In this final week of the year, the Arena is taking a break from new content, but I hope you will enjoy some highlights from this past year: posts and interviews that were popular with readers when they first ran, but also incite us to think more deeply about various aspects of human flourishing and/or the intellectual life in this season of celebration, reflection, and planning for the new year.
What is the focus of your current book project? What are the big questions that you are investigating and the main stories that you hope to tell in this book?
I am currently working on a book about American homemakers. The book focuses on the women (and sometimes men) who dedicate themselves to the work of the home. I’m investigating both the past and the present of homemakers. I think in many ways we’ve forgotten the central role homemakers played in the founding and shaping of America, and in holding both the country and our communities together.
When women left the home en masse in the twentieth century, they gained much, including more control over their lives, fulfilling careers, and greater equality. However, many things were lost in that process as well. In particular, close community and family ties became harder to maintain as there was no one at home to cement social connections and families became short on time.
Thus, the final section of my book focuses on how we can maintain the legal and social advances that provided women with equal legal rights as men, as well as greater education and work opportunities—while also making space for those who want to dedicate themselves to home and family. I think the COVID pandemic provided a wake-up call to many that home still matters, and that time with family is infinitely precious. I am hoping to provide some practical suggestions for how society can better support those who are currently homemakers, and those who want to become homemakers.
Can you give us a taste of something surprising or unexpected that you have found in your work on this project so far?
I have been surprised at how many interviews I’ve been able to do with children in the background (either my own kids or the interviewee’s children!). I started working on the book while I was newly pregnant with my third child—and first daughter; we have two older boys. She is now six weeks old, and I expect it will be amazing to see how she grows along with the book chapters. It’s been special to see how work and mothering can combine in unexpected ways.
What are the broader questions that fascinate you in your thinking and writing?
I am by training an attorney focused on healthcare and retirement law. Many people are interested in big, philosophical questions—but I am always most interested in the specific nuts and bolts of how policy and regulation shape people’s daily lives. I always find that details matter tremendously, and I really enjoy getting into the weeds of questions.
One “weedy” issue that is of primary interest to me right now is the exact breakdown of how families spend their days when both parents are working full time. For much of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, there was a sense that women could “have it all” by simply becoming more efficient with their time. I do not think that is true, however. Two-career families mean that families are under tremendous time pressure. One statistic that really struck home for me was that an average middle-class married couple with children now works a combined 2.5 additional months since 1975. This time spent on work comes at the cost of other things, and I am deeply interested in finding out exactly what families are not doing when both parents work full-time.
Ivana Greco practiced for about ten years as an attorney specializing in ERISA and healthcare litigation, before becoming a stay-at-home homeschooling mom during the COVID pandemic. She writes at: https://thehomefront.substack.com