I know you are not being sarcastic. Dont worry.
If she knows how to cook or sew in a profesional and not amateur way she could earn her own money designin clothes or starting a restaurant.
She could have a little farm or piece of land with animals and vegetables and offer organic meals... a lot of stuff.
Ive seen people with college degrees without employment and creative people with only high school who start their own bussiness.
Even if she is poor I prefer she lives in poverty but she remains a catholic than going to college and being lost.
100# agree with your last sentence.
Back to cooking and sewing...
What you suggest does surely necessitate a great deal of skill and capital support. As you say, she can’t be an amateur. Unless someone in the family or a close friend is a professional cook, chef, designer, seamstress, she will need training and time to acquire the necessary skill level. She will need money to pay her teachers, money and a place for equipment and supplies. If she’s going into business, she needs to learn how to start and operate a business, average of $40,000 up front in the U.S. Keep in mind that a full 80% of start-ups in the US fail within five years. I don’t think most women, even those young, strong, and in robust health are capable of living solo on a mini-farm. She’d need land, not for free, even if inherited or gifted, there’s taxes, many kinds of equipment, animals, to pay for the vet...She will need not only traditionally female domestic skills, but male farm skills and the physical ability to perform both.
Troubled30, are you age 30 or thereabouts? Have you ever lived on an off-grid farm? By yourself? Successfully for a period of say, three to five years?
I’ll anticipate the next suggestion from someone. A group of single Catholic ladies should band together and do this. To me, that sounds wonderful. I’ve lived on three off-grid farms for a total of about eight years. I loved the lifestyle. But I wasn’t alone; I lived with the most ultra-conservative of the Old Order Amish and Mennonites. For eight years I used an outhouse, never showered, bathed once weekly from a round tub behind the cookstove in the kitchen. I was #five in line for the ladies’ water. I can sew, can, bake, butcher chickens, keep a garden, hitch a horse to a buggy and drive it, use a manual wringer washer, operate a water-driven grist mill to grind grain, make lye soap, pick and shuck corn, milk cows and goats by hand, shovel mischt, fork hay, chop wood, and I’m a pretty good shot with a 12-gauge.
That was when I was in my 20’s with good health despite arthritis. I’m now in my 60’s with fair health due to arthritis and PVS, the result of a very bad case of flu combined with Fifth’s Disease.
Please forward to me the list of traditional Catholic ladies willing and able to commit full-time to this life for a period of about 8-10 years. I may not be able to do everything, but I can still teach younger or more adept women! (Don’t worry, I won’t be offended if there are few or none who’d seriously like to live this way.). At my old SSPX chapel, there were two women who were seriously scandalized when I showed up at a Pilgrimage/Retreat/Conference. I arrived having driven four days, solo, and pitched a tent in woods behind a cornfield. I couldn’t afford it, otherwise! They were horrified at the idea of my sleeping in the tent back there alone, and insisted I should have female companions. There were plenty of single ladies, mostly in their 20’s. My tent could easily fit three plus bags and I had one extra small tent for two minus bags or one more comfortably. There were zero takers to my offer, this even when I discovered the land owner was one of the conference coordinators. At least I didn’t have to squat. He gave permission somewhat reluctantly and made me sign a paper agreeing to take full responsibility for my personal safety and well-being.
I’ve often invited work colleagues to join me for a weekend in a campground with a bathhouse, hot water, flush toilets, showers, WiFi, coin laundry facilities, picnic tables, tent platforms, option for electric and water hook-ups on the site...In 25 years, not a soul has taken me up on the offer. The closest I ever came was a temporary music teacher, recently (unwillingly) divorced, raising her 11 year old autistic son and five year old Down Syndrome daughter accompanied me on a day trip to a rustic park in Connecticut. At work, my colleagues looked down on her because she was black and had married a Korean man, father of the girl, but not the boy. She’d converted from Baptist to Coptic Orthodox and married the Korean novus man, but soon returned to the Coptic. The man left the Faith first, and then her. (Koreans and blacks in NYC really don’t like each other, so in a majority Asian/Korean school, it didn’t go over well when she was hired!). I liked her. She handled the children exceptionally well, her son, especially. He was basically non-verbal and had anger outbursts as a result. The little girl was easy. You simply had to keep in mind she was a 1 year old mind in a five year old body, very sweet and lovable. I don’t understand how her father could have rejected and abandoned her. I do understand the difficulty with the boy, but he married her knowing it was a package deal. Lorelei told me he became abusive about six months into the marriage, first verbally, then physically after she had their daughter. He wanted to put both children in care and get her tubes tied. (Probably a truly anullable marriage if he had this in mind secretly all along?). We set up the tent for an after lunch nap. Everyone slept except for me! James loved being outdoors and had only one meltdown because he was scared to use the outhouse.