Ainsley Arment - The Wild and Free Family: Forging Your Own Path to a Life Full of Wonder, Adventure, and Connection

To Ben

sun to my moon

filling me

with light

illuminating me

with love

To Wyatt, Dylan, Cody, Annie, and Millie

the brightest stars

teaching me

forever

leading me

to wonder

I n the spring of 2009, my husband Ben and I were at a crossroads. We had moved to Atlanta, Georgia, for a job opportunity and were enjoying a comfortable life. We had two little boys at the time and another on the way. We lived in a cookie-cutter house with two cars in the driveway and an opportunity to purchase a new home that summer.

Our son Wyatt was in a four-day-a-week prekindergarten, and I took our three-year-old, Dylan, to the gym each morning, where he played in the childcare center while I worked out.

I was building a small nutrition business in my spare time and running a blog for mothers called Chattahoochee Mama, a tongue-in-cheek nod to the famous river that ran near our house.

I was content. Ben was content. My children were happy. And our home was peaceful.

But our family was missing the one thing that would make each day feel like something more than going through the motions: a greater purpose for our lives together.

We spent those warm Georgia evenings at the park, where our boys played while Ben and I tried to decide whether to double-down on the job, purchase a home here, and settle for life in suburbia.

We wrestled with the decision. Staying put would mean surrendering our dreams on the altar of security. But walking away would mean giving up everything we had ever worked for: a good job, a nice house, and a sense of financial security for the first time in our lives.

In the meantime, I went through the motions of taking Wyatt to school each morning. I remember sitting in the drop-off carpool line with my numbered security card on the back of the sun visor so they could identify him.

As I approached the drop-off point, a teacher would fling open the van door, scoop Wyatt out of his car seat like a parachutist going out the back of a C-17, and yell Go, go, go! while I frantically blew him a kiss, tossed out a sack lunch, and kept the van rolling to avoid holding up the line.

At the time, I was driving an old minivan that was not equipped with automatic doors like most everyone elses newer models. The teacher would invariably leave the door open, thinking I would push the button to close it, only to leave me with no choice but to drive away with the door wide open, no matter the weather. I would pull over on the side of a busy, two-lane road, get out, walk around the side of the van, and close it with a big heave-ho.

It would have been funny if it hadnt happened every single day.

Its not that we didnt have beauty and blessings in our lives, making memories and marking the milestones with gratitude. But in many ways, it felt like our life was being lived for us.

We were like the Jetsons cartoon family, who get scooped out of their beds by conveyer belts each morning and transported to the bathroom for a shower, to the closet to get dressed, and to the kitchen to eat breakfast before being taken to work in flying cars. Only our conveyor belt was the school schedule, the work routine, the gym membership, and the daily grind.

Unless we did something about it, nothing would ever change. This routine would become our life until death do us part.

One day at work, Ben got called into a meeting with the other directors at his company. The company was making cutbacks, and the CEO asked each of them to write down the names of the employees who should be let go first, the low performers. Bens heart sank. These were the very people he worked with, ate lunch with, and celebrated with.

He said it felt like nominating tributes in The Hunger Games.

After the exercise, the CEO dismissed everyone but the top executives. As Ben walked back to his office, passing the very employees whose names had been jotted on the whiteboard, he had a sudden realization: there was nothing stopping the CEO from writing down his name after he left the meeting.

The job security that was keeping us from making courageous decisions, following our dreams, going on adventures, and spending more time together as a family was nothing more than an illusion. We realized that we had built our lives around supporting someone elses purposethe companys purpose, societys purpose, the school systems purpose. But we werent living our purpose.

I dont recommend this to everyone, but we decided to quit that life without any other prospects and move back to Virginia Beach, where we had always dreamed of raising a family, close to the ocean and the ones we loved. We cast off societys conventions to build a life based on what mattered most to us. Time together. Our own schedule. And the freedom to travel the world at will.

It wasnt easy. In fact, it took several years to find our footing. But after a few different endeavors, some successful, some not, we finally found our purpose, which led me to start an Instagram account and later an organization called Wild + Free.

With dozens of events each year, hundreds of thousands of community members, millions of podcast downloads, groups all over the world, and the creation of the Wild + Free Farm Village in the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia, Wild + Free has become a movement of families who share the same heart and are breaking free from societys pressures and building a more authentic life.

My familys move back to my hometown proved to be providential. Our contract on a home purchase fell through without any explanation, and we couldnt understand why the seller wouldnt sign the agreement. But then my mother was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, and it all became clear.

We were meant to move into her home to look after her and my brother, who was battling his own chronic illness. Now that shes gone, my mothers home has become our own, and my brother still lives in our care.

Its not the life I thought we would be living. Its not the one we always dreamed about. But its the life we have, and it has come to impact our family in some pretty profound ways, from the intimate moments we had with my mother before she passed away to being close to the ocean for countless seaside explorations.

It has also taught us some priceless lessons. Its taught us that although it might be easier to outsource care, we develop strength in character by caring for othersthe widows, the orphans, and the unwell. It has given us the chance to show our children what it means to be there for family members at their worst, to lean into hard things instead of running away.

In many ways, it has also helped us stay connected to my mother, even though my two little girls were never able to meet her. She passed away before they were born, and yet the yearning to know her still beats strong in their hearts. When they were much younger, whenever they met an older woman who visited our house, they would ask me, Is that my grandmother?

My daughter Annie often asks me about my mother. She loves to hear stories about what she was like as a mom to me, and she always concludes wistfully, I wish I could meet her.

Little do they know that each and every day they walk the same halls my mother used to walk. They sleep in the same bedroom where she tucked me into bed each night. And they eat at the kitchen table where my mother served countless meals and stayed up late to drink tea and talk with me after a night out.

They are walking in her footsteps and experiencing her legacy, whether they know it or not.