I say it often, but I truly love interacting with my readers. The following piece was written by an incredible lady named Hannah. She and her family left the city and relocated to a farm. I’m always intrigued by Jewish families that are living a non-traditional lifestyle and I asked her to please share her experience. Read on; I bet you’ll be as amazed as I am!
I used to be a typical “Jersey Girl.” Both my husband and I were raised in New Jersey, in Jewish homes that stressed education and career development above everything. I had trained to be a nurse and he worked on Wall Street. Our free time was spent shopping (me), playing golf (him), and dining at hip restaurants with both extended families.
We always assumed we would both work fulltime and send our children to a local Jewish day care/pre-school. Everyone we knew did it, why wouldn’t we? Everything changed when I became pregnant with my first son, only 3 months after the wedding. Almost from the beginning, I experienced complications and was put on bed rest. As the months went by, my attitude towards my career—paramount, up to that point—changed. I wanted to become a stay-at-home mom, a decision that shocked everyone.
I never returned to work and my feelings remained the same, even after 2 more children followed. Because my husband was working a stressful job with long hours and a commute, it seemed like he was rarely around. Yes, he was supporting us in a lavish lifestyle, but I wasn’t happy. My dream was to start a home-based business that the entire family could work at together. When I expressed this desire to my husband, he actually laughed and remained laughing for years.
Then, 9/11 happened and it seemed like the world was no longer the same. Thankfully, he didn’t work in the Trade Center and was safe, but we knew friends that died in the attack. This event was what truly changed my husband. Instead of “living to work” he realized he needed to only “work to live.”
We brainstormed for a while until we came across a real estate ad for a farm in upstate New York. Immediately, I knew this was the answer to my prayers, even though none of us had grown so much as herbs in a window box, let alone a huge field of crops!
I won’t document the transition, because that’s a book in itself. While it was hard and often a burden, the end result has been amazing. We are now together as a family, almost 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, living and working together as we farm and homeschool (and continue to have more babies).
Instead of the business taking us away from the kids, they are right there, doing and learning, with the store room and field being their school. It takes a bit of creativity, but children of almost any age, even toddlers, can help in small ways and the learning comes naturally.
When they were younger, they learned math while helping me count change, plus multiplication, sorting, and grouping. Measurements, fractions, ounces came by sorting the food into containers. Even the littlest one would stand on a chair and put customer orders into a bag while I supervised. Sometimes they would color and put their kid stickers on the products.
Making butter was an activity the kids adored. Anytime I churned, they begged to join in, by flipping the switch of the butter churn or pouring in the cream. Same thing when it came to making maple syrup and candies. I find that by working as a team, there’s less fighting and complaining.
When a child expressed an individual interest, we tried to accommodate them. My daughters loved flowers and starting a potted plant business. (It never made a profit, but was still good for them). As teens, they answered phone calls, took orders, and made deliveries.
Over time, we built a loyal base. Customers got to know us and felt like part of the family. We earn enough to support ourselves, but not anything extra. (For the first few years, we never earned enough and lived mainly off savings. Anyone who is considering farming needs to know this.)
Our extended family, who’s still in New Jersey, thinks we’re nuts. We are the only members to have left the nest, so to speak, and we no longer want the fast paced life. (It was hardest on my mother who is a lawyer and feels that I’ve wasted my training and embraced the “Dark Ages for women.”) Yes, we have suffered financially, but our lifestyle is much better in other ways. There isn’t much Jewish community life here, but we knew that before the move. Everything is a trade-off.
Overall, moving to a farm has been an incredibly transformative experience for our family and I’m forever grateful that we went our own way. I would never pretend it’s been easy, but it has been worth it.
