But on another semantic note, I have a hard time kind of putting a term around the way I eat and live sometimes. It's sustainable, it's frugal, it's healthy, it's old fashioned, it's back-to-basics. These aren't all things that people automatically lump in together, and certainly something can be old fashioned without being sustainable, or sustainable without being frugal. Even sustainable without being healthy, but don't get me started.
So this little excerpt from Wise Bread: My Favorite Guides to Frugal Living Are Not Guides to Frugal Living was right up my alley. It's been quite the while since I reread the series; I might take another crack at them.
The Little House Seriesby Laura Ingalls Wilder
Whaaa? A children's fictionalized autobiography? Well, I have gotten lots of frugal ideas from the Ingalls family. OK, many of them are not practical in our time since we have a different economy and diferent scarcities than they did. For example, Ma and Laura would tear their worn sheets down the middle, turn the edges toward the outside and sew them back together to get more use out of the cloth. Nowadays, manufactured cloth is cheap and sewing skill and time are dear, so most people wouldn't bother.
And yet. I guess what I get from reading and rereading the Little House Series is encouragement toward frugal, simple living in the form of reminders of how luxurious my life truly is, even if I give up a few little niceties. I especially love reading about the Ingalls' Christmas mornings, and how excited and grateful little girls could be over a couple sticks of candy and some hand-knit mittens. Puts into pretty stark contrast the expectations of the modern American child, and provides me with plenty of incentive to keep our own holidays simple and joyful while my kids are still young enough to follow my lead.
1 comment:
i loved these books. i had the originals, plus the caroline years, the rose years, etc. i completely agree with you about expectations. even just in the last generation they have changed dramatically. when i was a child i remember getting a stocking with some smaller nicknacks, like hair ties and candy, and a present or two for myself and one to share with my sister. now my little cousins and nephews cry if their brother has 8 presents and they only got 7. it's ridiculous.
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