About the book

They say that revolution begins at home, but I didn’t expect mine to kick in the day I fell, face down, into the scratchy wool fibers of a nursery rug from Pottery Barn Kids.

My revolution? Becoming (and writing) THE RADICAL HOUSEWIFE.

I am a college-educated woman who left the workforce to raise two children, all of us supported by the male breadwinner who earns our upper-middle class living. When Glenn Beck celebrates American “family values,” he’s talking about me. As a result, I speak from a position of authority when I proclaim that all this “family values” stuff is bullshit.

THE RADICAL HOUSEWIFE, complete at 70,000 words, charts a decade of feminist parenting by a Midwestern liberal determined to expose the “family values” catastrophe one dirty diaper or Palinista at a time. It’s my personal momifesto, both a memoir of ten years in the mommy trenches and a lefty polemic in the hilarious yet impassioned style of my fellow Minnesotan Al Franken.

When it comes to the care of children, love is not enough. The burden being the moral and ethical unit of society is too great for any group of human beings to bear, especially when members of that group are too helpless to wipe their own butts. I had that Pottery Barn rug to catch me when I fell. In THE RADICAL HOUSEWIFE I discuss why even stronger safety nets need to be in place for “family values” to be a reality for all Americans.