In The Third Oikos, I’m not just interested in the choices that individual households make. I’m also trying to understand whether there are more useful or accurate ways to understand modern households and family life than the categories we typically use.
In her home and in her career, Ivana Greco has illuminated how the binary between stay-at-home motherhood and being a “working parent” is often a false one. Ivana is a homemaker and homeschooling mother of four, a senior fellow at the think tank Capita (writing and researching on issues affecting homemakers, mothers, children, and families) and was also a practicing attorney before becoming a homemaker.
In this conversation, Ivana shares the journey of her ambition in law and in the home while also caretaking for several elders and community-building. Her path there is highly entangled with her current professional role, where she writes and researches on the complicated role of modern day stay-at-home parents: anyone caring full-time for a child under the age of 12, even if they also work for pay. Ivana explains how current policy could better support stay-at-home parents, in their widely varying situations. She also gives tips to keep a family and community on the rails — mealtime, hiring, and keeping bulk snack-packs in stock to make your home a de facto gathering place for years to come.
