Why we need to stop referring to homesteading as “the simple life”
Homesteaders are homebodies. A lot of life’s hustle and bustle is avoided, or at least lessened, for homesteaders. There’s less running around or sitting in traffic because homesteaders make a lot of their food at home, many homeschool children, and we have a shared value of buying less stuff. I think that’s where the phrase “the simple life” came from - less running around, less stuff.
Certain aspects of my life are simpler because I choose to stay at home part-time and raise our daughter, grow and preserve food, and consume fewer new items. The ease that comes with homesteading is more of a mental sigh, a deep breath of gratitude for allowing yourself to be connected to nature, and pride for the beauty and abundance that you’ve created in reciprocity with nature.
Referring to homesteading as “the simple life” idealizes this lifestyle. I follow a ton of amazing homesteading accounts on Instagram because they provide a sense of community and a source of inspiration. I can easily get sucked into the comparison bubble and forget to appreciate how far we’ve come. I sometimes lose sight of the fact that good things take time. I easily become paralyzed by this alternate reality that I’ve created by endless scrolling and daydreaming. In these moments I’m not homesteading, I’m dreaming about homesteading. And that’s a problem because I can be doing something. When I catch myself getting sucked into the daydream vortex I take a step back and parcel homesteading into actionable items that I can realistically tackle - cutting and hanging herbs in the kitchen window to dry, making a batch of sweet tea for homemade kombucha, researching the best way to harvest and store sweet potatoes, canning some pickles. These actions seem little but collectively they make an impact. They help our family become more sustainable. They support the local farm and homesteading community. They reduce our individual carbon footprint. They teach our daughter valuable lessons about ecology. Nothing about it is “simple”.
I had no illusions that our slow growth towards homesteading would be easy. We’ve got enough years of gardening under our belts to know that it can be thankless sometimes. It can be backbreaking. Add in some minor home improvement projects, general maintenance, and crazy ideas that you’ll inevitably add to your already never-ending to-do list. It’s physically and mentally exhausting. Painting a picture of homesteading as “the simple life” is misleading and I’m afraid that it elevates the lifestyle to an unrealistic achievement for most people. Social media can make it feel like you’re not a true homesteader if you don’t grow all of your family’s food, monetize your farm, podcast or blog about your experiences, have a beautiful greenhouse, grow a successful fall garden, etc. The phrase “the simple life” makes it seem like all of these things come easy to every homesteader. Every homestead is different, with a unique set of values and goals. Every homestead started somewhere different, has different resources (and quantities of resources) available to them, and grows at its own pace. Just start somewhere. Try this and that. Learn as you grow. Be adaptable. Aim for action over perfection. Those are the universal homesteading truths.
