism leads to a resentment towards fertility, and ultimately to the feminine itself. The irony is that as we sterilize ourselves so we can have sex on tap, we sort of forget why we wanted it in the first place.
Your reflections of the industrial of the body have made me think of porn.
In the obvious big business way, of course.
But also on the way it can desensitise people, young men especially, on everyday uncontrived sexiness of other people. The everyday curve of a breast in an ordinary blouse doesnt provoke inconvenient sexual feelings - instead sexual feelings are scheduled for 10 to 11pm when you log on to extremehardc0re.com
I don't think it's particularly widespread at present but it exists and is growing, and follows the trend
Oh yes, this was actually inspired by some of Emily Hancock's Substack writing about porn and the industrialization of sexuality. If I had addressed that topic, this essay would have been three times as long!
Oh I must read some of her work
Feel this. We’ve been married 7 years only have two kids bc of exclusive breastfeeding and also subfertility.
Yes! I've had my own struggles with this.
GK Chesterton’s essays would fall in nicely with this.
I need to read the full essay now. I’ve loved Berry’s fiction but haven’t yet dipped into his nonfiction (which my husband has and loves). I especially found your point of how two extremes at the opposite ends of political/religious perspectives can be animated by the same dehumanizing principles.
Thank you!! I read it in the "World-Ending Fire" collection edited by Paul Kingsnorth!
I am so delighted you found and are enjoying that great collection of Berry’s works! I was a big fan of “Native Hill” and “The Work of Local Culture” myself. I’ll have to go back and read this particular essay, thanks for the great piece!
I loved this article, Kelly! I’ve only read one book by Berry (Hannah Coulter), but he hits the nail on the head in so many ways, both in that book and this essay.
Thank you so much, Bridget! I have read his poetry but never his fiction and I know I need to, I've heard it's amazing!
Just getting a chance to read this, and I relate so deeply! Beautiful work!
"None of this is why I quit my job at twenty-nine. I did that because I missed my baby and felt that I had to do everything I could to be with him. I did not feel that my choice to stop working was a concession to patriarchy, though I suppose some would interpret it that way. But I was tired of the vision of freedom I had absorbed through so many years of elite education."
This was almost exactly my experience, though I quit shortly before my son was born, which also entailed turning down a promotion.
People (though notably not the people I really care about) thought I was nuts, and I never in a million years dreamed I would do such a thing, given my longtime obsession with "achievement" and the kind of women I admired in my youth, but there was simply something physically intolerable to me about letting anyone else spend their days with the little being I spent years yearning for and nine months gestating.
I actually felt some friends pull away, which made me feel a little insecure about my choice, particularly in regard to "conceding to patriarchy," but then I realized there was perhaps nothing more pro-woman than honoring my bodily wisdom by going with my gut and choosing CARE over accomplishment.
And among the most important gifts I received as a consequence choice (aside from getting to raise my babies!) was getting to step back and reflect on all the ways I'd been conditioned to value things that actually didn't bring me lasting joy, but instead kept me hungering for more and more.
Yes, I so relate! I did receive pushback from people I cared about, but I absolutely think I made the right decision. Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
Berry’s collection of essays, The Unsettling of America, is one of my favorite books. It affirmed so many of my choices to stop pursuing a career in favor of being a stay at home mom. I also went to an elite school, and I remember one time when I was an intern for a professor, she remarked how she had been working with a rural community. She lamented how the girls she worked with had no “goals” for themselves but to have a family. I didn’t know how to tell her that was my primary goal, too.
I’m saving this essay. Great.
Thank you!