Is the Flylady a Fundie?

Sometimes the ethos of a resource is evident in their market

I recently wrote a love letter to younger fundamentalist me and it involved my history with the Flylady.

The motto that still rings in your mind as you spray the sink with stainless steel cleaner: “Housework done imperfectly still blesses your family.”

I wasn’t expecting so many social media comments asking if the Flylady was fundie (my shorthand for fundamentalist.) Maybe I should have in a piece that demonstrated how her program wove so seamlessly into our traditionalist, alternative lifestyle. Like the Mennonite Rod and Staff homeschool curriculum and the hippie companies where we ordered our cloth diapers from, we didn’t always know or care about the core ideologies of the resources we used. What mattered most was how well the techniques enabled us to pull off our own impossible feat: manage our homes efficiently while the children increased, the income decreased, and our mental health suffered.

So, until this week, it never occurred to me to wonder if the woman behind the Flylady was fundamentalist or not. And once I read those words, I couldn’t let the thought go. Another corner of deconstruction presented itself; I’ve promised myself I’ll always follow these clues.