“She Wants to Be Amish Now”

Longing for a Simpler Life in a Complex World

“She wants to be Amish now.”
That’s my dad’s new joke about me.

And sure, we laugh—but isn’t there always a little truth hiding in humor?

It’s not that I want to live without electricity or adopt a strict religious code. But I do want the rhythm, the closeness to the land, the simplicity, and the community. I long for a life where I can read, write, build, garden, raise children with intention, and feel deeply rooted in the world around me.

I want to slow down. And honestly? I want to give children the chance to grow up in that kind of life.

But that’s hard to find in today’s world.

The Quiet Exhaustion of Parents

I work as a private tutor. I get to see behind the curtain of family life—and what I see more often than not is exhaustion. Parents running on fumes, juggling expectations, burning themselves out to give their kids every opportunity. I see incredible resilience… and quiet depletion.

And then I see the kids.

Brilliant. Curious. Creative. And tired.

I can tell when it happens—usually around third grade. School shifts from joyful exploration to performance and pressure. Learning becomes about keeping up, earning stickers, hitting benchmarks, and eventually just getting through it.

“My teacher said I wasn’t thinking,” a student told me yesterday. “But I was. I was thinking about the problem. I told her, but she didn’t believe me.”

That hit me hard.

We’ve equated busy with productive, and quiet with lazy. But some of the deepest thinking happens in stillness. We just don’t always have the patience—or the structure—to honor it.

When Being a Scholar Became a Grind

There was a time when to be a scholar meant to be a thinker. A ponderer. A lover of ideas.

Now, too often, it means someone who can produce an obscene amount of work, fast, and with very little space for questions or creativity.

We give every child the same definition of success. We tell them all to keep up with the same curriculum, pass the same tests, read the same books. But we don’t all learn the same way. Some kids need to move. Some need to talk. Some need silence. Some need soil under their fingernails.

As a kid, I didn’t even know I liked to read—because I never had time to just read. Every book came with a quiz, a report, a deadline.

I’m not against accountability. But I am against teaching kids that their value lies in how fast they can turn a page and prove it.

What I’m Learning from Steiner and Watts

Lately, I’ve been diving deep into the writings of Rudolf Steiner—founder of the Waldorf education model. His work has given shape to so much of what I feel but couldn’t name.

Steiner believed education should nurture the head, heart, and hands. That children go through clear developmental stages, and that we should teach in harmony with their natural growth. His classrooms are full of rhythm, storytelling, movement, art, and deep respect for childhood as a sacred time.

"Our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives."– Rudolf Steiner

He reminds me that learning can be alive.

At the same time, I’ve been reading Alan Watts, the philosopher who gently dismantles all the illusions we live by. He reminds us that we don’t need to fight life into submission. We are not separate from the world—we are the world.

“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” – Alan Watts

Where Steiner grounds me, Watts frees me. Together, they remind me that I can choose a different path. That I can live slower. That I can raise children (if I have them) in a way that honors both their soul and the soil beneath their feet.

The Tension: Simplicity vs. Belonging

I’d love to have children. But not in a way that erodes my values. Not in a world where they’re expected to race through childhood, just to keep up with systems that don’t see them.

And yet—I worry.

I worry that if I homeschool or take a different route, my kids might miss out on friendships or community. I worry that if I follow the mainstream path, I’ll lose my values in the noise. I worry that I’ll one day make choices not because they’re right for us, but because they’re easier—or more familiar.

I want my kids to play in a yard. Not just play sports, but build things, create messy art, read unusual books. I want them to explore—not just the world, but their inner world.

And honestly? I want that for myself too.

Maybe I Don’t Want to Be Amish—Maybe I Just Want to Be Awake

Maybe the joke isn’t that I want to be Amish.
Maybe the truth is, I want to be intentional.

I want to live in a way that feels aligned. I want to wake up and know that how I spend my time reflects what I value. I want my life—and any future children’s lives—to be filled with curiosity, connection, creativity, and calm.

Not perfection. Not performance. But presence.

We live in a culture that makes that hard. But not impossible.

And maybe that’s the bravest thing we can do: say no to the pressure, yes to the pause, and trust that our longing for a simpler life is not a weakness, but a compass.

“You either walk inside your story and own it, or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.” – Brené Brown

I’m learning to walk inside my story. To own my longing. To create a life that feels like mine.