Values over ideals 

Lean into what matters most, but don't drive your family crazy with idealism that doesn't match your reality. Connection trumps perfection.

Examples of ideals might be: Avoiding all plastic or cement. Raising your kids without any screen time. Never using outside labour. I don’t think holding to these all/nothing dichotomies necessarily leads to growth. An alternative is values. For example: caring for the earth and finding ways to improve our footprint. Caring for family and broader community. Valuing human labour. Growing to be a great example for our kids.

When we built our home, I wanted to do it all: build it ourselves, build with tyres, sandbags, straw bales....

At the time, getting building approval and finding competent builders for alternative construction was really difficult. We ultimately built with light steel frame, and later with brick. While we built parts of our structures, particularly interiors, labourers did most of the building - the structures would have been impossible without their contributions.

The building processes on our homestead have often felt like a compromise, but they allowed us to move forward. We could start gaining experience in our early-mid thirties while our kids were very young. It moved us closer to our values, even though it wasn't perfect.

When we moved onto our property, we relied on four small solar panels for all our electricity. This meant we pumped water by hand, we had no fridge, and we spent many evenings in the dark. Our growth and impact were physically limited by our idealism.

On the other hand, we used a humanure toilet from day one, and it worked incredibly well - our humanure compost has enriched our soil for ten years.

I've met people who are prioritise avoid ALL plastic in their garden, or who want to eat only organic food without fully understanding all the dimensions involved in labour and the supply chain. Those who stand strongly by ideals related to diet, sustainability, or social justice can transform our world. But we need practice to really understand which ideals are most important and build in the most leverage for future improvements. We need to get our hands dirty, and try imperfect solutions. Our efforts should make the world more joyful and draw people in.

The question that has helped us most: Will this move us closer to living out our values? (How? What’s the timeline? Which values?)

We've made slow, small steps toward our values, knowing we have multiple values and that balancing them is delicate but joyful work.

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