There’s a quiet tension in the life we’re building. Within tradwife and homeschooling accounts on Instagram, it often feels like you have to pick a lane to be in as a family.
In one lane, you’re rooted at home with slow mornings, home-cooked meals, hours in the garden, a life built around presence and intention. Essentially, a life in which your only source of contentment comes from being home. It’s beautiful to watch, and I fell right into it.
As my children grew, my longing for wonder expanded. I’ve always dreamt of collecting passport stamps and eating croissants at dreamy cafes in Paris. I also love raising chickens.
What if it was never meant to be one or the other? What if I could have both?
The answer is unequivocally, yes.
We’ve decided that we’re building a life where our kids know how to gather eggs in the morning and navigate an airport in the afternoon—a life where they understand the rhythm of home but aren’t afraid to step outside it.
Homesteading has always been our way of pressing pause. Collecting morning eggs, baking from scratch, learning where our food actually comes from, and getting our hands dirty, it’s grounding.
It teaches patience, responsibility, and gratitude. Teaching that small daily habits reap big rewards.
Then we leave. The complete juxtaposition to the lifestyle we live at home. A completely different version: 25,000-step days, where they’re eating new and exciting foods, hearing different languages, cultures, rhythms, and perspectives.
I was afraid that travel would take them away from their foundation, but instead it deepened it. I love the quote, “Give your children roots and wings.” This lifestyle gives them both.
It doesn’t always make sense on paper, but we plant fruit trees to eat soursop in South America. We build routines to get jet lagged. We teach simplicity to explore abundance. Maybe that’s where the beauty lies.
Real life isn’t all-or-nothing.
I pray my kids grow up knowing food doesn’t just come from a store, not everyone lives the same way we do, and that “home” isn’t just a place, it’s something you carry with you. In the end, we’re not just raising kids who belong to our homes; we’re raising kids who will step out into the world, and I feel like this will make them ready.
