First, a disclaimer: I have not seen the book in question, as it has not been published this side of the Atlantic yet. But I find it hard to believe that it is everything people are whipping it up to be: 'pinny-p0rn'

Good grief, people. Get a grip. Lady writes a book about how it's nice to take time to make cupcakes sometime, about being a stay-at-home mom with a bit of a creative sense, and everyone's leaping on her like she's threatened to drag women back into the home, kicking and screaming, by their hair. There's a thread about it in the book section of Knitter's Review. Some people defend the book, others accuse it of "setting up unrealistic expectations for women."

Um. Read a fashion mag lately? Listened to any of the "success" oriented radio programs that clog the airwaves every weekend? Paid attention to the celebrity-addled television news?

EVERYTHING in this world is unrealistic expectations.

What you have to learn to do is find what makes you happy, and say "devil take the rest." (I still haven't learned that; I look at colleagues c.v.'s as part of the "sharing information" process and go "But he has published five more papers than I have! I suck!")

When I read Jane's blog, I get a feeling of happiness and peace. I don't feel like she's setting up unrealistic expectations for me, that she's raising the bar to some impossible level (I'm perfectly good at setting my own "bars" at unreasonable levels without anyone's input, thanks). I love her photographs. I love all the baking she does. Oh, I do envy her a little bit...envy that she has the time to contemplate things like rock buns and aprons when my life seems to be hurtling along at an insane pace, where the closest I get to a rock bun is if I happen to get down to the natural foods store and they have Newman's "Hermit" cookies in stock, and an apron is something I forget to put on when I'm trying to cook dinner before my evening meeting. A lot of times I have a little pity-party for myself, as I get home at 8:45 pm and realize that to follow my schedule, I will need to be up and out of bed in just over eight hours.

But you know? On my non-pity-party days, I look at Jane's blog and go, "Thank God there's someone who has time to enjoy these things and write about them." And I think, "Maybe during one of my breaks from school I can bake a cake like that."

I don't know. It seems kind of silly...no, worse than silly...to refer to that kind of thing as pr0n. From what I can tell (again: disclosure, haven't seen the book), she is NOT saying, "This is the only way to live," and not even "this is a better way to live than many others."

(And speaking of unrealistic expectations...I am not exactly experienced in that form of, uh, entertainment that her book's being compared to, but isn't THAT kind of known as being the pinnacle of unrealistic expectations? Is not the fact that "recontouring" surgery (for the parts from which a baby can emerge on a woman) has become a thinkable thing the result of that very industry to which her book is being compared? Is not the current trend for women to have to get every square inch of hair that is not on top of their heads or on their eyebrows painfully pulled out every month using hot wax a result of this industry?)

At any rate. On KR, she's being compared to (the Devil to some) Martha Stewart.

Yes, Martha Stewart presents a somewhat unrealistic world. And you might not like that world. But does that make it less valid than what you like? Does it make it somehow evil to dream of having the time to have a perfectly pressed tablecloth, and cunning turkey cut-out cookies frosted with everyone's name as place markers?

There are all different kinds of fantasy. Please do not begrudge those of us who have craft-fantasies or house-fantasies our small joys, just because they are not your fantasies. (And honestly? It's more fun for me to daydream about getting my house JUST PERFECT than it is to daydream about, say, giving a paper at a presentation and overturning some long-held paradigm of ecology. And I think my house-dreams are a good bit more realistic).

As for people who don't like her blog, my standard comment: no one is forcing you to read it.

I don't know. It's CHOICES, people, dammit. We all make choices in life. Yes, sometimes I'm a little sad that my choice of career means I don't have time to make cupcakes or spend hours quilting every day. But then again, there are other good things about my career. And I'm not going to slam someone because she made choices different than I did. She's not breaking any laws. She's not forcing anyone to do as she does...and as far as I can tell from her blog, she's not even really smug about her choice, there's not really a sense of sing-songy "I'm better than you are."

I just have two other things to say:

1. If this is how "lifestyle essay" books are going to be met in the future, then I release my dream of ever writing a book based on my inmost thoughts. It would be far too painful to have a reviewer slam it as smug or unrealistic or antifeminist.

Look. Those of us who enjoy cooking, knitting, sewing, even keeping house and raising children: we are not saying that we want all women to leave the workplace. We are not advocating some damn Handmaid's Tale world. That's one of the things that bugs me - so many of the people who go a little eyerolly over Nigella or the craft blogs or Martha Stewart seem to be worrying about, that this is the first vanguard of women being stripped of their status as "functional adults"...that the next thing is that we'll be disenfranchised, and then kept home, barefoot and pregnant (or made into servants, if we can't get pregnant). And it's not that at all. It's just someone saying, "This is a nice way to live; I enjoy it. Maybe you'd like to try it a little bit."

2. I really hope Jane doesn't quit blogging - or quit planning a second book, if that was in the works - over this. Because then the nasty attitude people would have won. And I don't like to think of the mean, bad-attitude people winning. (And yes, that's my opinion. But I think calling a stay-at-home mom's book about baking and embroidery "pr0n" and suggesting she's smug or anti-feminist is kind of mean-spirited. If you didn't like the book because of how it was produced, if you found it poorly written or shallow, say so. But don't take your own personal paranoias...which is what I think the review writer DID...on the book). I also get a distinct scent of "sour grapes" from some of the commenters.

(Note to self: when jealous of what someone else is able to do, don't go the sour grapes route. It's really unbecoming.)

Do men do this to each other? When some guy writes a book on chucking it all and building a boat, do other men attack him?