Green Daily

I used to aspire to SuperMom-dom. I'd wear Armani suits to my Wall Street office, where I'd toil for 12 hours and then go home to bake cupcakes and read classic literature to my family of brilliant, adorable children. Then the reality of parenthood hit and, as it turns out, I really aspire to spend more time with my brilliant, adorable, but totally flawed children in our patched assortment of Goodwill bins clothing and our as-yet-un-remodeled 1912 home. Oh yeah, no Wall Street, very little Armani (but it's by choice! Really!). I discover that what I am really aspiring toward is the übermom. In yesterday's New York Times, the profile of Shannon Hayes is full of generosity, nuance, and flaw; she's a representative of the mother who chooses to trade a power suit for cast-off jeans, to home school her children, to eschew plastics, to recycle and compost everything, to live more simply. She's also a representative of the women who can't do it all (her fridge isn't sparkling, she doesn't fold her clean laundry).

It's immediately clear that her lifestyle is vastly appealing to those who would Live More Simply. She raises her own food and her family barters its chickens for handmade pottery. She and her husband don't work conventional jobs, choosing instead to spend plenty of time with their two young daughters and evangelizing the sustainable lifestyle; to butcher and sell their fancy organic lamb.