Radical Homemakers

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Comment by Jenni on January 23, 2012 at 10:52am

Shannon,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful and incredibly helpful answer. My husband is vegan, so bone broth is not an option ;), but it's so good to hear that diet could potentially help him control insulin intake. I will be borrowing Dr. Bernstein's book from the library asap.  I'm sharing your answer with my husband in hopes that we can make plans for a future free of chronic work stress.

Comment by Shannon Hayes on January 23, 2012 at 5:26am

Hi Jenni;

 

Shannon Hayes, here (author of RH).  My husband is also a type 1 diabetic.  Here are some of the things we've learned:

 

1. Contrary to what conventional diabetes counselors tell type 1's, it is possible to eat in such a way as to minimize insulin requirements.  We eat very simply - a lot of greens and bone broth make up the center of our diet (but there are a number of fun things).  Because we got on this eating path early in the type 1 disease cycle, we've managed to prolong his pancreatic function, and a typical one month supply of insulin lasts us 4-6 months.  However, even for long term type-Is, careful eating can stabilize the sugar levels.  We got a lot of helpful information from Dr. Bernstein's book, Diabetes Solution, and combined it with Paleo Diet concepts.  Bernstein's regime can seem too strict, but by meshing it with the Paleo Diet, we find Bob can have a pretty terrific food life.

2.  Drug companies do have special programs for income qualifying diabetics where they can purchase insulin and other diabetes supplies for discount prices, and the income guidelines are not that low - I don't know what it is currently, but you might want to investigate.

3.  Many states require insurance companies to pay for diabetes drugs and supplies, regardless of whether or not you have prescription drug coverage.  Now that Bob and I are "advancing in age," we do carry health insurance; but we are able to buy an inexpensive non-prescription drug policy because we know that they are legally required to pay for insulin and supplies, regardless.  If you have a high deductible you will only be required to pay for the insulin you use that year until the deductible is used up.

4.  In order to afford our health insurance, I hired Bob as my employee (I'm self employed as a writer/farmer).  As part of his benefit package, I pay all his medical expenses for him and his dependents.  I'm his dependent.  Because he earns a low salary and I am now a "small employer," I am able to take advantage of NY State's subsidized low-cost insurance coverage.  The advantage of this is that I can write off ALL our medical expenses as business expenses, and we are able to buy affordable coverage.  A high deductible non-prescription plan is less than $400/month for 2 of us; a $0 deductible plan is $550/month.  The kids qualify for the special state program for insuring kids.  That ranges, depending on my yearly income (it's sliding scale) from $0/month to $36/month per kid (last time I checked).

5.  I noticed that the pharmacy in our regional grocery store chain is now giving away diabetes medications and supplies for free.  I suspect this has something to do with the state subsidizing it (one good thing about type 2 diabetes becoming epidemic is that type 1 families get to benefit!); and because it becomes a draw to get diabetics into the store - b/c then, of course, they market all the "diabetes friendly" foods.  You do have to accept a generic brand, but it might be worth looking into.

 

Either way, don't lose heart.  I have learned from experience that where there is a will, there is a way.  And where there is not will, there is an excuse.  If you want to walk this path, I know you'll be able to do it.  Type I diabetes is manageable without conventional employment.

Comment by Jenni on January 22, 2012 at 3:48pm

I finally read the book, and found it incredibely inspiring. I hate my 40-60 hour work week and feel exhausted when I get home. I often wish I had the guts to quit my job. However, my husband is type-1 diabetic and we rely on my health insurance. We simply could not go without it, since he needs insulin to live. I eagerly read the section in RH about health insurance, but it didn't address chronic illness. How can one eschew the current health insurance system when their lives depend upon it? If I can just find the answer to that, I'd feel a lot more confident finally following a different path.

Comment by Annie B on October 23, 2011 at 8:57am

I picked up a copy back home in Austin when I was back home visiting my family this summer. I'm now back "home" in Germany, where in someways, I think it is very enabling of a radical homemaking lifestyle. Gardening is widely practiced, a large farmer's market is available in the city Monday-Friday, so on and so forth. Plus, although there is without a doubt a strong consumer culture, it is fully normal and expected, especially for young people like myself and my boyfriend, that we are low on funds, and therefore consume less. We are starting to try to do more and more for ourselves, repairing our own clothes, growing our own food and cooking as much as possible.

 

I came to this page because of checking out the Radical Homemakers website, and I'm checking back every few days for more information about different things that I've always wanted to do for myself. I also recommended the book to my mother after a very long Skype conversation about how inspired I already feel from my own reading (and I'm only half-way through!).

Comment by Shannon Hayes on July 8, 2011 at 5:45am

I've been hearing from folks about the woes of unsupportive partners when facing the RH lifestyle for quite some time now, and here is my attempt to make some sense of what I've learned.  I'm sure many of you have some views on this!

 

http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/shannon-hayes/the-unsupportive-par...

Comment by Zoubida Ayyadi on June 6, 2011 at 9:34pm

Thank you Calamity Jane. I'm certainly glad to find all these ressources and information so the journey doesn't feel lonely. :-))

Comment by Calamity Jane on June 6, 2011 at 3:13pm

Welcome Zoubida!
Sounds like you jumped off the cliff without even knowing quite what was down there, congratulations! That takes bravery.
I'm so glad you found Shannons book, and Homegrown. It really, really helps to feel like you are not alone.
Enjoy the struggles and joys!

