Raising a Child in the Country – 5 Reasons Why it Might be Right for Your Family

I grew up in a rural community – in a
subdivision, mind you, but in a district where only 20,000 people lived
along a narrow strip of land stretching 70 miles along the rocky coast. 
Bears visited our backyard regularly, and we spent our weekends in the
mountains, exploring abandoned logging camps and old First Nations
villages, hiking to extinct volcanic craters, and riding dirt bikes in
the empty lots down the street.  We learned all the native edible and
medicinal plants, the names of all the trees towering above, and which
wild birds like which sorts of native berries.  We fished, rode
motorbikes, and got dirty.  In other words, we spent most of our waking
hours outside.

When my son was born in 2003 and we ended
up in a townhouse on a busy road in the city, all those amazing
childhood experiences came flooding back – and I realized, sadly, that
his life was going to be very different.  His school days would be
interrupted by sirens and construction projects, he’d have to sidestep
doggy doo (and other nasties) every time he went for a walk in the
forest, and he’d never really know the joys of silence.  For his own
memories’ sake, I wanted him to know a summer day where all you can hear
is crickets, the rustling of the wind in dry, tall grass, and the
distant hum of a float plane buzzing to some far flung island.  The
chance of experiencing any of that living in a townhouse?  Nada.

I
loved so many things about our city, nestled between sea and mountain,
but getting my little guy out into ‘nature’ was an more of an effort
than I was able to pull off most days.  During my maternity leave, we’d
hop on the bus and spend our days in the forest (with him on my back in a
carrier) but once I went back to work, there just never seemed to be
enough time.  Moving closer to the nature was out of the question – real
estate in our part of the world is crazy at best – the average home
price at the time was somewhere around $800K.  Decent townhouses closer
to the forest on a quiet street?  About $600K.  So it was either noisy
townhouse or the alternative – moving – and  I struggled with it every
single day.

It was when he got a little older and I’d find him
entranced by the comings and goings of ants and wood bugs that I decided
that this child was born to be in the country.  He just oozed it.  His
first word wasn’t ‘cat’ or ‘juice’, but ‘moon’.  So I started planning
for a very different life… a life somewhere quieter where he could
become who he was meant to be, without distraction.

Now, we could
have moved anywhere, but it was important that my guy be close to his
grandparents.  In other words, our choice was pretty simple – we moved
back to my hometown, only a 40 minute ferry ride, but what felt like a
world, away.  It was 2008, and I had no idea how I was going to make it
work, but I’d been building my skill set for years and studying
everything I could get my hands on that had anything to do with rural
living, homesteading and the transition from city to country living. 
Was I terrified?  Um… yeah.  But terror slowly turned to ‘I can do
this!’, and we never looked back.

So here we are, just over 4
years later, well ensconced into a new/old life in the forest.  My son
attends a Waldorf School surrounded by trees and streams, and right
across a quiet country road from the beach.  He gets to see his
grandparents pretty much every day – something I never experienced in my
own childhood – and spends his non-school time listening to the wind in
the trees, collecting and studying bugs and other critters, and
communing with our flock of 20 chickens (17 hens and three roosters, to
be exact).  And now that we’ve been here awhile, the benefits of the
move are becoming clearer every single day.

The Benefits

First
off, please know that I’m no child development expert and I can’t tell
you conclusively that living in the country is any ‘better’ than living
in the city, as they both clearly have their pros and cons, but there
are a few things I’ve observed over the past 4 years that I think are
worth noting:

1. Room to Run – This one goes without saying.  Children need to move and run and stretch their limbs in order for their physical and mental
   capacities to develop in a healthy way, and that’s pretty difficult in a
   1000 square foot apartment with a tiny rooftop deck.  They don’t need a
   lot of space, but the simple joy of being able to move freely when the
   impulse strikes is a real treat to watch.  If my son wants to run across
   the yard on all fours, he can do that – without crashing into anything
   or stepping into anyone else’s space (but chicken poop, maybe).
2. Quiet for the Imagination
   – A big reason why we decided on Waldorf Education, and moved to a
   rural community, was this – the preservation, and development of, my
   child’s imagination.  Not that imagination can’t develop in the city, of
   course – some of our most brilliant people were raised in urban
   environments – but there’s something about quiet, being in nature, that
   just invites creative thinking and problem-solving, especially for
   children who are sensitive.  With the challenges we’re facing in the
   world, we need creative people, unencumbered by rigid or stunted thought processes and the distraction of 24/7 noise.
3. Exposure to the Natural World
   – As you know, our planet is in somewhat of a crisis on the
   environmental front.  Species extinctions, systemic pollution, habitat
   loss… our children need to be connected to the natural world now more
   than ever.  If they don’t feel like they’re a part of the world around
   them, how can we expect them to care about it?  So your child spending
   quiet, extended time in nature benefits us all, and will for
   generations.  I simply can’t see how my son would care anywhere near as
   much about the creatures of the world and its natural systems as he does
   if he didn’t get to see and feel and touch them every day.
4. No Billboards or In-Your-Face Marketing
   – This one is HUGE for me – there simply isn’t anywhere near the
   bombardment of visual marketing as there is in the city, where every
   surface is covered with images talking our children into ‘needing’
   things they don’t really need at all, and doing things they really have
   no business doing.  Think about the effects of mainstream media and
   marketing on children, and then imagine what it would be like to not
   have that in your child’s face every day.  It’s liberating, and so much
   better because kids are left alone to be just that – kids.
5. Time to be Together
   – I’m blessed to work from home, and I’m incredibly busy with my
   business, but I’m able to spend a lot more time with my son than I did
   when we lived in the city and I worked in an office, mostly by nature of
   the fact that we aren’t spending hours in traffic every day, nor are we
   signed up for umpteen lessons and activities.  It’s been incredibly
   freeing, and rewarding, to be able to spend time with him – even when
   I’m working and serving clients and he’s just hanging out with the
   chickens or drawing pictures of trolls and eagles.  Child development
   expert Gordon Neufeld talks extensively about the importance of children
   being ‘attached’ to their caregivers and not their peers – it’s much
   easier to do this when you can actually spend a lot of time together.

Of
course, as with anything worth exploring, there are downsides, but in
our experience, the great things that have come from our move out of the
city far outweigh the negatives, which are, well, pretty much
non-existent.  Sure sometimes it’s a struggle to get everything done,
the power goes out a lot, and we don’t have any neighbours at all, let
alone with children, so spontaneous play with other kids is sort of out
of the question, but even with all that, I can’t imagine living anywhere
else.  I’ll let Jonah wrap it up:  Why I Like Living in the Country

Are you planning a move to the country with your children?  Do you have any concerns or worries?  If so, leave us a comment on the blog or on Facebook
to hear from others who’ve made the move and are loving it… it’s a
super supportive group and we love sharing what we’ve learned.  See you
there!