I Reread The "Little House on the Prairie" Series As An Adult And Was Shocked By How Relevant It Still Feels Today

Recently, with a few quiet weeks ahead, I decided to revisit the series. Beyond the nostalgia, I was struck by how much wisdom was tucked between the pages.

The Value of Contentment

For much of Little House in the Big Woods, Laura’s main toy is a corncob that she wraps in a blanket and pretends to be a doll. In Little House on the Prairie, Laura and her sister are overwhelmed when their Christmas stockings contain the abundance of a tin cup, a piece of candy, and a penny. In On the Banks of Plum Creek, the Ingalls family moves out of a dugout in the ground into a house with actual shingles on the roof and glass in the windows, and they spend the first evening in the house just sitting together, marveling at how amazing it is. 

The book in the series that drove the value of contentment home to me the most, though, was The Long Winter. The Ingalls family very nearly starves when seven months of blizzards keep supply trains from reaching their town. Throughout the book, they work hard to keep each other’s spirits up by singing in the evening or reciting poems for each other. They make handmade gifts for each other for Christmas, and they express how fortunate they are for a Christmas dinner of watery oyster soup and toast. They don’t complain about waking up in a house so cold that a thick layer of frost forms on the nails showing through the inside of the roof. 

Reading those examples, I felt guilty about the times when I complain or take modern conveniences like indoor plumbing for granted. When I'm having a rough week, I might try to cheer myself up with a pedicure, or a fancy latte. I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with that. However, I keep asking, “Would I be happier if I looked for contentment within?” 

In the days after finishing the reread of the series, I found myself more mindful about the many comforts I enjoy. I was thankful for my houseplant collection and found it easier to be positive doing chores I don’t like, such as cleaning the oven. I hope I can find ways to maintain some of the contentment that the Ingalls family exemplified. 

Feminine Strength

In some ways, the Little House books take a very traditional view of gender roles. Ma Ingalls out-trads the tradwives of today with her sewing, churning, and preserving. She continually reminds Laura and Mary to wear their sunbonnets and mind their manners. She turns each house they live in on the frontier into a home, and they know they are finally settled when she puts up her china shepherdess figurine and lays a tablecloth on the table. 

And yet, for all the tradition, the challenges of pioneer life meant that women like Ma and Laura had to be tough. They weren't making TikToks about princess treatment and the divine feminine. Ma and Laura show grit and determination throughout the series, but that doesn’t make them any less feminine. It shows that they care about their family and are willing to do what needs to be done. 

Pa works long hours doing backbreaking labor, and the family often recognizes his tireless efforts to provide for them. But Ma and Laura work hard too. In Little House on the Prairie, Ma injures herself helping Pa lift logs in place to build their cabin. She’s not as strong as Pa, sure, but she doesn’t opt out of what needs to be done because “she wouldn’t be in her feminine energy.” In On the Banks of Plum Creek, Pa makes a trip to town for supplies and is delayed returning because of a blizzard. Ma ventures out in the blizzard daily to make sure the livestock are fed and watered, holding onto the clothesline so she doesn’t get lost in the snow, and she never complains once. 

In The Long Winter, despite the fact that they consider it to be men’s work, Laura helps Pa stock hay for the winter, which ultimately becomes essential to the family’s survival when they run out of coal and have to burn hay to stay warm. Laura does not especially want to teach school, but she does so in These Happy Golden Years because it’s the best way to earn money and send her sister Mary to a college for the blind. 

And, despite all the online discourse about submission and femininity, when push comes to shove, what Ma says goes in the Ingalls household. The family ultimately lives somewhere where the girls can go to school, because that is important to Ma, even though Pa would prefer to keep going west. When Pa wants to head out in search of stored wheat in The Long Winter, Ma puts her foot down and forbids it because of the risk of getting lost in a blizzard. 

The Little House women remind us that true femininity includes the strength to do hard things with grace.

When Laura gets married in These Happy Golden Years, she does not want to promise to obey her husband in her wedding vows. When she asks her fiancé about it, he doesn't mind, saying, “I know it is in the wedding ceremony, but it is only something women say. I never knew one that did, nor any decent man that wanted her to.” They ask the minister to leave it out of the vows. 

So, should the Little House books really be titled Laura Ingalls: Girlboss? I don’t think so. But I do think the books spark reflection about whether aspiring to be a soft girl is enough. Softness has its place, but the Little House women remind us that true femininity includes the strength to do hard things with grace. Laura and Ma are more than just soft girls. They are strong women. 

Determination in the Face of Challenges

Persevering through difficult times is a theme that pervades the Little House books. That said, I don’t want to romanticize the hardships of pioneer life. Do we really want to return to a world where someone like Mary can go blind from scarlet fever because antibiotics don’t exist? I have no interest in trying to larp a pioneer lifestyle. Yes, I enjoy baking bread from scratch, and I hope someday to have a very small herb and vegetable garden in my backyard. However, I wouldn’t want to be in a scenario where the success of the garden determines whether I starve during the winter or not. 

I’m not saying that life is better when there are no options for medical treatment and you don’t know where your next meal will come from. However, I do wonder: have we lost something valuable in our climate-controlled, comfortable lives of abundance? 

In a strange serendipity, I was listening to the audiobook of Michael Easter’s The Comfort Crisis  during the same weeks as I was reading the Little House books. Easter makes a persuasive case that we need challenges. He argues that health and happiness improve when we regularly push our limits. In fact, he argues that because our modern lives are so comfortable, we fixate on small problems, because our brains evolved to have some kind of threat to respond to. Without real threats like starvation and death from cold exposure, the daily dramas from things like social media start to feel bigger than they are. 

I thought about the Ingalls family often as I listened to Easter’s book. Their lives weren't about aesthetic Instagram posts. Rather, they focused on the challenge of staying sheltered and fed. It made me wonder how I could push myself in a way that felt real, not pioneer cosplaying like Marie Antoinette pretending to be a milkmaid at Versailles. I’m taking baby steps: trying out cold showers, signing up for a first-aid class, and having my husband show me how to mow the lawn. I’m continuing my routine of squats and lunges with progressively heavier kettlebells 4 days a week, not because I enjoy it (I really don’t), but because doing hard things helps build grit and perseverance. (And to avoid osteoporosis and sarcopenia so I can stay out of a nursing home when I’m 80. That too.)

Because, here’s something I know: hard times are going to come. Maybe not the kind the Ingalls family faced, but there will be challenges. I want to build the inner strength to navigate life’s inevitable difficulties, like caring for aging parents or navigating a medical crisis. 

Some Caveats

Revisiting the books as an adult also brought new awareness of the prejudices in their portrayals of Native Americans and African Americans. It was jarring to read dialogue like “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” or to read an approving depiction of a minstrel show. However, I think we can celebrate what makes these books great while acknowledging that they also reflect some of the problems of that era in history. As one of my favorite Substack writers, Holly MathNerd, puts it, “These books are still worth revering, and … doing so isn’t the same thing as endorsing every value they implicitly contain.” 

A Good Book Grows With You

C.S. Lewis once said that a children’s story that is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. And so, I suppose, the mark of a good children’s book is that it grows up with you and speaks to you in different phases of life. By that standard, the Little House on the Prairie series passes with flying colors. 

My reread ended up being much more thought-provoking than I anticipated. If you loved the books as a child and are craving some nostalgia, I certainly recommend revisiting them. But don’t be surprised if you come away with so much more than you remembered from your last visit to the Big Woods.