Modern Day Homesteaders: Who are they?

A new wave of people is emerging. People are leaving the cities and their 9-5 jobs for a different path. Who are they? Modern day homesteaders.

What is modern day homesteading?

Modern day homesteading refers to people of today’s modern world reverting back to the practices of those during the historical homesteading period from the 1800s. The emphasis of life becomes centered around the home and providing from the land on which it sits. Modern day homesteaders work to provide for themselves as much possible in a modern-day world, growing their own vegetables and fruits, foraging for plants, and raising, harvesting, and/or hunting their own meat.

The wave of change

Many young people are choosing to leave the city, move out to the country, and start a life of simplicity and living off of the land. But what is it about the homesteading lifestyle that allures people so much that they’re willing to risk it all to live this way? This is our story and who we are, and we’re finding that we’re not alone. Our story represents who the modern homesteaders are and explains how we got here.

We were an average working-class American family.

The average American family works a 40 hour work week. This means 50% of a person’s total waking hours on any given work day are spent working at a job, most of the time, away from your home and family. If you look at it from a different lens, working means that you are giving up 50% of the only life you have every work day, missing 50% of your kids growing up, living 50% of the way you want to. This is the typical American’s life.

For our family, it was the same. My day looked something like this:

Alarm clock rings, feet hit the floor and the rush of the day begins.  I start with a shower, get dressed, and pack a lunch for myself.  Then it’s back upstairs to wake up the children, pulling them out of their weary slumber, battling their tired little bodies to get dressed amidst their tears, yelling, as the clock hands continue to move faster than I can, that we need to hurry.  

Into the car we go.  Quick kisses and goodbyes and rush off to work at my elementary teaching job.  Rush kids through content, rush to library class, rush out to the bus.  Pack up my belongings and work to bring home, then back to the car to pick up the children.  Plop them in front of the TV so I can hurry to prepare dinner, then quickly eat.  Soon it’s bedtime and the day is gone.

Routine and pressure prompts reflection

This is the story for many Americans in today’s modern world. And as days pass by and people get older, there is often time spent reflecting. The routines and pressures of today’s modern world begin to weigh heavy on the lives of people, and they begin to experience the heaviness of modern life fatigue.

This was my life.  This was how every single day went.  It’s a typical day in the life of a working mom, something that so many can relate to.  But for me, it was heartbreaking.  Though I loved my job teaching in a brick and mortar; I loved working with children and creating meaningful learning opportunities to ignite a spark, I would dread each day.  It wasn’t the students- I loved them deeply.  It was the rushing.  It was being away from my own children daily as they were raised by someone else.  It was the feeling of the sand slipping through the hourglass so fast I barely realized it was flowing at all.

Modern life fatigue

Everything in our modern world is about bigger, better, faster, stronger.  How can we make more money?  How can I buy this thing?  People work to fill their pockets so that they can buy things that they don’t really need only to buy bigger houses to fill with the things they continue to buy.  They become slaves to their homes, to their things, and like a ravenous monster, the greed within them always wants more, demanding to be fed.

The weight of this can be overwhelming.  As we look to the past for answers, it’s the homesteading era that has a magical romance about it, drawing us into the allure of simpler times.  What would it be like if we lived then?  How would our lives be different if we let go of the world, and turned back to the traditions of the past?

For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.

1 Timothy 6:7-8

Modern day homesteaders begin to seek a way out of modern life fatigue and instead search for ways to create a life like the homesteading era of the past in today’s modern world. Their goals are to simplify and return to nature, and their role models are those from the past who have lived this way before.

A need for change

As people continue to grow tired and weary of the world we are living in now, the draw of a simple life, one filled with the daily tasks of survival becomes a dream in the minds of the hopeless.  A life filled with physical labor that bears fruits of thanksgiving.  It is in this pursuit of freedom that modern day homesteaders are born.

These modern day homesteaders seek to build a life filled with daily chores that provide food for the home, clothing for the people, and connection to the Earth.  Through this life, modern day homesteaders can foster relationships, both within the family and with the land.  It is on a modern day homestead that one is forced to slow down, as the tasks of daily living take time to complete them.  It is here, in this labor-filled lifestyle that so many can find peace.

It’s because of this that I’ve become a modern day homesteader.  I’ve found a way to make it work for our family so that I can live the life I desire yet still provide for the inescapable demands of this modern-day world.  We work on the land that provides our food.  We play in the forests, listening to the magic and following the tracks of the others who have passed there before.  We slow down to cook a from-scratch meal, and we sit together at the table for dinner.   We snuggle together at night, ready for the joy of the day tomorrow and professing our true thanksgiving for the day that we had to the Lord.  It is here that we find our peace and our purpose.  It is this everyday, simple life in which we find hope and strength for tomorrow.

“As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness — just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breathe it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom and Virtues

Do you feel it too?

So if you feel that calling, don’t ignore it.  We are biologically designed to live with nature.  Embrace who you are and where you’re at.  Make the life you want with what you have.  Sacrifice for what’s important. Live your life, the only life you have, in the way that you find meaning and purpose.  You won’t regret becoming who you were meant to be.

Read this post to learn about how you can start your own homestead.

Save this for later- you don’t want to forget it.