We live as self sufficiently as possible, in all respects. We have some very basic principles, we wish to have as little environmental impact as possible and value people, relationships and time with others above things and possessions. This is just what we think, we try not to impose this others and live quite quietly. We buy household things and clothes from charity shops, we recycle and re-use, we make what we can, we grow all our own veg and fruit, rear some meat and have a deal with a local farmer for the rest. We both have jobs but only work to what we need, we are not rich but we are very, very happy as are our two beautiful children.
Today we went to Sil birthday. As a present I had made her a summer type shawl, a cake, some scones and jam and some home-made wine. I had put a lot of effort into the shawl which was made from a unwanted wedding dress, so really beautiful material. Sil and other Sil got drunk and started mocking our gifts, 'why couldn't we be normal?', 'a bottle of perfume would have been better', 'did we really think others liked this sort of thing' and 'we were just weird and our children would grow up weird' 'we owed it to our children to let them grow up in the real world'. I was deeply, deeply offended by these comments, and then felt even worse when they started almost attacking us by getting very aggressive and trying to get us to justify the way we lived. I basically said what I have in the first paragraph, then we left, DH was mortified (there his sil's!) and really angry. I know they were being rude and unreasonable, but AIBU to think I shouldn't have to justify our lifestyle to others just because we choose to live differently, this is no-ones concern but ours surely?