WHY WE HOMESTEAD – CHAPTER 1 – THE PATH, NOT THE DESTINATION
Interestingly enough, homesteading is just the path for us.
As I mentioned previously in my last post on this subject, the reasons that people choose a homesteading lifestyle are many, so I'll just be sharing ours. For us, to become "homesteaders" isn't our goal, but it definitely seems like that path that leads to our destination. In this chapter, I share more about this concept.
CHAPTER 1 – THE PATH, NOT THE DESTINATION
Interestingly enough, homesteading isn’t really even the goal. It’s our aim in life or what we are trying to accomplish. For us, it’s not the destination. However, I am convinced that the homesteading lifestyle is the path to the destination that we desire to arrive at.
For us, the earthly “destination” and lifestyle goal is to live our lives together as a family. At different times in human history it has not been uncommon to have a father, mother, and children all present within a home on throughout the day, even on a daily basis. It seems like not all that long ago in our native America many settlers, pioneers, and others lived a more connected, family life. People would set out, find some land, build a house, raise some animals, teach their children, and live a simple, but fulfilling life together.
Prior to one room schoolhouses and the industrial revolution, it seems that many more people would spend much more time at home. Often, if the father of the home had a trade, he’d do it from home or perhaps an outbuilding. Before zoning laws and permits, people we free to do so, and frequently their children would observe their father working. This is how real life skills that could provide for a family were passed down. A young child would first watch their father, but as they grew in size and capability, they would begin to help out and eventually maybe even take over the trade.
Before certain zoning laws made certain trades or jobs “illegal” in some areas, the common man had more opportunity to choose such a profession. These days, a home in a residential zone and a business in a commercial zone or industrial park are far more common, which leads to the necessity of addition capital to invest in a building away from home, along with the license fees, utility bills, and insurance costs. Personally, all of that does not sound like a step in the correct direction, but I suppose that depends on where you are trying to get to.
As far as I can tell from my grasp on American history, the industrial revolution pulled a lot of men out of the homes, and lead a lot of people towards more of a city life. The government school system came along and pulled a lot of the children out of the homes, and the women’s rights movement pulled a lot of the women out of the homes. Eventually, we ended up at the point when Dad, Mom, and the children all leave home early in the morning and come back home at night. The cost of living and inflation continued to rise, and people choose to live a life of debt bondage where they don’t own their houses, cars, educations, or almost anything else, and suddenly everyone spending more time away at work becomes the responsible thing to do, and the only means to keep the family’s finances afloat.
I’ve seen way to many statistics claiming that many families don’t even spend an entire hour together each day, and personally, that’s not the life that I want, and that’s not how I want my family to be. I’ll continue to share more about why a connected family living a life together is our goal next time, but since it is our goal, the homesteading lifestyle seems to be the best path to allow us to reach our desired destination. In order to live together, interact together, invest in one another, and truly know one another as a family, a more self-sufficient life seems like the only logical path.
A lot of different specifics come into play, and I’ll be sharing more in the coming chapters.
Until next time…
STEEMIT LIKE YOU MEAN IT!
As you know the enemy doesn't like families and has done its best to break them up and from all the things you mentioned he has by and large succeeded, but it seems as the "end" gets closer and closer there is a pull for people to go back to those olden days and homestead. Thanks for being another example, keep up the good work and thanks for taking us along!
Its not even that long ago that life used to be much more "local". When I grew up in the 60s, we lived in a industrial city in Germany. But still everything was in close range. My dad worked in a big factory, which was a 10 minute walk away. My school was 5 minutes away - I never heard the word school bus then. Even later, when I did my aprenticeship down town, it was only a 10 minute bus ride to get there.
Today, you see thousands of people comuting 50 mls every morning from city A to city B - and thousands other from city B to city A. The corner shops have all died, due to the huge supermarkets somewhere outside of town. Without a car its almost impossible to survive now. Some people rather spend a quarter of their income for the car which they need to go to work, instead of working for 3/4 of the money in their neighborhood.
But thats how its supposed to be. The car manufacturers can sell their cars, the oil companies can sell their fuel and the banks can sell their loans. And the citizens are kept in dependency to pay for all this.
But all this is nothing new, and so is homesteading. Already in the 60s and 70s some people tried to get out of this system, by founding communities that tried to be self sufficient. But thats easier said than done...
Especially when it comes to the next generations. Like your kids: now they are still young and their parents are their heroes. Everything you do is phantastic, even more if it involves caring for animals and so on. However, you should not be too disappointed if not all of them want to go the same way that you have choosen. In some years, when they become adults, I mean. Thats how it often goes, I guess, and its a bit of rebellion in that. Like I have seen kids of very straight people become hippies ( or homesteaders if you like), and the kids of those hippies are now very straight people with fancy cars and jobs. Life can take weird directions...
Very good point, life did use to be much more local. Glad to try to be breaking free from that dependency. We'll see how it all goes. Thanks @beatminister.
Thanks for share, very nice to hear that homestead connect you with the rest of the family, that is main things important in surviving family(love/time together) is very important.. good the good spirit...
Thanks @davidad!
You are welcome @papa-pepper
Great to see you are still cranking out high quality content. Even more rare than ever these days.
Blessings on the journey 🙏🏼
LOL - Thanks man, I was thinking about you guys a bit lately. All still well?
Ya better than ever. Just had our second boy in Oanama all natural unassisted.
We are selling the GOE and going to build something even better!
Wow, very cool on both ends! We are two months away from having our sixth, and going pretty natural and unhospitalized. (Last time we were at the hostpital but waited for just about veryone to leave the room and she pushed (from a standing position) and I caught.) The nurse who was in the room but not paying attention was pretty surprised.
Congrats!
Haha that’s a cool story, though we popped out the last one two years ago in Ecuador at a bus station....
Haha
Really well explained reasoning behind your family's lifestyle choice
Yeah, I'll continue to go deeper, but I'll be open and honest about a lot through this series.