The Convenience Culture Crisis: How Second-Wave Feminism Helped Make America Sick
17th November 2025
There is a version of my life that could have existed, and for a long time it looked like the path I was on. I was a successful restaurateur, financially independent, living a neat and polished life that most people would label as accomplishment. I could have stayed that woman. A single woman with a couple of well-trained pets, a beautiful home in a gated golf-course community, and a thriving business. No obligations, no interruptions, and no sticky hands tugging my shirt while I tried to answer an email.
Society would have applauded that version of me and called it freedom.
The irony is that during that time, I was feeding thousands of people from-scratch food. I knew the value of real ingredients and traditional cooking techniques, yet I did not fully understand the deeper meaning of nourishment. Not just physical nourishment, but the cultural and generational work that happens when families cook and eat together. The work that forms identity.
Today my life looks very different. I have four children and a farm, and nothing about our life is quiet or controlled. Just yesterday my 10-year-old stood next to me making jam from blueberries and blackberries, and then we bottled homemade barbecue sauce. The younger kids ran barefoot around us, coming in and out of the kitchen like little barn swallows, leaving laughter, questions, and a trail of crumbs behind. It was chaotic, imperfect, and slow. Yet in the middle of the noise, I could feel something ancient. Something right.
Moments like that used to be normal. Today they are the exception, and that realization has been stirring something in me. It raises a difficult question that many people avoid because the answer is uncomfortable.