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When my wife returned from a recent scrapbooking weekend with the ladies, she told me there’d been a fair bit of curiosity about what it is I actually do. She didn’t tell me much more than that — what happens at scrapbooking apparently stays at scrapbooking.

Well, there’s not really much mystery to it. I do pretty much the same things the typical stay-at-home mom does, with a bit of variation. I dress the kids, I make breakfast, lunch and supper, I change diapers, do laundry — lots of laundry — wash dishes, shop, break up fights, wipe up tears, take the kids to the park.

There are a few other things I do, like minor renovations and home and car maintenance — but I guess some moms do those things too. This summer I’m going to plant and tend a vegetable garden with the kids.

And I blog.

For me, blogging is a way to keep up my writing and my interest in social media. But it’s also increasingly a way to connect with an online community of other at-home dads. One thing at-home dads tend to lack, and this is certainly true for me, is a local community of other at-home dads to hang out with. There just aren’t that many of us out there.

I’m a bit uncomfortable with the label stay-at-home dad. It seems more like a command than a title, which is why I like to drop the word stay. But thanks to an article in the The Globe and Mail this week, I’ve learned that there’s a new option: radical homemaker. The article talks about parents who are deciding to simplify life, escaping the rat race and choosing a more grounded existence. Radical homemaking is based on four common tenets: environmental sustainability, social justice, family and community.

A quality family life was our key motivation when my wife’s parental leave ended and we decided that I’d stay home with the kids. And while it’s not a permanent arrangement, it has definitely resulted in a more balanced lifestyle than when we had two kids and were both working full time. And it’s freed up time to be more involved in community, social and environmental issues.

While the title is appealing, it does strike me that the values of radical homemaking, changing from consumers to producers, is really nothing new.  The Globe article contrasts today’s at-home parents with the “mindless drudgery and relentless servitude suffered by 1960s housewives.” I can’t help but think of of the resourcefulness and frugality of my own parents when I was a kid. My dad raised chickens and rabbits in a coop in the backyard. My mom knitted and sewed many of our clothes.

Nowadays, more and more dads are staying home with the kids, whether by choice or by circumstance. But it’s still relatively uncommon, and maybe it’s my own insecurities at work, but I get often get the sense that people aren’t sure how to react when I tell them what I do. We’ve still got a long way to go, baby. The most radical thing about my homemaking is still that I’m a man.