Comment by Zoubida Ayyadi on June 6, 2011 at 2:21pm

Just a little note to say English is my second language, learned at school in France. So I appologise for any mistake and hope you'll forgive them.

Comment by Zoubida Ayyadi on June 6, 2011 at 2:14pm

I'm in the middle-age group of RH. My sons are respectively 16, 13 and 10 years old. We began our shift to RH about a year ago without even knowing about the eye-opening, thought-stirring, paradigm-shiting book from Shannon Hayes.

My 16 years old son likes to gently challenge us with a pretended "McDo addiction". He loves the stuff, but he knows how bad it is. He's in that age when peer-pressure or peer-influence is so powerfull. We just explain our beliefs and our decisions and when he answers with a sarcastic joke, we know the message got through and he's introspecting later. We could measure that in few choices he made lately.

I homeschool my youngest son since I resigned my job a year ago and he gets first-hand experience at radical homemaking and loving every bit of it.

Our 13 years old is trying to cope with marketing pressure and family choices and orientations. Again, I find that openly talk about our choices makes all the difference in the world. It's hard though, on him, and I find myself letting go of our new resolutions and plans to give him some time to adapt. I can't be a radical homemaker if I alleniate my kids, whom I pretty much raised, until recently, with the idea we had to have a nice looking home, the latest cool family car and junk food is ok to be able to relax and as a mean to enjoy in a rewarding fashion (no work or mess) the fruits of our hard work.

I have to say my husband doesn't read, ever. It happens that he doesn't master well budgeting. So it was easy for me, every year for the last 3 years, at tax-time, to demonstrate how silly and incomfortable our life is with all that money coming in and even more each year coming out. I finally convinced him to sit-down with me and calculate how much a difference it would make if I was home, no child care services to pay, no career wardrobe for me, no car on the road twice a day every-day (he commutes in city-bus, I had to use a car to go to work), homemade meals versus convenience and delivery food, and so on. We worked on the figures as precisely as we could, even computing in homemade bread versus bought bread. Then we asked the accountant last year, once he finishes the tax filing for the past year, to calculate how much taxes we would have paid if I wasn't working. The difference of actual money generated by me working, after all other "2 incomes work-related expenses" and savings in taxes was only 3000$. We made the calculating again and again and again. It varied more or less between 2500$ and 5000$.

That's when he got convinced we could be better off with less money. :-)) He realised how decieving a second salary entering the bank account every 2 weeks was. He was flabbergasted and I must admit that, me too. Comint to realise I was living all that work/family balance anxiety and working that hard for that little bottom line was depressing when I thought how long we did it and where blind to its actual value.

So that's how I convinced my reluctant husband. Now he's more and more seeing how little important is the fact of having a pristine back-yard with a splendid swimming-pool (he wanted that so bad only 5 years ago and I never agreed to it). He realises how people struggle in silence, showing off a well-to-do façade all the while consumer's debt are eating them up alive, up until they moved one morning and we see a foreclosure sign at their door (yes, it happens in Canada too, more often lately than we ever saw before). And most importantly, he realises happiness doesn't have a price-tag and "messy" can be delighteful and comfortable when it has a purpose and a reason (as in found rocks around no-till garden beds rather than store-bought, truck-delivered flag-stones on the garden paths).

A few weeks ago, we had a family talk. The boys were not happy about not having few things (mostly video-games but other stuff too) that "everbody has except us". I felt somewhat guilty at some point (they can be convincing) and reluctantly asked if they thought I should go back to work and live the way we did before I resigned. They unanimely told me I was nuts. Life is much more comfortable for everybody since we decided and acted upon homemaking changes last year. They reluctantly stopped the nagging. Later we found a compromise (they buy second-hand games with the money they earn).

That was a long comment just to say, I recieve the book last Thursday and have been reading it, sometimes out-loud to my family, sometimes during breaks gardening. It's an important book in my life right now. I'm so happy I read it. I'm so happy it exists.

I need to work more on developping a network, a community fabric around us. I find it challenging. I don't know how to do that.

Comment by Carol on January 7, 2011 at 1:54pm

I laughed when she said "I don't even hang out with people like that" .  I appreciate seeing it from her viewpoint. It does make it easier to have compassion for the eye rollers. They have their own struggle to embrace. 

 I am glad I have had the opportunity to hang out with  some very courageous people who inspire me to seek my own courage.  Every market, every CSA member, every new farmer friend, even nature itself makes us vulnerable.  I'll admit to sometimes shrinking from it and wanting to take a break from having to stick my neck out.  Like Private Benjamin, I just want to go shopping, get my hair done and stop struggling. Then I remember how quickly bored I have been in the past with those lifestyle choices. 

 Have we as a community become so comfortable with others providing the fish (paycheck) that we ridicule those who will actually get out there and fish? Even the words "work ethic" make me cringe these days because they only seem focused on the paycheck and not the struggle or real value of the work itself. 

 

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