alternative lifestyle

Had you going there for a minute, didn't I?

No, this is just the alternative to the post I did yesterday; way of the world. If you haven't read that one yet, do so. This will make more sense if you do.

Homebirth, homeschool, quiver-full minded (meaning letting God decided when and how many children we have which also means no use of birth control), courtship, debt-free, simple, clutter-free lifestyle; these define what an atypical American life looks like. There are probably other areas, but these are just what I can think of right now.

Now let me clear something up before I get step on some toes unintentionally. I am not against those things I listed in my first post. That is to say, I'm not going to go around castigating those people who choose to do those things in their life. What I am saying is that we, as a family, have chosen to NOT do those particular things. And for that decision we have been talked about, made fun of, treated as though we are idiots, and just generally not liked.

Now frankly, I really don't care what other people think. But it really bugs me when people say things to my children about how they think we are not doing something right. These children were not given to them to raise. God gave them to my husband and me. We are their parents and they have no right to talk bad about us to them.

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled program...

Some people may be interested in one, some, or all of those things listed above. Some people are even doing more to get out of mainstream America. And that's their choice. Get it? We have a choice. I'm not just talking about as Americans. I'm talking about how God gave us all a free will to choose how we would live. Of course we also have to live with the consequences of those choices. But the thing is that we are the ones making that choice.

Now some may argue and say that we are not giving our children any choice at all. They are, after all, being "forced" to live the way we choose. Well, as I mentioned above, they were entrusted into our care and we are doing what we feel the Lord wants us to do. We will answer for our choices. And actually, they will answer for their choices, too. They are also making decisions every day; will they obey mom and dad, or not? And that is really the only commandment in the Bible given directly to children. Lest some think that we are forcing our children to do certain things, just know that we also show them the other side of the story.

For example: evolution vs creation. We have explained to them about both ideas. We have let them watch videos and had them read the Creation account in the Bible. They have come to their own conclusion; that evolution is a myth and that God created everything in six literal days.

For the most part we let them choose what they wear. We do require that they dress modestly and we have explained from the Bible how we came to our conclusion of how modesty is defined. They have chosen to agree with us and in some instances are even more conservative than we are. (Of course we do have times when the boys will run around in just their underwear pretending to be Indians - we're not perfect :P ).

Dating vs courtship - well, we haven't gotten to that stage yet, so I'll keep that for another time.

Debt-free - it is pretty self-explanatory. It is so freeing to not be in debt. We are still working on that one.

Quiverfull minded - I think I'll leave that one alone too. I mean, if you haven't figured it out yet after 10 children, well...

We do homebirths unless an emergency came up like it did with my 9th baby. We love it! And we love our midwife! If you are in the east TN area and need a midwife, I can recommend one. :) If you are considering a homebirth and are not sure, I suggest you research it out. Talk to a midwife (I know one :) ).

Homeschool - that's another post entirely.

A simple, clutter-free lifestyle - we try to keep things simple. We shop at thrift stores and Goodwill for clothes and shoes. If we absolutely can't find something necessary like a coat, we will buy one new at the store. Or shoes. But so far, that has been very seldom. We also have people give us clothes and shoes pretty often; along with several other things. We try to eat simple foods. In fact, when we experiment with rich, processed foods we sometimes get sick. We would love to have a little land with some chickens, goats, ducks, geese, and the like, but it seems that that's not what God wants us to do right now. We had that last year and had to move quickly. So we had to get rid of everything. Someday...maybe. We try to keep toys simple; bikes, balls, cars, dolls, toy animals, board games, building blocks and other materials, books. We don't have video games. We have movies, but they are family friendly, conservative, mostly Christian movies. No tv. We have watched it and let them watch it before. But we prefer to not have it. Good grief, the commercials alone...

So there you have it folks. The odd lifestyle we choose to follow. :) I hope you enjoyed this little peak into our life. A few things I mentioned above really need their own post so maybe sometime in the future I'll expand on those things.

I hope you have a blessed Sunday. I need to finish getting ready for church and get my kids up to do the same.



Until next time...

JenT