I Just Want to Be a Liberated Stay At Home Husband
If you want stable nuclear families, end capitalism
My romantic partner was sick this last week (okay like January, it takes me a while to write this) and needed all the wholesome things one needs when sick: chicken noodle soup, a bubble bath, various over the counter medications, etc. Things that require a degree of work to set up that is not all that much to do when one is well, but are seemingly herculean when one is sick enough (especially when they still had to go to work). However as it is university break and I am transitioning between jobs I was able to take care of setting up those things for my partner. This beautiful domesticity was only made possible because of that happenstance of my being both between work and school.
I began thinking about all this while watching M. Shanspeare’s amazing video on Tradwives. This sparked reflections on my own yearnings for a life centered around my relationships with my loved ones and the maintenance of our health and domicile. The tending of a garden, the honing of the craft of cooking, the curating of a boudoir, the orchestrating of delightful surprises in celebration of whatever simple excuse is needed to keep our love alive, the planning of events and dates. All these things are real work, often difficult time consuming and chronically under appreciated, particularly in a world where only paid work is appreciated.
Personally this sad reality is one of the subtler ways that I am radicalized against capitalism and commodification. While we often ask how can a system that leaves the sick to die if they cannot buy their medicine, that leaves that artist starving, that would rather leave a house baron that give it freely, or justify a laboror’s death with profits yearned be a good system. I must also ask how can a system that tells us that the work of home and hearth is trivial (unless commodified and sold to all those who can only voyeuristically fanaticize of it) be a good one? M. Shanspeare postulates that the Tradwife demographic might be ripe for radicalization if they were to realize this. I would like to also put forward that the cozy gamers (such as my partner) might find common cause with this
Deeper thoughts in progress…