Summary: A couple of years ago I was living in a hip district of a university town in the Midwest. It had all the hip stuff you’d expect: a record store (and I mean record store), a big used bookstore, a greasy spoon, two dive bars, a coffee shop, and two restaurants where you could buy 40 dollar meals (hipsters splurge too!). Then, suddenly, a knitting store appeared. It looked out of place. Knitting? So I went in to take a look. Much to my surprise, it was full of hipsters, or rather hipster women. The place was very casual. It had a coffee bar, homemade cookies, and couches. You could just wander in, get a cuppa, and, well, knit. According to Emily Matchar, what I’d seen was a reflection of a return to domesticity. In Homeward Bound: Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity (Simon & Schuster, 2013), Matchar gives us the why and how of urban gardening, urban chickens, urban canning, and–that’s right–urban knitting and sewing. According to Matchar, youngish women are rejecting high-flying careers to go “back to the land,” so long as that land is in a city. A movement or a fad? Listen to the interview and judge for yourself. All I know is that now that I’ve read Matchar’s book, I have new respect for my mom. She was way ahead of the curve on this one. The woman made all her own clothes. And not only that, she had a career, though not a very high-flying one. She “had it all” before “having it all” was deemed impossible.
