I think about making things a lot because I'm usually making things: cooking dinner, arranging flowers, planting a garden, bottling a tincture, rearranging my trinkets, hand building a vase, making an herbal oil. I pay attention to the simple pleasure of working with my hands. How wrinkly they get washing dishes or how my fingernails transform into something wonderfully grimy after planting seeds.
During this time, I consider the ritual of making and the constellation of small, steady acts of care that make up a home. And then, of course, I think about my larger home: the town I live in, the state it's a part of, the stupid borders of the country you can see on a map. This leads me to the systems that shape our choices, the ones we participate in whether we like it or not.
Today, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services. A man who has spent decades undermining public health, spreading vaccine misinformation, and attacking the very institutions he now oversees. A man who will now be in charge of Medicare, Medicaid, the CDC, the FDA, and the NIH.
The Senate voted him in as a measles outbreak spreads through Texas. As Republicans move to gut Medicaid. As executive orders slash funding for science research, erase protections for trans healthcare, and dismantle the systems that hold public health together with Scotch tape.
The reality of these policies is not abstract. It’s already happening to the most vulnerable people in our communities. I’m writing to you from rural Florida, where access to healthcare is limited and where Medicaid expansion was rejected long before Trump and RFK Jr. took power, where fake clinics pose as medical providers to mislead people seeking abortion care. Where more than 22,500 kids — some of whom have complex medical needs like relying on feeding tubes or 24-hour care — "have been disenrolled from Florida KidCare, its version of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (Chip) that is jointly subsidized by states and the US government for families with earnings just above the threshold for Medicaid.”
I write about the home because the home is where I practice care, not just for myself, but for the world I live in. Making lotion isn’t just about having a nice body butter. It’s a lesson in process, in patience. When I make stuff, I think about labor—who gets fairly compensated and who gets exploited. It's where I practice persisting through failure. Making things reminds me that collaboration is strength. My own knowledge is limited, but together, we build something greater.
There’s also plenty of evidence that creative work improves mental health. Crafting, gardening, and working with my hands reduces anxiety and improves focus, in part because it gives me a sense of purpose.
Making things is meaningful, but self-sufficiency is easy to romanticize. It is not a replacement for organizing, regulating, and holding power accountable. The effort I put into making something by hand reminds me that real solutions require more than personal responsibility—they require collective action.
No amount of homemade herbal oil will protect me from environmental pollutants. No diet can protect me from a contaminated water supply. No tincture will cure cancer. No amount of DIY can fix a systemic crisis. You know what else reduces anxiety? Having access to healthcare. Knowing that if I get sick, I won’t lose my home.
RFK Jr. is calling his plan “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA)—as in hahahahaha—a tagline that implies we were once a healthy nation. But to which time is he referring? I don't have a PhD in history, but I've learned enough to know there is absolutely no point in history to which I want to return.
The U.S. healthcare system is deeply flawed, rife with inequities, corporate greed, and systemic failures. But these people aren't interested in fixing those problems. They take very real frustrations like medical racism, the cost of insulin, the overprescription of certain drugs, the inaccessibility of care and use them to erode trust in science itself. Instead of advocating for universal healthcare or stronger patient protections, they push the idea that all medicine is corrupt, that public health is a conspiracy, and that personal responsibility (or buying their version of “natural” wellness) is the only solution.
So here I am, an herbalist, defending Western medicine not because it’s perfect, but because I know what happens when public health infrastructure is dismantled. It’s not billionaires who suffer. It’s the people who already struggle to access care.
Health has never been just personal. It’s about access. It’s about whether you can afford insulin, whether your tap water is safe to drink, whether your gender identity means you’re denied medical care altogether, whether or not you and you alone have the right to choose a life-saving medical intervention. "Personal responsibility" is a convenient excuse for stripping people of care while pretending they failed themselves.
The wellness industry thrives on misinformation, presenting cherry-picked data and bad science as “hard truths.” But real research has structure. It involves peer review, critical scrutiny, and accountability, elements that are being systematically removed from public education.
Where I live, public education is already under attack. My friend’s high schooler dropped out of AP U.S. History because their teacher told the class that everyone thought slavery was fine when slavery was around. Which is (checks notes from AP U.S. History circa 2002) WILDLY FALSE. People who were enslaved resisted. Abolitionists fought. People knew it was wrong, and they said so publicly, in writing, at great risk to themselves and the people they loved.
Public education plays a direct role in the spread of misinformation. When schools are underfunded, critical thinking skills—our best defense against misinformation—are among the first casualties. States that have cut funding to education see lower literacy rates, decreased science comprehension, and reduced access to history and civics education.
The result? A generation of students with limited access to fact-based education, making them more vulnerable to misinformation disguised as “research.”
The solution isn’t “doing your own research.” It’s ensuring that everyone has the tools to recognize fact from fiction in the first place. That means supporting public education, defending public health, and calling out misinformation where we see it.
Making stuff at home also teaches me I don't have to know exactly what to do in order to do something. So tomorrow I'll call my representative again, next week I'll go to the school board meeting and stock my Free Little Libraries with banned books, and I'll continue tinkering in my kitchen and garden and sharing what I make with people.
Because care isn’t just personal—it’s collective. And if they’re dismantling public systems, we’ll have to build something stronger in their place.
Great commentary. Well said and necessary. Thanks Christine.