Welcome, readers! My Story:

Hi there! My name is Ashley and I am your other coauthor here on Adventures in Radical Homemaking. I am 27 years old and live in central PA with my husband, Brian, and 21-month-old son, Jackson. In case you're wondering, I never thought I'd be a stay-at-home mom. I studied sociology and women's studies in college. I had a promising career in health policy research in Washington, DC. I loved rock shows and ethnic food and sleeping late on the weekends. I was never going to live in farm country again. Still, more than anything, what I really wanted was a family - our own kids. All the mango lassi and Thai iced tea and Ethiopian honey wine in the world couldn't change what was in my heart. Jackson was conceived shortly after our first wedding anniversary, and we were thrilled. I was disappointed to find my colleagues were not so impressed. It turns out having a baby in your 20's in DC is like having a baby in your teens in the rest of the universe. I was disappointed that my supposedly liberal coworkers and peers did not respect my choices just because they were different from their own. As my due date grew near, Brian and I knew we had to make some major changes in our lives. We discussed what we wanted for our child and how we could best make those things happen. Long story short, we bought a house back home and moved shortly after our son's birth. I wanted to stay home with Jackson for at least the first year of his life. Brian was able to keep his job and telecommute from our home office.

Being a parent really does change how you look at everything. I realized I would never feel right putting my son in someone else's care all day. I fully support parents who utilize daycare; I simply found that it wasn't for me. We found that not only did attachment-style parenting make sense to us in theory, but our high need son really needed and thrived in an AP environment. Not surprisingly, attachment parenting has made me quite attached to my son and we share a great bond. I love being a mommy and having the freedom to focus on my son and play with him and read to him for hours. Still, I sometimes find myself hesitating to tell people I'm a stay-at-home mom. With certain people, I get that look -- that "oh, you're one of those moms" look. (Since I started cloth diapering around 14 months, I get this look more and more.) I've found when Brian and I reveal what we "do" to people we're meeting for the first time, somehow I tend to be cast out of the conversation, as though I must not have interesting thoughts since I spend all my time with a baby. I have a sneaking suspicion these introductions would go quite differently if I said I was a sociological researcher, but I'm not ashamed of what I "do." It's interesting and gratifying work, and the word "work" should not be taken lightly here. But I digress.

We've had to get pretty creative to make ends meet living largely off of one modest income. I started a small business to contribute to some degree financially (more on that later), though in all honesty my contribution lies more in the savings I create than the cash I earn. But what we have found is that the challenge of doing more with less has actually motivated us to gain new skills (like learning to sew); try new things we otherwise wouldn't have bothered with (stay tuned for our adventures in organic home gardening); and generally just learn and grow as individuals as well as in our relationship. It's been quite an adventure, and it's only getting better. I hope you'll stick around and enjoy the ride.